Review by Steve Bennett

For a made-up band, they have quite a following, almost – but not quite – filling Wembley Arena with their motley but dedicated fans. And while comedy rarely works in such vast caverns, surely rock-and-roll comedy has a chance.

Live, Tap are more music than comedy; not that the two worlds were ever that far apart, even before the seminal 1984 mockumentary. Some bands may take all the satanic imagry and overblown self-importance seriously, but most would surely privately acknowledge that it is inherently ridiculous. The original film’s strength was more in the characters’ naïve inanity than in mocking the easy target of rock’s swaggering portentousness.

But in Wembley’s Back From The Dead show, the band have to turn everything up to 11, and concentrate on the riffs, mot the quips. Their between-song banter is witty, though carefully rationed so as to avoid diluting the night’s main purpose: to rock out.

It’s a good job the band does have such a devout following, with the crowd chanting along to most chourses, since the sound mix in the arena renders most lyrics indecipherable under a duvet of rumbling noise. If you didn’t already know the words, you might have struggled to pick out any of the ill-judged metaphors or clunky rhymes that make their compositions so wryly amusing.

The Tap don’t just rock, they have a fictional history that stretches back through skiffle and their nascent Sixties band The Thamesmen, famed for their Beatleseque Gimme Some Money and Cups And Cakes – played here in a manner that makes you pine for a similar Rutles reunion. Then there’s their funk-inspired Sex Farm Woman or the hippyish Listen To The Flower People.

Incidentally, the comedians behind Spinal Tap – Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer – also provide their own support, performing as The Folksmen, reprising a couple of numbers from the film A Mighty Wind and providing one of the night’s funniest moments: a version of the Rolling Stone’s Start Me Up. There are few things more hilarious than several thousand people singing ‘You make a dead man cum’ in a jolly folksy manner.

But it’s the rock hits the fans want, and it’s what they get tonight: Heavy Duty, Hell Hole, Majesty Of Rock – they all get an airing; as does their eco-friendly comeback song, Warmer Than Hell, first previewed at Live Earth two years ago. ‘In all non-false modesty, it worked,’ the band proclaim of their climate-change message. ‘The Earth is still here’.

Then there’s Stonehenge – of course. And this time the set designer’s got the dimensions right, even if a problem pumping air into the giant inflatable means the ‘stones’ don’t exactly rise majestically. But the sense of triumph when it does rise up, allowing the pint-size druids to frolic around it, is palpable.

The entertainingly nutty Keith Emerson – without Messers Lake and Palmer – turned up for a couple of numbers to bash merry hell out of a couple of keyboards; while for the bombastic Big Bottom, the band were joined by Andy Scott from The Sweet and former Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins, whose own band’s extravagance certainly owes more than a nod to the Tap, playing an amazing bass built to look like a space shuttle.

As a one-off, the night rocked – even if the humour element was almost forgotten. Maybe rock-and-roll is the new comedy…

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Wembley Arena, June 30, 2009

Review date: 1 Jan 2009
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett