angelophile | Spinal Tap to reform for Live Earth

Spinal Tap are back, and this time the band wants to help save the world from global warming.

The heavy metal group immortalised in the 1984 rockumentary, This is Spinal Tap, will reunite for a performance at Wembley Stadium in London as part of the Live Earth concerts scheduled worldwide for July 7.

The original members of Spinal Tap will be there: guitarists Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins and bassist Derek Smalls. Marty DeBergi, who directed This is Spinal Tap, will also be in attendance.

A new 15-minute film directed by Marty DeBergi on the band's reunion will also play at the opening night of the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

The festival, hosted by Al Gore, is scheduled to open with a showing of several global warming-themed short films produced by the SOS (Save Our Selves) campaign.

SOS is also putting on the Live Earth concerts, to be held across seven continents. Marty DeBergi explained the reunion of Spinal Tap - a band always known more as a parody of rock 'n roll excess than environmental awareness.

"They're not that environmentally conscious, but they've heard of global warming," said Marty DeBergi. "Nigel thought it was just because he was wearing too much clothing - that if he just took his jacket off it would be cooler."

The members of Spinal Tap have reunited several times since the film, but not for a number of years. For the band - whose last album was 1992's Break like the Wind - the occasion warranted a new single: Warmer Than Hell.

DeBergi provided a sneak peak at the lyrics: "The devil went to Devon, it felt like the fourth degree. He said, 'Is it hot in here, or is it only me?"'

The director said the new short film explained what the band had been doing with their lives lately. Nigel has been raising miniature horses to race, but can't find jockeys small enough to ride them; David is now a hip-hop producer who also runs a colonic clinic; and Derek is in rehab for addiction to the internet.