Spinal Tap Goes To 30. (Cities, That Is.)

And this is the reason we have a category here called Things That Are Awesome. Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean are heading out on a six-week, 30-city tour -- playing revamped tunes from This Is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind. (Sadly, Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy aren't involved, so no '"God Loves a Terrier" from Best In Show.)

Unwigged & Unplugged will be a stripped-down, mostly acoustic (duh) and costume-less kind of thing, and while I am sure it will be awesome, I admit I was disappointed to hear that there won't even be one tiny little 18-inch Stonehenge on stage with them. Perhaps there were more napkin-related misunderstandings.

"We've never gone out as ourselves," Shearer said Monday from the House of Blues in West Hollywood, where he was accompanied by Guest and McKean at a news conference unveiling the tour. "So we've been holding lots of meetings trying to figure out who we are."

The musicians opened with a medley and segued from such Spinal Tap material as "Hell Hole" and "Sex Farm" to "Celtic Blues," one of the songs created by "A Mighty Wind's" faux-folk group, the Folksmen.

The tour, McKean quipped, will involve "no smoke, and just one mirror backstage." Asked whether the nation's economic crisis precipitated the stripped-down outing, Shearer said, "No -- but it sure helped."

As part of activities marking the film's 25th anniversary, Shearer said the group was working on studio versions of songs they wrote but never formally recorded for an album expected to be released in May.

Here's the list of tour dates and locations. Tickets go on sale later this week, at yet-to-be-announced prices. THANKS, TICKETMASTER.

And here's a video of the guys playing a medley of some of the songs and being all witty and such at the press conference yesterday.