Spinal Tap - Unwigged and Unplugged (Riverside Theater, Milwaukee, WI, 5-31-2009)

Turn it up to 11, man! It's time I posted some music from the greatest band that never really existed, Spinal Tap. In my opinion, and the opinion of many others, "This Is Spinal Tap" is one of the funniest movies ever made. A big reason for that are the songs, which are both amusing and really good songs, period. The three main guys in Spinal Tap - Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer - went on to much more success in the movie business, which sometimes involved creating new amusing songs, as well as putting out occasional new Spinal Tap material.

In 2009, the band had a significant concert tour for only the second time. (The first time was in 1992.) This was called the "Unwigged and Unplugged" tour because they dressed in street clothes instead of their usual costumes, complete with wigs, and because the songs were mostly done in an acoustic style. Wearing street clothes made sense because they played songs from a variety of sources, not just Spinal Tap stuff. Most importantly, the three main guys in the band pretended to be the 1960s folk band "The Folksmen" in the 2003 movie "A Mighty Wind." A number of the songs here were from that movie. It would have been weird to play those songs in their heavy metal Spinal Tap costumes, and changing outfits repeatedly would have been tough too. Furthermore, they also played some songs from the 1996 movie "Waiting for Guffman" (directed by Guest), and a couple from a Harry Shearer solo album. So it makes even more sense that they didn't bother to change their outlooks for each of the different sources.

One concert from this tour was recorded for an officially released DVD, which was given the same name as the tour, "Unwigged and Unplugged." This is the audio from that DVD. Due to the source, the sound quality is fantastic. I converted the files to mp3, as I've never seen them from this show in that format anywhere. I also boosted the vocals of the talking between songs sometimes, but otherwise I didn't need to make any changes.

Of course, as an audio document, it doesn't matter what they were wearing. In my opinion, it's great to have these songs from many different sources all done by the Spinal Tap guys, significantly increasing their limited oeuvre. The fact that the songs were generally done in an acoustic format was another bonus for me. Not only am I a big fan of acoustic music, but hearing hard rock songs like "Hell Hole" done this was further heightens their ridiculousness. 

Note that a couple of the songs - "Back from the Dead" and "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" - were not actually played live by the band, but were video clips done so that videos could be shown to the audience. For instance, some fan made a video of "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" using only Lego blocks, and the band liked that enough to want to share it. I kept those because they were truncated versions, and it helped to understand their commentary before and afterwards.

Speaking of commentary, there's a bunch of talking between songs. I've put all those on separate tracks, so you can choose to listen to them or not.

I did cut out two sections however. At one point, they showed a video clip called "Cheese Rolling." This was made to promote the "This Is Spinal Tap" movie in 1984, but it was shown just to movie theater owners to help convince them to book the movie. It really needs to be seen and not just heard to be understood, so I cut it. However, if you're interested, it's on YouTube.

I also cut out an audience question and answer section from the middle of the show. At 12 minutes, I felt it was too much talking for much replay listening value. But I've included it as a bonus track if you do want to hear it.

Even with those cuts, this concert is quite long, just one minute short of two hours.

01 talk (Spinal Tap)
02 Celtic Blues, Part 1 (Spinal Tap)
03 Hell Hole (Spinal Tap)
04 talk (Spinal Tap)
05 Never Did No Wanderin' (Spinal Tap)
06 talk (Spinal Tap)
07 Clam Caravan (Spinal Tap)
08 talk (Spinal Tap)
09 Rock and Roll Nightmare (Spinal Tap)
10 talk (Spinal Tap)
11 Bitch School (Spinal Tap)
12 talk (Spinal Tap)
13 Loco Man (Spinal Tap)
14 talk (Spinal Tap)
15 Corky's Funky Dance (Spinal Tap)
16 talk (Spinal Tap)
17 This Bulging River (Spinal Tap)
18 talk [The Clotworthy Memo] (Spinal Tap)
19 All the Way Home (Spinal Tap)
20 talk (Spinal Tap)
21 Blood on the Coal (Spinal Tap)
22 talk (Spinal Tap)
23 Back from the Dead (Spinal Tap)
24 talk (Spinal Tap)
25 [Listen to The] Flower People (Spinal Tap)
26 talk (Spinal Tap)
27 Corn Wine (Spinal Tap)
28 talk (Spinal Tap)
29 The Majesty of Rock (Spinal Tap)
30 talk (Spinal Tap)
31 All Backed Up (Spinal Tap)
32 talk (Spinal Tap)
33 Stonehenge (Spinal Tap)
34 talk (Spinal Tap)
35 A Penny for Your Thoughts (Spinal Tap with Judith Owen)
36 talk (Spinal Tap)
37 Start Me Up (Spinal Tap)
38 talk (Spinal Tap)
39 Cups and Cakes (Spinal Tap)
40 talk (Spinal Tap)
41 Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight (Spinal Tap)
42 talk (Spinal Tap)
43 A Mighty Wind (Spinal Tap)
44 talk (Spinal Tap)
45 Saucy Jack (Spinal Tap)
46 talk (Spinal Tap)
47 Big Bottom (Spinal Tap)
48 talk (Spinal Tap)
49 The Good Book Song (Spinal Tap with Annette O'Toole)
50 talk (Spinal Tap)
51 A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow (Spinal Tap with Annette O'Toole)
52 talk (Spinal Tap)
53 Rainy Day Sun (Spinal Tap)
54 talk (Spinal Tap)
55 [Funky] Sex Farm (Spinal Tap)
56 talk (Spinal Tap)
57 Gimme Some Money (Spinal Tap)
58 talk (Spinal Tap)
59 Old Joe's Place (Spinal Tap)
60 talk (Spinal Tap)
61 Celtic Blues, Part 2 (Spinal Tap)
62 Heavy Duty (Spinal Tap)

Audience Question and Answer (Spinal Tap)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Vi5Bh6gu

I could have used the cover of the official DVD for the cover here, but I didn't like the look of that one. So instead I found a photo of the three main band members on stage during this tour, but in New York City instead of Milwaukee. I added the logo of the band name at the top, then did my best to imitate that look for the words at the bottom. From left to right, that's Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, and Christopher Guest. Surprisingly, no drummers were killed in the making of this album. ;)