This is Spinal Tap | Canadian First Time Watching | Movie Reaction | Movie Review | Commentary 

What is the worst concert/performance you've ever seen live?

Christopher Guest is Jamie Lee Curtis's husband and has done some brilliant mockumentories, especially , Waiting for Guffman ( based on a small town musical) Best in Show ( based on a dog show) and A Mighty Wind ( based on a folk tribute concert) All well worth a look 😊😊😊

I have NEVER seen George laugh that hard and that many times. This movie is just a masterpiece.

"It's not a big college town" is one of the funniest lines in the whole thing and it's a total throwaway, few people notice it.

Yes, "it turns up to eleven" started with this film, and yes, some manufacturers have run with that gag. I've got a distortion pedal where the dials go to 11 :)

The DVD commentary track for this movie was amazing, all the actors were in character the entire time which was amazing when they got to the metal detector part. "Why was it wrapped in tin foil?" "Well you have to keep it fresh!"

Spinal Tap was on a Simpsons episode as well, and I believe they lost another drummer there. Fun fact: When Reiner approached Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits fame) to score the Princess Bride, Knopfler agreed to do it only on the condition that the hat Reiner wore in Spinal Tap appeared in the movie somewhere. Hint: It's in Fred Savage's room.

The Stonehenge fiasco actually happened to Black Sabbath in 1983, but instead of being too small, it was grossly oversized due to feet being mistaken for meters. It was way too big to bring all of it into most venues. What they did manage to get onstage was so large it cramped the band to the front. To make matters worse, management also decided to hire a dwarf and put him in a devil costume (the latest album, "Born Again", had a poorly-designed picture of a devil baby on the cover, earning its place in several "Worst album covers" lists). They had him crawl around on top of the Stonehenge piece like a baby, then stand up and fall off, backwards, then the band start playing.

The bulk of this movie is improvised. It's truly one of the funniest movies ever made. Pure brilliance.

You need to look around, these guys dedication to a bit is just epic, they do full interviews and have done shows and such all totally in character, all of them are just legend tier comedians.

"This goes to eleven" did indeed originate from this film, as did "Hello Cleveland!" And clearly it takes a lot of its...Beats...from the rise and fall of the Beatles, their start as a skiffle band, their experimentation with acid and Indian musicality, and introducing a girlfriend to co-manage the band but completely eroding their friendship. Although, I tend to think the ex-Beatles ended up making their best music on their own, or near the end when they were already separating themselves for the most part.

The movie is full of real inside jokes: The Originals and New Originals bit was referring to The Yardbirds and New Yardbirds who became Led Zeppelin. Nigel does a solo rubbing a whole violin on his guitar- which is a play on Jimmy Page using a violin bow on Dazed and Confused. The band resurging in Japan could be Deep Purple who had a big live album filmed on tour in Japan. The girlfriend breaking up David and Nigel is a nod to Yoko Ono being blamed for driving Join Lennon and Paul McCartney apart and breaking up The Beatles. The choking on vomit is a poignant reference to the 27 club- with Mama Cass, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison etc all dying from drug overdoses essentially choking on vomit. The dead Drummers are an homage to Keith Moon of the Who and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin, the pod that wouldn't open and the Stonehenge bit are likely references to Jethro Tull and other "prog" bands from the early 70s....the more you rewatch it the more REAL bands you connect to

The "Hello Cleveland!" bit actually happened to Dee Snider from the band Twisted Sister" a few years after this movie came out. He got separated from the band and got lost trying to find the stage. When he finally found the sign marked STAGE ENTRANCE, he ran out on stage, arms raised, ready to rock... to nobody. It was completely empty. They were playing at a venue that had two theaters/concert halls, and he didn't know that. It had to be such a mind****.

Christopher Guest makes a series of amazing mocumentaries, Best in Show is a great one.

This movie had no script. Just outlines. They wrote and performed all of the music themselves. Years later the movie became so popular they did indeed tour a couple of times and released a couple of albums. They did many interviews in character.

