‘This Is Spinal Tap’: the hilarious argument between Noel and Liam Gallagher
It is the civic duty of every artist and music lover to watch This Is Spinal Tap. The film is packed to the brim with the same rock ‘n’ roll cliches that always manage to inch their way into rockumentaries. If you didn’t know better, like Liam Gallagher, you could even believe it was authentic.
From an artistic perspective, This Is Spinal Tap was pioneering. While Woody Allen’s 1969 film Take the Money and Run was the first notable example of the genre, This Is Spinal Tap undoubtedly introduced mockumentaries to a wider, more diverse audience. However, not everybody could understand the concept and mistook the film for a real documentary.
When Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s sitcom The Office launched in 2001, many viewers also made the same mistake. “We were obsessed with it feeling real, and our dream was that someone would stumble across it and think it was a real documentary,” Merchant later told BBC Culture. “I think we probably leaned into the drudgery and the drabness of it more than we needed to.”
Admittedly, This Is Spinal Tap is more ludicrous than The Office, and the characters are larger-than-life caricatures of rock stars. However, the world of showbiz is an extraordinary business, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility for a band as farcical as Spinal Tap to exist.
Following the film’s success, Spinal Tap became a ‘real’ band and even toured in character. In 2001, they took flight on the ‘Back from the Dead Tour’, and Oasis were in the crowd at New York’s Carnegie Hall to see them perform live.
Despite Spinal Tap members Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer opening up for themselves as the parody folk group, The Folksmen, Liam still didn’t realise that it was all a joke. After loving the film, the singer was delighted to see Spinal Tap in action. However, Noel quickly burst his bubble.
During an interview with The Guardian in 2005, comedian David Walliams revealed Gervais told him about the Spinal Tap incident and asked Noel whether it was true. In response, the Oasis guitarist said: “Yeah, he thought they were real people. We went to see them play in Carnegie Hall. Before they played, they came on as three folk singers from the film A Mighty Wind. We were laughing, and he said: ‘This is shit’. We said: ‘No, those three are in Spinal Tap.”
He continued: “You do know they are American actors?’ ‘They’re not even a real band?’ ‘They’re not even English! One of them is married to Jamie Lee Curtis.’ ‘I’m not fuckin’ ‘avin that,’ he says and walks off right up the middle of Carnegie Hall. He’s never watched Spinal Tap since. He’d seen the film and loved it and thought they were a real band.”
After finding out the truth, Liam was understandably devastated about being duped for so many years. However, Gallagher gullibly accepting the film at face value is the ultimate compliment to Spinal Tap and how accurately they depicted the rock business.
