There’s been an outpouring of grief and tributes following the death of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele, who were killed in their Los Angeles home on Sunday. Yo La Tengo joined those honoring the actor-director on Monday during their annual Hanukkah shows.
Following their cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin,” performed alongside Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch, Ira Kaplan addressed the crowd at New York City’s 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 launched into “Gimme Some Money,” from Reiner’s 1984 satirical rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, his debut film (the fictional band released the hit under their earlier name, the Thamesmen).
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Several of Reiner’s friends and collaborators have released statements following his death. Harry Shearer, who co-created, co-wrote, and co-starred in This Is Spinal Tap with Reiner (as well as the recent sequel), honored his late friend on social media. “Rob was a friend and collaborator through much of my life,” he said. “He was funny, he was smart, he was a mensch. When he came to see the comedy act I was in, and, later, the musical comedy I had co-written, his laugh was uproarious and audible around the block.”
In Jerry Seinfeld’s tribute, the comedian credited Reiner with the success of Seinfeld. “Next to Larry David and George Shapiro, Rob Reiner had the biggest influence on my career,” he wrote on Instagram. “Our show would have never happened without him. He saw something no one else could. When nobody at the network liked the early episodes, he saved us from cancellation….Rob and Michele married right as our show was starting and they became an imprint for me of how it’s supposed to work, each one broadening the other. Their death, together, is impossibly sad.”