Yep. As a rock musician of over 40 years this is amazingly accurate. I've lived this life. The guitarist is the spitting image of a guy I used to play with. What's really impressive is their English accents and they're really playing live. A real classic. ✌️♥️🇬🇧

The "cold sores" were actually meant to be herpes! There's a four hour cut of this movie (you can find on various special editions) there was a whole subplot about a female warm-up band. The visual (but unspoken) joke was that throughout the movie who had sores on their lips kept changing based on who was sleeping with the female singer, and the only person who never got sores was the drummer. When they were having a band meeting about ditching the warm-up band, all the members had cold sores and wanted to ditch the warm-up band while the drummer (who never had a sore on his lip) was like "What? They're great! We should keep them.". IIRC, that jokes ends later in the movie where you find out that warm-up band was actually becoming more famous than Spinal Tap.

I saw them live about ten years ago and they were awesome, they even supported themselves as the Folksmen! 😂

The failed arm-crossing at 1:37 is a low key brilliant bit of physical comedy. Glad you both picked up on it.

Every line, every freakin' line has become iconic. Started the mockumentary genre, really. Pretty much everyone in it went on to big things if they weren't there already. And yes, they did tour after the film came out, singing all original songs. You can have no idea how this affected the culture. Massive, just massive.

All the actors who play the band members are from the USA. Their English accents are flawless!

Christopher Guest plays Nigel. He also plays the six fingered man (Count Rugen) in Proncess Bride. Also of note: he's been married to Jaime Lee Curtis for almost 40 years.

20:30 I love when George loses it 😂

I worked as a tour manager in the late 80s, and every touring band with a VCR had a copy of this with them. Everything that happened to Spinal Tap has happened - more or less - to every band, just not all of them to the same band. I did see Tap live on Canada Day as part of the MuchMusic Great Canadian Party in 1992. I saw them at Molson Park in Barrie, mid-way through their one-day cross-Canada tour. They started in Halifax, then Barrie, then finished the day in Vancouver. Marshall did make amps that went to 11 for a time. The iMDB page for this movie also has a rating bar that goes to 11.

Michael McKean recently had an amazing role in Better Call Saul as a lead character. Emmy worthy performance.

George asked at one point if these guys actually toured and yes they did, with some audience attendees actually not knowing it was all humor. Much of the dialogue in this movie was improved. The singing and playing was actually the actors. Great movie. A little bit of side trivia - I think it was and amnesty international tour that had Peter Gabriel, Sinead O'Connor, and others all on a bus traveling to the next city trying to think of songs that they all knew that they could sing together and they kept coming up with the Spinal Tap songs ... It kind of makes me smile to think of Sinead O'Connor singing Sex Farm or Big Bottom.

The actors played their own instruments, sang themselves, and even went on a promotional tour as Spinal Tap. The movie's soundtrack was released as a Spinal Tap album, ... well, because it is.

I honestly thought George was going to hurt himself laughing. Great reaction.

The absolute best part of the Spinal Tap DVD is the audio commentary. The three main musicians are there IN CHARACTER throughout the entire commentary, talking about what REALLY happened when Marty DeBerg filmed this Rockumentary. It is like watching This is Spinal Tap new for the first time because the concept forces you to put new humor in scenes we've seen twenty+ times. Hands down the best audio commentary ever (Casablanca is runner up, IMHO).

When Ozzy Osborne saw this movie he was convinced that he'd toured with them

Believe it or not, Spinal Tap were the 3rd band to perform at the Freddie Mercury Tribute in 1992.

The amount of bands that have similar stories to Spinal Tap is what makes it the greatest music movie of all time.

Fun trivia: the stonehenge builder was Anjelica Huston

You guys also need to check out A Mighty Wind. The same 3 guys are in a folk band called The Folksmen involved in a tribute variety folk concert. Very similar feel, lots of improvisation, and features a ton of great comedic improvisational actors, including Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, Parker Posey, and the AMAZING coupling of Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy. Very funny, and also very sweet movie.

"I'm big in Japan" was definitely a thing from the 70s on. A lot of bands that went on to become major successes had Japanese releases years before they made it in NA/EU.

20:12 Georges laugh here makes me so happy. That has to be one of the most genuine heartfelt laughs I have heard someone have in years.

The DVD commentary for this movie is hilarious. They do it completely in-character and it almost feels like a sequel in and of itself.

The “Lick my Love Pump” moment made me spit soda all over the poor guy in front of me at the theater, luckily I was only 14 so I didn’t get my ass kicked.🤣

If you want to see a real version of this...Watch "Anvil: The Story of Anvil"... It's uncomfortably real. An actual documentary of the band Anvil. If this didn't come out way after Spinal Tap, you would think they based Spinal Tap on The Story of Anvil.

