worst reunions

actually I definitely knew that well enough once to make a joke on ILM about it

big star reunion was pretty much the only way you were gonna see chilton live and reliably sing several big star songs. others of that ilk where it's basically a band reforming to tour, play the hits, pay some bills i can't begrudge plus dirtly little secret very often the reunion shows are better than the shows the original time around. weezer seems like the most detrimental in terms of legacy and love from fans. pixies giving them a run for their money though for sure.

Voted python

ooh stooges a contender in that i treat their post reunion album (albums?) like jordan in a wizards jersey

Weezer for me, I grew up listening to Weezer & Pinkerton and they have shat all over themselves for more than a decade now.

stooges reunion albs p lousy, but the live show i saw, when they performed the whole of Fun House w/Steve Mackay, was a blast and in no way detrimental to their rep

Beatles (Anthology songs)
- one of these songs was fun, one was shit, it made George back some of the money cunto stole off him

Big Star (1993, 2005)
- idk

Black Flag (2003,
- A+ lols, maybe the best reunion ever

...2010, 2011)
- did these happen?

Black Flag (2013 debacle)
- so lame it might not even have been noticed if Flag hadn't happened at the same time. the singer getting fired onstage and relievedly coming out in support of the rival band makes it more amusing

Blink-182 (2009)
- didn't know they split

Echo & the Bunnymen (1997)
- one good song, should have stopped when it turned back to Electrafixion

Gang of Four (2005)
- have heard they've done tours with only Gill and been cancelled once promoters or punters found out, dunno anything else

Guns N' Roses (???-Chinese Democracy)
- never split tbf. I don't count anything post-Adler anyway

Jesus and Mary Chain (2007)
- one good song, some decent gigs

Nirvana (McCartney, 2012)
- not a Nirvana reunion, was fun

No Doubt (2008)
- can't remember if I didn't know whether they'd reunited or split in the first place

Pavement (2010)
- don't care about Pavement but know lots of people who were happy to get to see the members of Pavement play Pavement songs together so this one is 100% positive

Queen (2005)
- dunno which Queen reunion this was or how many members were involved but they've all been embarrassing faragoes

Sex Pistols (1996)
- this would have been great if it was just the press conference, but then they played a bunch of great shows (after a shithouse first one I guess). wonder if the one I saw was the smallest reunion show they've ever played

Slint (2005, 2007, 2013)
- idk

Smashing Pumpkins (2006)
- dunno which one this was but I'm sure it was awful and a petulant use of the name

Sublime (with Rome) (2009)
- insulting revival of the name, mitigated very slightly by the original band being terrible

Television (2002)
- played some good shows afaik?

The Chameleons (2000)
- idk

The Doors (21st Century)
- awful, sad revival of pretty bad band

The Pixies (2004)
- played some great shows and made lots of ppl happy. recorded two fantastic songs. carried on inappropriately long, Deal OTM

The Stooges (2003)
- recordings v unnecessary but people get to see some good rock shows and Watt gets paid, plus no-one bought the records, even Skull Ring, so no harm done

Van Halen (2004 - Hagar)
- no way this wasn't terrible

Van Halen (2007 - Roth)
- the Wolfgang thing is p tragic but people getting to see DLR perform Van Halen songs with most of Van Halen can't be all bad

Velvet Underground (1993)
- entertained people, funny when Reed deliberately paces the words all different to f/w ppl singing along

Weezer (2000)
- everything after the second Islands In The Sun video is just "current Weezer" to me, idgaff but the band seem to be having a lot of fun and to have found a regular fanbase who enjoy following their output, good luck to all involved

conclusion: most of these are p good, cancel poll and start again

Heard good things about Television's 1992 reunion shows, and the s/t record was pretty great; certainly at least up there with Adventure.

Write-in for Magnetic Fields without Susan Anway

Jesus and Mary Chain + Pavement both notably better live acts as reunion acts than they were in their original go-round. (OK, to be fair, I didn't see JaMC play live before 1990.)

