The Spinal Tap mockumentary is legendary for all the right reasons. It is one of the funniest movies ever made. The music is way better and more skilfully performed than one reasonably could expect from people who up to that point only dabbled in it as a hobby. And, not the least: just about every single thing in that movie has been experienced by a genuine band sometime, somewhere.
Even one of the biggest bands in the world – Irish rock legends U2 – haven’t managed to avoid falling into several Tapisms.
One of the funniest scenes in the Spinal Tap movie depicts the members of the band emerging from individual pods, scheduled to open one by one as they launch into their epic Rock’n’Roll Creation. Unfortunately, bass player Derek Smalls’ pod never opens, and he remains stuck inside for the duration of the song. You already know where I’m going with this, don’t you?
In 1997 U2 were touring their Pop album. The tour was called PopMart, kicked off on 25 April 1997, and lasted well into the autumn of that year. Even by U2’s standards, PopMart set new records for size, scope, and pure ‘bling’ factor.
U2 superfan Arlin Bartels sighs when this period is brought up: “Don’t get me started on Pop and PopMart unless you want a deep dive-length dissertation on U2 in the late 90s. This period is easily the most contentious period in U2 fandom. The PopMart tour was trying to be an examination of several interesting ideas: consumer excess materialism, irony as emotion. The irony (down to the ridiculous muscle shirt Bono wore) was supposed to be lampooning consumer culture while also being the sound of the band chopping down and setting fire to the earnestness of the Joshua Tree. The tour totally misfired on that message, but if you watch it back to back with the ZooTV Tour (one of the genuinely genius tour designs ever IMHO) it makes sense. To me the central problem with the PopMart tour was that they were a humourless band trying to be humorous. We all have one friend who thinks he’s hilarious and no one else laughs at his jokes. U2 is that friend.”
During this tour, the band would re-emerge for their encores using a remix of their hit song Lemon as walk-on music. Except they didn’t walk on – they returned to the stage ensconced inside a giant mirror-ball lemon that positioned itself on a mobile staircase where the band members could walk down onto the stage one by one. It truly was a sight to behold.
In some of the most beautiful real-world recreations of Spinal Tap that mankind has ever seen, the lemon prop was prone to getting stuck, trapping the band inside.
It happened when they played Valle Hovin stadium in Oslo, Norway. The lemon prop experienced a technical issue which prevented it from opening, and some 40,000 people witnessed four shadowy figures sitting inside while the backing tape of the song started and kept playing throughout the song. The audience was not sure what to make of this and watched in awkward silence. After two hours of cowboy suits, muscle shirts, and an inexplicable karaoke sing-along with Edge, it was unclear to everybody whether shadowy figures pushing and banging at the walls from within a giant piece of fruit was part of the show.
At the end of the song, the stage hands managed to get it open so that the band members were able to climb out of the back of the lemon. Some very warm band members stumbled out on stage, laughed, waved, drank gallons of water, and launched into the next song. That’s show business for you.
U2 superfan Arlin Bartels has no defence for his heroes. “The lemon getting stuck – not once but several times – is definitely one of the more notorious points in U2 history. Even I nearly lost faith. In terms of Spinal Tap moments… yes. The Lemon probably takes 8 of the top 10 U2 Spinal Tap moments. Incidentally, I was at the second most notorious moment that I can think of offhand when on opening night of the U2i+e tour in Vancouver, Canada (14 May 2015) when Edge fell off the stage accidentally during I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.
In Las Vegas, as well as Japan, they were sealed inside to such a degree that the lemon had to be wheeled off the stage with U2 still trapped inside. They would emerge on stage through more conventional means after a long intermission. Other times it got stuck partially open and the crowd could see them standing in there until a solution was found, backing tape playing away with no band members making their cues.
It may be worth noting that U2 did not design the set for that tour, including the famous lemon. U2 for many years has had a stage designer named Willie Williams who did all of the stage design, including things like ZooTV. Arlin adds: “For PopMart, Williams and three architects did the design. which drummer Larry Mullen Jr. famously despised to the point where he threatened to refuse to come out of the lemon. I think (but it may just be U2 urban legend) that there were shows where he just went to the drum kit and refused to come out of the lemon. As someone whose favourite band member is Larry, I want to believe it.”
When asked about it later in an interview, Bono said, “I still miss our lemon. That was a beautiful, psychedelic kind of funky. It was a beautiful thing, travelling in that lemon.”
Why, of course. It was after all covered in mirrors.
As a postscript, The Edge managed to start the tour with a Spinal Tap moment of his own. On the world premier show, an overhyped crew accidentally flooded the stage with too much dry ice. It got to the point where The Edge couldn’t see his guitar pedals during the rendition of Discotheque – the divisive lead single from Pop. He needed to step on a switch on his foot-pedal board somewhere down there on the floor. Unable to know where he was, he went down on his hands and knees in a desperate attempt to feel his way there. The situation was absurd. He was at the world premiere of his new show, on his knees, with a high number of VIPs and fans in attendance, and there he was crawling around on the floor. All he could do was start to laugh as muttered to himself: “It has finally happened… I am Derek Smalls – this is Spinal Tap!”
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