I learned, many years after I should have, that the actors spent a year creating a full backstory for everyone and learning the group's complex history so that they'd be able to improvise more easily. SO MANY jokes are specific to certain bands or legends that you'd need an older person there to point them all oot.

"A fine line between stupid and clever" - Indeed! Don't worry, when it comes to reactions, you're very much on the clever side ;)

This reaction goes to 11. From what I heard, Spinal Tap was based on a number of bands, but especially Saxon.

This movie is a fantastic feat of improvisation. There was so much material that the bonus dvd has a near feature-length outtakes and deleted scenes video. The dvd commentary by the actors, totally in character, is brilliant. And yes, the movie was taken by some people as real - I spoke to a girl who had gone in thinking it was real and got slowly suspicious until the ‘it was someone else’s vomit’ line and she knew she’d been had.

There's a blooper reel that came with the DVD which is close to another two hours....all improv, all hilarious. What a funny movie!

I've said it before, but I do really want to see you two do When Harry Met Sally. You are correct that the Stonehenge woman was Anjelica Huston. The label woman, Bobbi Flekman, is future "Nanny" star Fran Drescher. She also co-starred in Weird Al's cult classic UHF, which you should watch as well. Dana Carvey also plays the other mime waiter who isn't Billy Crystal. The other WHMS actor, playing the limo driver, is named Bruno Kirby (RIP). Michael McKean (David St. Hubbins) would go on to be in Clue (yet another suggestion, which I'm sure you've gotten before), and recently in "Better Call Saul." This is indeed the origin of "This goes to 11" and also "None more black," if you've heard that one in pop culture. The movie was one of the first inducted to the DVD iteration of The Criterion Collection, which is a famous US home video label that licenses important classic and contemporary movies and releases them in special editions. That DVD had a traditional commentary by Reiner, Guest, McKean, and Shearer. When MGM later released the film on DVD themselves, they couldn't license that track, and the cast didn't want to tell the same stories, so that release (and the later Blu-ray) have a commentary where Guest, McKean, and Shearer comment on the movie in character as Spinal Tap.

They are the real deal. Even though they made the movie as a gag, they made and produced an album with music. And they have sometimes performed in concert. It's every bit as hilarious as you can imagine.

@28:40 “Did amps actually go to 11?” The Marshall amp company actually released a new line about 10 years after that (the JCM900 series) with controls that went to 20, and ran an ad campaign featuring Christopher Guest as Nigel Tufnel noting that “… That’s nine louder, innit?”😂😂😂

“Is this the beginning of big in Japan?” No, that’s a real phenomenon. There were (and continue to be) a number of bands past their prime in the States/UK that have absolutely massive followings in Japan.

This movie has one of the best (if not the best) "director's commentary" where the actors comment about the events of the movie in character. It's hilarious and a must watch (hear really)

These situations are based on real stories. As a gigging musician for over fifty years I can assure you all this stuff happens to all of us all the time!

Simone's British accent at the end ("I don't know, what are the hours") made my jaw drop! It was *really* good .... and that's coming from a Brit!

I'd like to point out the woman George said had a pretty smile is Fran Drescher, also known as The Nanny.

Simone thought they were about to start making trouble in the neighborhood. 😂

My top 3 rock mockumentaries of all time would be: 1. "The Rutles - All you need is cash", a fake Beatles documentary from no one less than the great Eric Idle of Monty Python. 2. "Bad News" + "More Bad News" (both can be found here on youtube), similar in style but more low budget and even more weird, clearly an inspiration for this one. 3. "Spinal Tap" - We just saw it, what a classic. I just recently realized that the actor Michael McKean who played the lead singer is the Saul Goodmans Brother in Better Call Saul.

The lady with the beautiful smile was Fran Drescher. She was on an American TV show, The Nanny, in the early '90s.

Loved seeing that the humor translated to a younger crowd. George seemed to be truly into it and laughed really hard At several points. Great choice

This movie owes a lot to The Rutles, a mockumentary on a and based on a group like The Beatles. The songs were so close in style they were sued, but also had George Harrison in a cameo role.

