Oasis’ Liam Gallagher Walked Out of a Spinal Tap Concert After Learning That the Band Was Actors

‘90s Brit rockers Oasis are currently preparing for a massive worldwide reunion tour that, hopefully, won’t involve playing any gigs where they cede top billing to a puppet show.

But while Oasis may not share much in common with Spinal Tap, the aging heavy metal group depicted in Rob Reiner’s classic mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, apparently Liam Gallagher was a big fan of the band — until he discovered that they weren’t actually real. 

In a 2005 interview in The Observer, which was recently shared by American Songwriter, Noel Gallagher was asked about a laughable claim made by Ricky Gervais: that his brother Liam believed that Spinal Tap was, in fact, a real band, and not a fictional group invented for a movie. “Yeah, he thought they were real people,” Noel Gallagher responded. 

According to the elder Gallagher, the revelation occurred when the brothers went to see Spinal Tap perform at Carnegie Hall in June 2001. While the appearance was part of Spinal Tap’s “Back From the Dead Tour,” it was in conjunction with the Toyota Comedy Festival. Somehow the fact that this heavy metal band was appearing in the same festival as the Smothers Brothers and a “look-alike contest for MAD Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman” still didn’t tip Liam Gallagher off. 

The concert began, not with Tap, but with elderly comedian Alan King who introduced the night’s opening act: a folk trio called The Folksmen. 

The Folksmen were, of course, played by the same actors who made up Spinal Tap: Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer. The characters had originated in a Saturday Night Live segment from way back in 1984. 

Most people became aware of The Folksmen when they showed up in Guest’s A Mighty Wind. But that wasn’t until 2004, three years after the Carnegie Hall concert. One fan who was in attendance that night claimed that much of the audience was “totally bewildered” by the opener. 

But Liam Gallagher was actually pissed. “We were laughing, and (Liam) said, ‘This is shit,’” Noel Gallagher recalled. “We said: ‘No, those three are in Spinal Tap. 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.’”

Upon finding out that Spinal Tap were really just actors, Liam Gallagher bailed on the concert, telling his brother “I’m not fuckin’ ‘avin that.” Noel noted that his brother had seen the film This Is Spinal Tap and “loved it,” because he “thought they were a real band.” But following the Carnegie Hall incident he’s “never watched Spinal Tap since.”

In Liam Gallagher’s defense they are a real band in the sense that the three actors are genuinely talented musicians who have released albums, made music videos and gone on concert tours. 

It’s just that they’re not really British, and none of their drummers have spontaneously combusted.