The Anvil Experience

When, where: Tuesday at 7 p.m. at The Knitting Factory Concert House, 919 W. Sprague Ave.

Tickets: $16, through TicketsWest, www.ticketswest.com

Playing a packed stadium in Tokyo, the calamitous trans-continental tour, punch outs with sleazy club owners, attempts at a comeback record,  guitar solos played with sex toys...

This is Anvil.

Or rather, "Anvil! The Story of Anvil." A documentary about a Canadian metal band of coulda-woulda-shouldas.

The similarities to a certain classic metal mockumentary are eerie -- right down to Anvil's drummer sharing the same last name as the director of "This Is Spinal Tap" -- but Anvil's story is a true one, about a band that was overlooked by fame until one of its former roadies-turned-moviemaker released a film about how the band was overlooked by fame.

Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner started playing music together in their teens and went on to play a key roll in the birth of speed metal in 1980s, influencing bands such as Slayer, Anthrax and Metallica. Then they disappeared into rock 'n' roll obscurity.

Released in 2008, "Anvil! The Story of Anvil" renewed the careers of the 50-something heavy metal family men who were still working day jobs and self-releasing records. The film was met with critical acclaim, and Anvil's 13th album, aptly titled, "This Is Thirteen," was re-released by VH1 Classic Records concurrent with the "Story of Anvil" DVD last fall.

"The Story of Anvil" was nominated for a Critics Choice Award and 

Anvil made its first network television appearance in October, on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien." Now Anvil is playing its first major national tour in more than a decade.

The film stands as a prime example of what the rock 'n' roll industry puts an artist through, said Anvil's lead singer and guitarist Steve "Lips" Kudlow. 

"At the same time, I take responsibility for our actions in the past. We were just sustaining who we are. Now someone's come along and brought it to a new level," Kudlow said in a news release. "Now we're getting praise for never selling out and sticking to our guns. It's a vindicating thing. We got our notoriety on our own terms. We've done what we want. Not what someone told us to do."

Originally "The Anvil Experience" concerts were going to open with a screening of "Anvil! The Story of Anvil" followed by the band playing a live set, but Kudlow said with the success of the film and DVD, so many people had already seen it that the tour was going to be all about the music.

The show is opened by local heavy metal powerhouses Lucid and Black the Sky.