They turned it up to 11 in his honor.
The indie rock band Yo La Tengo paid tribute to the late Rob Reiner by playing a blasting Spinal Tap cover during their annual Hanukkah show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City on Monday night.
“As if that wasn’t ragged enough, this will be the most ragged one of all,” frontman Ira Kaplan, 68, told the crowd after the group finished a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin.”
“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,” he continued. “So we’re gonna try to do a song and see how this goes.”
Yo La Tengo then launched into a lively rendition of “Gimme Some Money,” a tune made famous by the fictional heavy metal rockers in Reiner’s 1984 hit mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap.”
The film, which marked Reiner’s directorial debut, starred Christopher Guest as Nigel Tufnel, Michael McKean as David St. Hubbins, Harry Shearer as Derek Smalls and Reiner as documentary filmmaker Marty DiBergi.
“I mean, it started out actually slow,” the “Princess Bride” director told Page Six regarding “This Is Spinal Tap” in July. “People didn’t quite get it at first. They thought it was a real documentary about a real band.”
Reiner’s final film before his shocking murder was a follow-up to the classic mockumentary titled “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.”
Released in September, the sequel brought the beloved director back together with Guest, McKean and Shearer as the fictional band prepared for a one-night-only reunion concert in New Orleans.
“Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” even featured some cameos from real-life music superstars like Paul McCartney and Elton John.
“We were asked many times to do [a sequel], especially after the movie was put in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress and the Oxford English Dictionary put in ‘goes to 11,’” Reiner told USA Today three months before his tragic death. “But for the most part, we thought we were done with it all.
“The fun thing for me was falling back with old friends,” he continued. “You just start doing your thing with each other, [Guest] used to call it ‘schneedeling,’ and right away, we were schneedeling as if no time had gone by. You can’t beat that.”
Guest, 77, and Shearer, 81, both released touching statements paying tribute to the late “When Harry Met Sally” filmmaker in the wake of his and his wife’s heartbreaking murders over the weekend.
“Christopher and I are numb and sad and shocked about the violent, tragic deaths of our dear friends Rob and Michelle Singer Reiner,” Guest and his wife, Jamie Lee Curtis, told Page Six.
“We have lost great friends,” they added. “Please give us time to grieve.”
Shearer, meanwhile, called Rob and Michele Reiner’s deaths “unspeakable” and “the stuff of Greek tragedy.”
“Rob was a friend and collaborator through much of my life. He was funny, he was smart, he was a mensch,” the “Simpsons” star told Page Six on Monday.
“He was a great collaborator, and when the four of us proposed ideas for the films, he was the one who wrote them on 3×5 cards and organized them into a movie,” Shearer added.
Reiner, 78, and his wife, 68, were found stabbed to death at their home in Brentwood, California, on Sunday afternoon by their 28-year-old daughter, Romy.
Nick Reiner, the couple’s son, was taken into custody that night and booked on suspicion of murdering his parents.
The Los Angeles Police Department said in a Monday press release that the 32-year-old was being held without bail.
Nick will be formally charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of his parents once he is “medically cleared” to appear in LA court for arraignment, LA County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said during another press conference held on Tuesday.
“It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner,” the “Stand By Me” director’s loved ones said in an emotional statement on Sunday night.
“We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time,” they concluded.