This is THE Mockumentary of all time! While there have been many other really great ones (several helmed by Christopher Guest), there is nothing that beats this one. An additional fun thing related to the "going to 11" . . . if you go to the IMDB page for this movie, you will notice that the star rating . . . yeah . . . Also, Jamie Lee Curtis watched this film when it originally came out and said "I'm going to marry that man" . . . and she did five months later . . . and they remain married to this day. I do remember when I first saw this movie, I had a moment somewhere in the middle where I suddenly shouted "OH MY GOD! THAT IS COUNT RUGEN THE SIX FINGERED MAN!!" . . . it completely blew my mind that that was the same person. Favourite song is absolutely "Stonehenge"

When Spinal Tap was first screened in Dallas, a lady walked up to Rob Reiner and asked "Why do a documentary about this band? They suck!"

Yeah, some amp manufacturers have made dials that go to 11. Marshall even had an ad with Nigel & the JCM 900 that goes up to 20. On the first generations of tube (valve) amps that are played on huge albums (and still today) there was no “gain” control. There was just a volume & to get the amp to distort, you had to crank up the amp. So you’d turn the amp full up to 10 to get it to crunch and distort and it sounds amazing. So the “these go to 11” (hes showing a Super Lead Plexi in the film) came from that idea that you needed to crank them & if everybody was going to 10, they’d go to 11 to be louder…fundamentally misunderstanding amp power, wattage, etc lol. Later, amps started adding a ‘Master Volume’ so the ‘volume’ essentially became a ‘gain’ knob…meaning you could get the pre-amp to distort, but you didn’t have to have the overall volume at such high levels. Randall Smith (Mesa/Boogie) started modding Fenders amps with this, then Marshall created the JCM 800 that had a ‘gain’ knob, etc and a bunch of companies now have a dedicated pre-amp ‘gain’ section along with a ‘master volume’. Pre-amp gain vs power-amp gain is a discussion that has millions of pages of guitar forum comments.

Man would I love to see a day when you guys do Walk Hard: A Dewey Cox Story

If you want to wee more like this, the same core group of people did a few other mockumentaries--"Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind" being the two best. The first pokes fun at dog show fanatics, while the latter takes on folk music bands of the early 60s reuniting. Both are absolutely brilliant. Must see.

I love how the depiction of Stonehenge was only inaccurate because they put '' instead of ' so it was inches, not feet haha

I dont think you noticed but in the song Big Bottoms all three guitarists are playing bass. It is the little things that are never pointed out that are the funniest. There are so many "blink and you miss it" gags in this movie.

1:27 That's actually the movie's director, Rob Reiner. (He also directed Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally, and The American President, among others)

There is a really funny "mockumentary" type film by Albert Brooks called Real Life. In the film Brooks sets out to record a real family's day to day life. It is brilliant!

Yes, "This one goes to 11" is a pop culture phrase from this movie.

There's an extended cut of this that runs for another hour and fills in a lot of the backstory, including the coldsores and Nigel's replacement, amazingly, it's all as good at this and well worth watching.

I've introduced several people to this and I am proud to say that I got 1 of them to believe it was a documentary for a real band. One of the proudest moments in my life.

I believe this is the film that started the mockumentary style. At the very least it popularized the style. Such a classic film.

Seeing George lose his shit at the "Stonehenge" bit made me lose MY shit!

BTW, all 3 mimes from that party were cast members of SNL: Billy Crystal, Dana Carvey, and Mary Gross (as were Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, and Michael McKean). Also, after this movie came out, Marshall actually made an amp that went up to 11. It was the same as the usual one, it just had a face plate that listed the top level as 11. Also, the guy who said "Kick my ass!" was Paul Shaffer, who was the bandleader for Late Night with David Letterman and The Late Show with David Letterman.

This is where "turn it up to 11" comes from The band wrote the songs and played their own instruments. There was no script, the actors improvised their lines. They did go on tour in character. There are loads of extra footage that you can find online. Watch the audio commentary from the DVD. Spinal Tap does the commentary.

I remember hearing the story that the musicians in Foghat insisted that the writers of Spinal Tap had to have been secretly recording them because there was no other way that the zodiac obsessed girlfriend in the movie could have been so similar to one of the band members' girlfriends.

28:15 - GOES UP TO ELEVEN - Yes, this was where that phrase originated.

