That difficult second documentary – or if you will, “rockumentary” – seems to have been especially challenging for Spinal Tap, since it arrives no less than 41 years after its predecessor, This Is Spinal Tap. The latter has become renowned as a definitive artefact in rock’n’roll history, a smartly deadpan portrayal of a deeply cretinous British heavy metal band in the throes of a shambolic American tour. Some of its gags, like the amplifier that goes up to 11 and the stage prop of a miniature Stonehenge, ought to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, even if the band themselves are seen fuming here about being denied entry to that august institution.
Stonehenge makes a comeback in this very belated sequel, this time on a significantly larger scale, but sadly the passing decades have taken their toll. Where This Is… revelled in its role as a guileful satire on a sleazy, feckless rock business and the grotesque and ludicrous personalities that inhabited it, Tap 2 has a sad, autumnal feel, more like a requiem than a celebration or even a demolition.
The passage of time will not be denied, and the characters – chiefly band-members Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), David St Hubbins (Michael McKean) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) – don’t merely look older, but like relics from a lost civilisation which have been pickled in alcohol. For that matter, the record business that it originally satirised no longer exists, while the type of band Spinal Tap is supposed to be is also pretty much defunct.
Director Rob Reiner returns as earnest documentarist Marti DiBergi, and his interviews with the band-members fill us in (up to a point) about how they’ve been spending the past few decades. Not very interestingly, as it turns out. Tufnel has become the proprietor of a shop selling cheese and guitars in Berwick-on-Tweed, while Smalls runs a glue museum (“glue keeps things together,” he muses, pointlessly).
Sadly, their previous cricket-bat-wielding manager Ian Faith can no longer be with us, following the death of actor Tony Hendra, though his role has been take over by his daughter Hope (Kerry Godliman). The running gag about Tap’s exploding drummers yields a scene where assorted celebrity sticksmen turn down offers to do the job (Lars Ulrich from Metallica, Questlove from The Roots and the Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith), though the recruitment of powerhouse female drummer Didi Crockett (Valerie Franco) gives the film a blast of youthful dynamism sorely lacking almost everywhere else.
What’s really dispiriting is the film’s lack of fresh inventiveness. The slender storyline concerns Tap’s preparations to play one last show at the Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, the venue having become available following the cancellation of “An Evening with Stormy Daniels”, but nothing ever really happens. Music-wise, it mostly reprises songs from the original film, such as "Big Bottom", "Hell Hole", "Gimme Some Money" etc, material from which the novelty has long since worn off.
Glimpses of characters from the first film (such as record company publicist Bobbi Flekman or A&R man Artie Fufkin) are too brief to bring much to the party, and of course the great Patrick Macnee, who played record company supremo Sir Denis Eton-Hogg, is long gone. Chris Addison adds a dose of cynical mercantilism as booking agent Simon Howler, but he's fighting a lonely battle.
One of the film’s supposed selling points is the inclusion of cameos by Paul McCartney and Elton John (Elton pictured above with band). Both of them play their parts with the professionalism they’ve acquired over the decades, but including such battle-scarred elder statesmen merely intensifies the sense that history overtook Spinal Tap long ago. And surely recruiting metalheads like Axl Rose or AC/DC’s Brian Johnson would have made more sense than getting middle-of-the-roadies like Sirs Elton and Paul. In short, the world could probably have managed without this sequel.
