Harry Shearer to join You Am I for Spinal Tap gig at Adelaide Guitar Festival

The man behind many of The Simpsons’ voices will join Oz rock legends You Am I in Adelaide for a tribute to his fictional heavy metal band Spinal Tap. Be the first to get tickets.

Spinal Tap bass player Derek Smalls – alias The Simpsons voice actor Harry Shearer – will perform the fictional heavy metal group’s hits with Australian band You Am I at this year’s Adelaide Guitar Festival.

Shearer will also join You Am I frontman and fan Tim Rogers for a question-and-answer session at a screening of the 1984 mockumentary film This is Spinal Tap.

Harry Shearer as Spinal Tap bass player Derek Smalls. Picture: Rob Shanahan, supplied,

Actors Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean in a promotional photo for the film This Is Spinal Tap.

“Breaking my two-plus-year travel fast, I could have gone to London, or Paris … but I’ve chosen Adelaide,” Shearer said from the US.

“I’m curious to see what other choices I make while appearing at the Guitar Festival. One choice I won’t be making – picking up a guitar!”

Spinal Tap was originally created by Shearer and fellow US actors Christopher Guest and Michael McKean as a sketch for TV show Saturday Night Live. It also featured another of the trio’s creations, The Folksmen, who later appeared in their mockumentary about folk music, A Mighty Wind.

Australian band You Am I plays Spinal Tap at the 2018 Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Picture: Tam Schilling

US actor Harry Shearer as Spinal Tap bass player Derek Smalls. Picture: Rob Shanahan

Shearer previously performed with his wife, Welsh jazz musician Judith Owen, at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival in 2016 while You Am I toured its own Spinal Tap tribute show two years later.

They will join forces to perform Majesty of Tap at Her Majesty’s Theatre on July 23, with the film screening at Mercury Cinema on July 22.

Also performing at the event from July 9-24 will be The Black Sorrows’ Joe Camilleri, multiple Golden Guitar Award winner Fanny Lumsden, and Chinese classical guitarist Xuefei Yang.

Tickets for the full program on sale from 11am today at adelaideguitarfestival.com.au