What We Do In The Shadows, a Taika Waititi mockumentary on a group of vampires living together dealing with daily struggles. Also, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (not technically a mockumentary, but hilarious anyway)

The actor that played Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) has been in a lot of movies. You saw him in The Princess Bride as the six fingered man, and in A Few Good Men as the doctor that they questioned in court.

I’ve never seen George laugh so hard as during the Stonehenge song…classic

I was living in LA in the early 2000's when they re-released ST and was lucky enough to win tickets on the radio to the Hollywood premier, followed by a concert at the House of Blues. They dropped the mini Stonehenge from the ceiling during the song. Hilarious.

"A blues/jazz festival ... on the Isle of Lucy." What a brilliant improvisation by (I think) Harry Shearer. (Say "Isle of Lucy" out loud.)

Most heavy metal bands not only loved this but said how accurate this actually was to reality. The soundtrack and their 'Break Like The Wind' album

This movie was actually a total bomb at the box office, but was one of the most successful video rental titles of all time

If you want to know how influential "goes to 11" is look at the IMDB score for this movie.

"These go to eleven." is probably the most iconic line from this hilarious mockumentary. Now that you've seen it, you'll probably start noticing people referring to it all of the time.

20:33 - I HAVE NEVER SEEN GEORGE LAUGH THIS MUCH BEFORE. BRILLIANT!

The Stonehenge scene is the one that made me fall in love with this movie. I nearly had an accident the first time I saw the little triptich descend from the rafters. Love your reactions.

One of the main things that make this movie so epic is the fact that none of them are English!

Fun Fact: July 1st 1992 Spinal Tap did a 24 hour Canadian Tour to celebrate Canada Day. they played St. Johns Newfoundland, Barrie Ontario, and Vancouver BC in one day.

Spinal Tap is in large part based on the band Uriah Heep -especially the tasteless album covers and the schlocky stage show. Uriah Heep kept getting bass guitarists electrocuted on stage: first Gary Thain, then John Wetton, then Trevor Bolder. A music writer from Rolling Stone threatened to commit suicide if the band made it big -then they did.

This movie is basically required watching for anyone starting a band. A true classic.

The first time I showed this to my band mate, I didn't tell it was a spoof. He nearly cried thinking it was real. He still holds a (minor) grudge against me to this day!

You mentioned the Simpsons. When Bart goes to a concert, he goes to see Spinal Tap.

53 yrs old, saw/heard the music at 14. This is the gold standard in parody/satire. And, when you catch yourself doing something dumb, inwardly yell: Hello Cleveland! Happy you two enjoyed it. \m/

The Mockamentary NOONE needed, is now a a legendary movie 🤘😎🤘

So many amazing cameos in this film!!!

Christopher Guest is also the 6 fingered man in The Princess Bride and the Doctor in A Few Good Men. (Also both Rob Reiner films). And Billy Crystal is one of Rob Reiners best mates so he did a cameo, as well as Bruno Kirby who's the limo driver (who was in When Harry Met Sally and City Slickers with Billy Crystal) Michal McKean is the lead singer whos also a comedy legend and recently played Saul's older brother in Better Call Saul The woman with the "nice smile" is Fran Drescher who went on to star in the Nanny This is definitely where "This goes to 11" comes from. a large part of this film was improv as well. Its just a stellar cast and an absolute classic!

Quick items: Prior to this movie, drummers were basically dropping like flies. Keith Moon of the Stones, John Bonham of Led Zeppelin, and Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys died in the decade before the movie was made. Spinal Tap's final drummer was "Joe Besser" which was the name of one of the many replacements for Curly Howard in the Three Stooges. The wife is essentially Yoko Ono, the wife of John Lennon and a point of massive contention with The Beatles.

It was a stroke of genius to react to this movie. I saw it at the cinema during its' theatrical release during the 80s and it's remained one of my favourites.

I remember seeing this movie when I was in high school in the 2000's. I talked to a friend about it. They said they loved Spinal Tap's music but had never seen the movie. They didn't know it was a joke. That's how good the music is despite the 80's-riffic cringe lyrics. Christopher Guest did a lot of great mocumentaries after this, the best being "The Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind", the latter of which has a Spinal Tap reunion of sorts.

Spinal Tap (what's left of it) still does appearances once in a blue moon and, yes, a few days before the gig they advertise for drummers to audition. Amazing decades-long running gag :D