Guided By Voices. Bad enough that I began to wonder why I ever thought they were good. Still undecided, but leaning heavily towards purging the 5% of their albums I own (which is like 8) and just keeping Human Amusement.

I didn't know that Weezer ever broke up. Feels like there's been a new Weezer album to ignore every two years or so

the Go4 reunion album on which they redid their classics is fucking ace.

so .. they get a free pass.

yeah there has never been a point when Weezer, No Doubt or GNR officially 'broke up.'

kinda inclined to say the Velvets but their reunion was a blip that doesn't obscure their canonical work at all.

weezer announced they were 'taking a break' and the members moved to separate cities and started new bands. they reunited for a high paying festival gig and then did a small reunion tour after that that generated befuddling (to me at least) enthusiasm. it's around this time that pinkerton's 'lost classic' status goes mainstream. the green weezer album had high anticipation, came out same day as amnesiac and i can remember maybe a third of the crowd at the midnight sale (remember those?) were there for weezer. interesting if their hiatus has been largely forgotten, like w/ roxy music or talking heads (or sleater kinney except everyone knew they really were taking a break - corin had a baby). a group that just peaks early and then gradually starts to suck more is different than a band that releases to perfect albums (in theory) and then reunites and releases a stream of increasingly worse records. no doubt never actually broke up though i guess you could be forgiven for assuming their hiatus would be like nsync's. gnr either never broke up or never reunited.

I remember a magazine feature on this.
Os Mutantes had a troubled reunion but I don't know if that had anything to do with the reception.
Happy Mondays did their reunion on a Jim Davidson show or something.

I recall some reviews saying the Von live reunion was a disaster.

came out same day as amnesiac

what's that? I remember the other big thing that came out that day as Lateralus by Tool.

It's the Radiohead album.

ah - you're right! i confused the midnight sale for radiohead w/ the midnight sale for rem - weezer/tool/rem came out in may, radiohead was june i think

I was just trying to make a dumb joke about amnesia and missing wildly, I guess.

Distinct memory of buying that Weezer album at midnight, listening to it with my college roommates and realizing they would never be good again.

Personally, I think the Pixies reunion burned through the most goodwill for me, but due to personal/personnel reasons and general dickishness, carrying on too long, etc.

Some of these reunions (thinking of the Stooges and the JAMC here) were actually quite good fun!

But if Slowdive were on this list, I'd have voted for them as worst out of principle. (Also MBV, but I've had retained a lot more goodwill for them if they'd not released an album.)

Dunno, I think the album was good enough to justify..

Only one of these bands made a record with Skrillex.

Keeping my fingers crossed for a new Slowdive album. Would have been nice if Chapterhouse had another album in them but it was just a live tour.

I'm not actually that enthused about live reunions in general.

See, I don't mind live reunions. It's a moment, a rush, a single night of nostalgia. It's when they gotta go and piss all over their legacy by recording something that sounds so completely out of date and embarrassing that I wish it hadn't happened. I have a lot more respect for bands that do the reunion gigs, then leave it at that.

There's a few album-reunions that worked, though -- Mission of Burma, the Who, New York Dolls...

GBV otm
leaning way too hard on the unsustainable "party band" model
no respect for selves

Violent Femmes 2013 reunion deserves mention here if only because they almost immediately fired Victor Delorenzo and replaced him with Amanda Palmer's friend.

kinda inclined to say the Velvets but their reunion was a blip that doesn't obscure their canonical work at all.

this reunion actually seems like part of the legend at this point

it probably would have been really embarrassing if it happened in the 00s

Very few of these I actually want to player-hate on at all, worse things they could do with their songbook and time. but there are a few.

Velvet Underground is kind of embarrassing in hindsight thanks to lou's "Severin take the whip baby severin take the whip now" scattage but as a young aspiring alt-kid at the time i was ecstatic.

queen + paul rodgers was actively embarrassing and while i wish may & taylor had just done some kind of low key small hall thing where they'd just sing the stuff they wrote I can't hate on them for wanting to do "we will rock you" at the big places and they've since replaced rodgers with adam lambert so they've learned their lesson.

