On June 4, 2001, English hard rock legends Spinal Tap performed a special show at New York's iconic Carnegie Hall as part of their 'Back From The Dead' celebrations, their first full US tour since 1992's 'Break Like The Wind' trek. Among the excited audience at the storied Manhattan venue that evening were the members of Oasis, on downtime from promoting their then-current album Standing on the Shoulder of Giants. But for one of their number, the night would not go as planned.
Liam Gallagher had seen Rob Reiner's classic 1984 'mockumentary' This Is Spinal Tap ( aka This Is Spın̈al Tap: A Rockumentary by Martin Di Bergi) and "loved it", according to his older brother Noel, Oasis' guitarist and main songwriter. However, Gallagher Jnr. wasn't actually aware that the veteran English group, centred around the core of frontman David St. Hubbins, guitarist Nigel Tufnel and bassist Derek Smalls, weren't actually a real band. "He thought they were real people," Noel Gallagher revealed in a 2005 interview conducted with comedian/actor/author David Walliams for the Observer Music Monthly.
Gallagher The Younger's excited anticipation of seeing the men responsible for the timeless rock anthems Sex Farm, Big Bottom and Stonehenge began to unravel when Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, the comic geniuses behind Spinal Tap, came onstage as their own support act, in the guise of The Folksmen, and began strumming through the gentle Old Joe’s Place. Oasis frontman loudly declared to his bandmates that he hadn't come to see "this folk shit", and just wanted to see the mighty Tap.
