Spinal Tap Stories

Styx, Foreigner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NEWL5iJtw4

I believe so.

Brian May Narrowly Avoids Hydraulic Death

During his years with Bad Company and Free, Rodgers has played for plenty of crowds, but his closest brush with stage disaster came during his time as frontman for Queen.
 Recalled Rodgers, “I remember touring with Queen, we used to do the song ‘Bad Company’ and we would have the piano under the stage, and it would be lifted through smoke on a hydraulic up to stage level. So when you’re down and ready to go, you’re standing by the piano and you’re looking up and all you can see are the laser lights and smoke and a bit of the audience there.”

It’s a disorienting way to take the stage, as well as one that’s fraught with a certain amount of peril. “They’d ask you to keep your elbows and arms in, because the hydraulic will snap them off if you’re not careful,” explained Rodgers. “So as it’s coming up, I start to play for atmosphere. I’m starting to play and all of a sudden I look up, and there’s a guitarist on the end of the piano as we were rising up.”

That guitarist, of course, was Queen’s own Brian May. “It’s Brian, who has fallen down and he’s kept his guitar up and kept it in tune and everything, because a guitarist will always fall in a manner that he doesn’t knock his guitar out of tune, no matter what he breaks, leg-wise or arm-wise, right? So there he was and they had to hit an emergency stop. Because we couldn’t go up — it would trim your knees off if you were hanging over the edge of it.”

As happens so often at these moments, it was members of the crew who saved the day. “The roadies had to jump down into the pit on top of the piano, pull him up, pop him back up on stage and then we continued,” continued Rodgers. “But I’m thinking, ‘What should I do? Should I keep playing?’ I decided to keep playing. But he was a trooper, I have to say. He didn’t miss a beat or anything. It wasn’t funny at the time — it was scary, actually.”

Jethro Tull Can’t Escape Rabbit Costumes

One of the most famous moments in ‘Spinal Tap’ finds bassist Derek Smalls trapped in a pod on stage, fighting to get out as his bandmates performed ‘Rock and Roll Creation’ without him. For Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, that hit close to home — very close.

Only this time, the snafu involved rabbit suits during an early-’70s tour in support of ‘A Passion Play,’ rather than strange on-stage cocoons.

Anderson relayed his story as part of our ongoing series of rock star memories in honor of the classic mockumentary’s 30th anniversary. Turns out, even high-brow proggers like Anderson have had their share of ‘Tap’-style disasters.

There’s also a weird coincidence associated with Tull and the same Smalls character. But, more on that in a moment. First, about rabbit suits…

“We started a U.S. tour in 1973 in Buffalo, N.Y., where we began the show – without proper rehearsals – by appearing on stage in giant white rabbit costumes,” Anderson remembers. “Each rabbit suit had a zip in the back so after a bit of wild dancing to the taped intro music, we lined up across the stage one in front of the other where the plan was that each rabbit would unzip the rabbit in front, the musician occupants would burst out of the rabbit suits playing their instruments and the live show would begin.”

Derek Smalls could have told you what happened next.

“The zips jammed on two of the rabbit suits – so the band line-up was somewhat depleted as the road crew wrestled with the suits and ended up cutting the musicians free with box knives.”

Actually, it’s fitting that something from the film would echo in real life for Anderson, because he has made at least two concrete connections between Jethro Tull and Spinal Tap.

“It should also be remembered – as ‘coincidences’ go – that the name ‘Derek Small’ appears on both the ‘Thick as a Brick’ and ‘Passion Play’ album covers, some 10 years before the ‘Tap’ movie,” Anderson says. “Ah, well – get your inspiration where you can find it.”

Anderson has previously said that one of the movie’s advisors was a label representative who toured with Jethro Tull, as well. Meanwhile, a new reissue of ‘A Passion Play’ is planned for 2014.