The post-Deal Pixies have been pretty embarrassing but i was all for the foursome raking in the $$$ on the road.

So I'm probably voting for Doors 21st Century because holy shit Ian Astbury are you fucking kidding me

LL - I seem to remember from past posts ya dig the GBV - I'm disappointed on that 'OTM'. Give the new stuff a chance - I'd rank Cool Planet up there w/ Propeller, UTBUTS, Vampire On Titus ... I think they're post 2011 stuff (yes, 'let's go eat the factory' was a mis-step) gets better as each album comes out. Now that they've gotten rid of Fennell as a drummer, they're only sounding better. Yes the Pollard 'bro'-y' performances are a little cringeworthy live, but the original spirit is there for sure. Don't give up. They won't hit re-united MoB or DJr. levels, but I think what they're putting out is special in its own right.

That said - Black Flag debacle may be worst on this list.

doubling down on doors 21st century as my choice since the guys were gradually forced by lawsuits to make their name less doorsy as they went from the singer from the cult to the singer from fuel to the singer from steelheart to the singer of a doors cover band.

I recall some reviews saying the Von live reunion was a disaster.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, July 18, 2014 5:09 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if this is the black metal Von I saw them play to like 20 ppl tops and I thought it was fine

seen reformed GO4 twice, both at (indoor) festivals, first time was great and second time it was Andy Gill + dudes who I doubt were born when they broke up first time. they reduced a ~1000 audience to about 200 a while before the end which was tough to witness

in terms of cred damage, it might be hard to beat Lynyrd Skynyrd 1987-present

didn't densmore sue the rest of the doors for using the name almost immediately, forcing them to use 'doors of the 21st century'? he also wrote a big thing for the nation congratulating himself for singlehandedly preventing cadillac from using 'break on through' in an ad.

brad c otm - ppl know about the crash but that doesn't prevent them from letting clownshow skynyrd paint their impressions of actual skynyrd. not sure even mike love can top that.

oh yeah probably would have voted for skynyrd if that'd been an option

and had no idea about andy gill & friends version of go4, thought that reunion was just the short tour they did a decade ago.

re: doors, group was always called Doors Of The 21st Century, the lawsuit is what forced them to change it to D21C in 2005, then Riders Of The Storm, then Manzarek-Krieger as they went through singers

def knew the gang of two had gone on without the original rhythm section, but i was shocked when i belatedly heard jon king left

hahahaha i had know idea the doors kept changing their name after that, my lord.

Pixies have gone on waaaay too long as someone mentioned upthread. I had no problem with them reuniting at first. I went to their gig in Phoenix Park in 04 and it was great but the recent Glastonbury performance was lifeless and at a recent gig supporting Arcade Fire, Frank Black walked off after 30 mins saying that his guitar was "broken". The new tunes are wretched. No Kim Deal either.

VU reunion was a heap of shit too but at least it was short and they didn't release any music

the fake kim deal vocal on "bag boy" is definitely the saddest reunion-related thing i've heard since paul rodgers and queen's "c-lebrity"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOIfqbKVvrI

that vid probably wins saddest reunion-related thing i've seen

Guided By Voices. Bad enough that I began to wonder why I ever thought they were good. Still undecided, but leaning heavily towards purging the 5% of their albums I own (which is like 8) and just keeping Human Amusement.

― campreverb, Friday, July 18, 2014 10:51 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

would probably go with this too. releasing a 4 hour live documentary called The Electrifying Conclusion and reuniting 6 years later is one of the most irrationally-angry-making things I can think of.

Feel like Steely Dan should have at least been an option. I've never listened to the post-Gaucho albums myself, or seen them live ($$$), but there's something weird about a band that was so much about hermetic perfection and no-live-shows becoming such a touring machine (including full-on human-jukebox whole-album shows).

