There have been many tributes to Rob Reiner from the great and the good over the last 48 hours. On Monday night, at their one of their annual Hanukkah shows in New York, indie stalwarts Yo La Tengo performed one that brought a smile to everyone’s face.
The band had just performed their cover of the Velvet Underground’s Heroin when guitarist Ira Kaplan addressed the audience at the Bowery Ballroom: “As if that wasn’t ragged enough, this will be the most ragged one of all,” he said.
“Because we’re gonna salute a Jewish songwriter we were not expecting to be saluting this Hanukkah, and we certainly weren’t expecting to be memorializing him. So we’re gonna try to do a song and see how this goes.”
The band then played a version of Gimme Some Money, which devotees of This Is Spinal Tap will know is an early Tap song – a spot-on pastiche of the mid-'60s British invasion style - that the fictional band released under their original name, The Thamesmen.
How do you follow that? By doing another Velvet Underground cover – She’s My Best Friend – and a take on Bob Dylan’s Jokerman.
Yo La Tengo’s Hanukkah shows are quite a thing in New York. Every year, the indie veterans play a run of shows with special guests, surprise covers and much merriment. Each show is a benefit, with proceeds going to a different charity each night. The band have another five shows of the current run left, until Sunday (December 21) at the Bowery Ballroom in New York.
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