YOU WON’T BE ALONE IF YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF VETERAN CANADIAN METAL BAND ANVIL, BUT THIS BRILLIANT CELLULOID PORTRAIT WILL HAVE YOU ROOTING FOR THEM WITH ALL THE EMOTION OF A CLOSE FAMILY MEMBER BY THE TIME THE END CREDITS ROLL.

In the early stages, it seems closer to Spinal Tap mock-doc spoof as we see archive footage of them onstage in Japan in the ’80s, sharing a bill with Whitesnake and Bon Jovi, then cut back to the present to find frontman ‘Lips’ Kudrow delivering school dinners for a living.

Not that Anvil is extinct, since he and long-time drummer Robb Reiner are still playing local bars, but their days of stadium gigs now seem decades behind them. Suddenly however, a phone call offers them a European festival tour: all they have to do is get the time off work…

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