J Geils Band touring without J Geils was always hilarious

Pop Will Eat Itself's current line-up is just one original member

― Colonel Poo, Tuesday, November 21, 2017 3:14 AM (three hours ago)

Even weirder is that it's one member, the singer from Gaye Bykers On Acid, and three younger dudes from nu-metal bands. Also amusingly, the reunion originally included all five classic-era members, but one by one the rest left because they couldn't work with Gra... who'd been the first to quit in 1995. (Back then they carried on for a year, until splitting over ego that the lead singer had writers' block and the late-joining drummer was bringing most of the songs.)

Mentioned in the AC/DC thread, but with Malcolm now dead, Cliff retired, Brian going deaf, and Phil in legal limbo, the current line-up is just Angus and whomever.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, November 21, 2017 3:16 AM (three hours ago)

For all that it will feel sad and weird if Angus carries on (though if he'd rather tour than mourn, good on him), the "whomever" is currently a guitarist who was in the band in 1988 and grew up with, went to school with (shout-out to Ashfield Boys High), & learnt guitar with the Malcolm & Angus, and a drummer who was in the band from 1989 to 1994. Plus Axl, who's a better singer than Brian Johnson.

the

For sure. And Tommy Stinson played bass in GNR longer than Duff, Richard Fortus longer than Slash and Dizzy longer than anyone but Axl.

Ha, well. My point was that Angus has striven to only use prior AC/DC members in the recent replacement calamities, not just getting in some randos and one actual Replacement.

(pre-Cliff bassist Mark Evans still plays live on the reg, but there's deep beef there.)

Pwei; ditto The Wonder Stuff! Matey and the only other person who can stand to be in the same room as him; his wife. Plus 3 other ransoms.

Wonder Stuff more egregious: when reformed PWEI got down to a duo, they changed the name as it had become something else; after it went down to one, he asked the others if they'd mind him forming a new PWEI and they all gave their blessing on the principle of "well we're not going to use the name, go ahead mate."

Whereas the members of the reformed Wonder Stuff who were managing the band and running the website found out that noted rhyming slang Miles Hunt had decided they weren't in the group anymore, when fans emailed to ask why the advertised tour dates weren't on the website. (Hunt's "main" band The Miles Hunt Club weren't selling tickets or CDs, so he just decided to rebadge them as the Wonder Stuff before sending the second album to print.)

The PWEI drummer, who's always had a gigging career, did a stint in the Stuff for a year or two recently, and the bassist stands in with EMF on their occasional reunion gigs, so I believe there have been nostalgia all-dayers with three Poppies playing, but only one in "PWEI."

Current Eagles is pretty weird: Don Henley, Joe Walsh & Timothy B. Schmit, with Vince Gill and Deacon Frey. So you've got founder Don, longtime replacements Joe and Timothy, ringer Vince Gill and dead founder's son Deacon.

Pwei; ditto The Wonder Stuff! Matey and the only other person who can stand to be in the same room as him; his wife. Plus 3 other ransoms.

Quite like the idea of them being ransoms, not randoms.

"Please let us go."

"YOUR FAMILY HASN'T PAID YET. Now, again with "Welcome to the Cheap Seats.""

"Argh, noooo...."

Anyway, Simple Minds I guess sorta half counts though Jim and Charlie have doggedly stuck it out all these years, somehow.

The best worst might still be the fake Zombies that toured after the group dissolved, with no original members.

The original line-up declined to regroup for concerts following the belated American success of "Time of the Season". In turn, various concocted bands tried to capitalise on the success and falsely toured under the band's name. In a scheme organized by Delta Promotions, an agency that also created fake touring versions of The Animals and The Archies, two fake-Zombies were touring simultaneously in 1969, one hailing from Texas, the other from Michigan. The Texas group featured bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard, soon to be members of ZZ Top. Another group toured in 1988, going so far as to trademark the group's name (since the band had let the mark lapse) and recruit a bass guitarist named Ronald Hugh Grundy, claiming that original drummer Hugh Grundy had switched instruments.

okay that's great about ZZ Top. never knew. wonder if any of the fake Archie Bell & The Drells outfits contained the seeds of greatness.

there was a completely fake fleetwood mac lineup that toured in 1974

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleetwood_Mac#1974:_The_fake_Fleetwood_Mac

hahahahaah thread delivers

the current Beach Boys touring act is pretty much Mike Love, Bruce Johnston, John Stamos, and a whole buncha hired guns that are in their 30s-40s.

so as you can imagine, all the Brian Wilson songs sound hella fucking weird.

