Unwigged, Unplugged Unbound in Nashville

When the Ryman Auditorium's lights dimmed and a voice remarkably similar to The Simpson's Principal Seymour Skinner boomed in the darkness, there was no doubts about its owner or his companions.

The three 60-something gentlemen who stepped onstage in Nashville more resembled The Folksmen from A Mighty Wind than their beloved turn as Spinal Tap.

By choosing to appear as themselves, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer gave their "Unwigged and Unplugged" performance broad latitude to explore the characters they've created in the past three decades.

Billed as a tour to commemorate the 25th anniversary of This is Spinal Tap and to promote the upcoming Tap record, Unwigged & Unplugged mixed in videos, audience participation and guest stars to turn the concert into a variety show of sorts.

One hilarious digression involved the trio running through censor Bill Clotworthy's notes on what to cut from a network TV airing of This is Spinal Tap (alas, the lyrics to Big Bottom and the line "twisted old fruit" meet the same fate). Following the outpouring of blue language, Shearer later apologized to the ghost of Ernest Tubb.

But the whole affair wouldn't have worked without the jabbing, self-aware songwriting. As Shearer professed, the Folksmen material took the common themes of folk music like wandering and train wrecks, then inverted (Never Did No Wanderin') and combined the themes into tracks like Blood on the Coal (Only a fool would stifle a laugh as they deadpanned "Old 97 went down the wrong hole").

A few nuggets from other origins broke up the folk and the Tap. Excised from Guest's film Waiting for Guffman, This Bulging River fit perfectly with the bluegrass tone struck by many of the Folksmen selections. Shearer's ode to the method of Elvis Presley's death, All Backed Up, worked for an uncomfortable chuckle or two.

This being Nashville, the Folksmen's tunes came with a few special cameos - Delbert McClinton joined them on harmonica for one tune, while banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck and fiddler Casey Driesen made multiple cameos. For their spin through Kiss at the End of the Rainbow, the emotional climax of A Might Wind, McKean's wife Annette O'Toole showed off her pipes.

The Spinal Tap moments did not suffer for their presentation on a smaller scale. Stonehenge, Hell Hole and Heavy Duty lost none of their heft. While Big Bottom lacked the 19 bassists who tackled it at Live Earth, Shearer's upright was enough to thunder beneath Guest and McKean crooning through the Tap classic. All of Tap's eras were represented, with Gimme Some Money from The Thamesmen era and the cornball psychedelia of Listen (to the Flower People).

Audience requests hit all the highlights, although the band member's facial expressions when someone called for Jazz Odyssey were priceless. When one man repeatedly demanded Lick My Love Pump, Shearer shot back, "I don't think he's talking about the song."

Alas, the 18-inch Stonehenge did not descend on its namesake song, but played a video of the miniature monolith with Troll dolls substituted for the midgets.

The band took five minutes off for an audience Q&A, with the trio offering plenty of wry non-answers (My unasked question: What take would Mr. Burns and Smithers have on this show if they were in the audience - Shearer voices both).

They even spliced in a few choice videos - their debut, Rock and Roll Nightmare, from a forgotten Seventies late-night show and several fan tributes (Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight is forever changed thanks to a Lego tribute). The laughs endured through a shot of Shearer's film debut as a boy in The Robe, with Shearer interrupting every time Guest attempted to rattle off the year of its release (1953).

The trio spared the audience the usual waiting for encores, departing for barely a minute each time. The only missing Folksmen tune from the set, Old Joe's Place, joyously rounded out the mash-up of Spinal Tap and Folksmen tunes.

Guest, McKean and Shearer proved their material was strong enough to thrive in a new setting.

Equally important, no drummers were harmed during this performance - mainly because the trio didn't bring one. Although one audience member volunteered during the Q&A, sticks in hand.