^ absolute nonsense. Stamos is not in the band, Cowsill and Foskett are both 61, Totten I'm guessing is in his '50s since he's been playing for over 30 years, and I'd never pay to see them but "as I can imagine," hiring the dude who was Brian's right-hand-man and musical director for his entire solo touring career would be the best possible way to make the Brian songs not sound hella fucking weird.

looked up the keyboard player: he's 56 and has been in the touring band for 20 years

I was guessing based on the way that they looked. I was off a few decades I s'pose. (this was also 8 years ago that I saw them)

Stamos is not in the band full-time, but he played pretty much the entire show that I saw. Even sang lead on a song. It became a Stamos side-show at times, they kept drawing reference to him.

They sound weird because they're not Brian Wilson. I didn't say they didn't sound "good" - but they didn't sound like the Beach Boys, either.

there's also the fact that unlike you, I've heard them

so because John Stamos guested at one show you saw eight years ago, all of the changes to lineup, arrangements and setlists that writers about the Beach Boys have noted since then never happened, and Jeff Foskett did not swap places with Matt Jardine after the 50th anniversary tour that only used two of Mike's players. since I saw that lineup, I guess I have a better claim to "having heard them" than you?

according to http://esquarterly.com/bellagio/gigs.html, Stamos has guested at three shows in the last eight years (two of which were benefits for Goodwill in Orange County, organised by Stamos, whose brother in law is the CEO). the Mike & Bruce band play over 150 shows a year.

it's entirely plausible that they sounded weird eight years ago (especially if they were playing to the sort of crowd that would even care if Stamos was there!), or that 20 of those 150 shows a year are duds now due to any number of factors. but to double down on saying "the current touring act" sounds weird on songs Brian Wilson wrote, when Mike's Beach Boys started adding loads of Brian album tracks and non-hits into their setlists for non-state-fair gigs in 2011, and JEFF FOSKETT (re-)JOINED IN 2013, is pretty pointless.

hiring the dude who was Brian's right-hand-man and musical director for his entire solo touring career

Apols for a dumb question but who are you talking about here, Sic?

Stamos was on the UK tour earlier this year.

omg who cares who is a bigger authority on the shitty mike/bruce band? yah even foskett sucks now with that shitshow. jesus.

Tim - he's talking about Jeff Foskett

Ah OK, I was under the impression that Darian Sahanaja was the Musical Director / Band Leader for most of Brian's solo touring, hence my confusion.

When I saw Bri perform Pet Sounds last year, the band leader was the sax playing guy, Paul Von Mertens - confirmed in this piece about the group:

https://www.npr.org/2016/07/09/484983061/pet-sounds-and-the-band-that-gets-to-play-it-onstage

that's interesting - can you remember whether Darian was in the band that night? I know he's not there the whole time these days. This one (from 2015) says he'd been musical director since 1999: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/meet-brian-wilsons-secret-weapon-darian-sahanaja-20150630

I don't think he was, Tim - but there were a lot of ppl on stage!

and I'd never pay to see them but "as I can imagine,"

unexpectedly I saw them for free two days ago, standing eight feet from the stage

it is with a heavy heart I must report that the "Beach Boys" sounded fucking great

not a fan to begin with, but the sublime one seems particularly gross/egregious.

like if they could afford or legally rationalize touring with a hologram, they would totally be doing that.

Well, they in that case is just Eric Wilson the bass player and Rome Ramirez at this point, as Sublime drummer Bud Gaugh quit in regret pretty early on and hired gun Josh Freese left a year or two ago.

In March 2015, Ramirez appeared on Blues Traveler's album Blow Up the Moon, co writing the song "Castaway" and "Vagabond Blues" with Dirty Heads.