am i really the only person who doesn't care about reunions/reunitings/new music by old bands, like, at all? is there something wrong with me?

emsworth was that the Sydney show? if so I was there too! I remember being amazed that Kim could smile so brightly and continuously for so long. And although they absolutely nailed everything - every note, every scream, every solo, every fill - it was somehow bizarre how exact the reproductions were. In a way very Pixies-ish.

I saw galaxie 500 open for Cocteau Twins, two bands that will absolutely never reunite. I’d certainly see either of they did. I can’t see either doing it for the money.

I saw the Pixies on one of the more recent tours, just pre-COVID, and really enjoyed it. Very conscious of it not being THE Pixies, but that's a good catalog and they played a ton of songs.

Not sure if the My Chemical Romance reunion is still active, but I would see them for sure.

bands like bloc party or franz ferdinand probably could be doing successful reunion tours around now

it’s almost time for the FFS ten year reunion!

emsworth was that the Sydney show? if so I was there too! I remember being amazed that Kim could smile so brightly and continuously for so long.

we may have all had the same conversation before but I saw them the night after the Luna Park show and STILL regret leaving the storming homo-packed party at the Pet Shop Boys stage to catch all of the low-energy Pixies set to a no-energy hillful of 34-year-old parents waiting to get back to the babysitters

Kim was BEAMING throughout though, a joy just to watch her, and it underscored how proper it was for her to tag out of the reunion once it wasn’t making her happy anymore.

I saw B&S just… six weeks ago? I acknowledged to myself that Stuart/Stevie might be the strongest co-frontmen in the legacy act circuit. Great show!

saw first big star reunion tour in nyc at tramps and arthur lee/love post prison gig (actually 2nd) at the knitting factory in la and both felt special since both guys had been away/ran away from their legacy and sure it was partial cash in but a lot of very good vibes from the audience seemed to really inspire great performances. did not go to any further gigs from those reunions because i knew it couldn't be topped.

Not sure if the My Chemical Romance reunion is still active, but I would see them for sure

MCR is doing a full front to back Black Parade set at When We Were Young '24, so they're probably carrying on.

i guess reed/cale songs for drella fits here too, saw that at st. ann's and it was great. thinking bout it, 60s guys revered by gen x who came back in the 90s in a big event style was my thing, anything outside of that hasn't had any appeal to me

emsworth was that the Sydney show?

yeah! definitely a lot of that good energy was coming from Kim. re exact reproductions, I guess that is kind of what I was expecting? like those songs are pretty precisely constructed, with not a lot of room for variation night-to-night I wouldn't have thought. but I am not a man who has ever knowingly heard a Pixies live recording! so no idea how this might or might not have differed from their OG era.

we may have all had the same conversation before
story of my goddamn life

and ATCQ. pretty much the standard for how to reunite and still be really damn good.

― A So-Called Pulitzer price winner (President Keyes), 2. juni 2024 17:44

should perhaps take this to the controversial opinions thread or a "well-intentioned and well-executed music that you couldn't care less abt" thread but... yeah, I've no idea why I would ever put on their reunion album

Weirdly, the only MBV album I really care about is the reunion album. I always appreciated the first two, but they never fully resonated with me.

I finally listened to the mbv reunion album a few days ago. It sounded a lot like Loveless. That's good, I guess.

lol, just now opening this thread to say that the MBV reunion was the only one I could think of that I can remember caring about at all. And Cocteau Twins is the only theoretical reunion I can imagine caring about. More power to the folks who return to rockin' in the free world, though.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/20/No_Cities_to_Love_cover.jpg

I like reunions because I like seeing people play music I like. isn't much else to it tbh

that said have seen more than a few that should probably not have bothered but that's well outweighed by the many gigs where I had a great time

probably a bit less interested in new music by reunited bands but I will usually give them a listen at least once just in case. sometimes it's a nice surprise

basically this thread is just people saying over and over that reunions are lame except for the ones I care about

I think the first ever reunion show as such I saw was the Damned in 1991, when the Captain came back after a couple of years away following the dissolution of the mersh-era incarnation and Paul Gray was part of the lineup again, essentially recreating the Black Album/Strawberries lineup. So it was already of-an-age in a certain way, but I am truly amused at the fact that after everything and anything with them it's once again THAT lineup that's now touring after three decades.

Gang of Four OG lineup (including Dave Allen and Hugo!) in the early 2000s was a great show. I still beam at remembering Jon bashing a microwave with a baseball bat in time to the beats of "He'd Send in the Army".

basically this thread is just people saying over and over that reunions are lame except for the ones I care about

Why that is because everyone else is a sad person wallowing in their middle-aged crisis whereas I, a distinguished critic, am analytical and appreciative about the qualities of musical art over time by its practitioners. (Attempts to reframe this position from anyone else's point of view is mere copycat behavior by the desperate.)

we saw Go4 last year and he was still doing that lol

(they were great fwiw)

lol, ned.

does anyone know of a disastrous attempt to get a reunion going with a band and having it fall apart? i have to imagine drugs might be a factor. would probably make a good movie.

Stone Roses

probably cases of individual artists in bad shape dragged out on tour and having it end badly. i still have flashbacks to the nightmare time someone brought little howlin' wolf to play at my store. oof...that was rough. afraid to even type his name. he might come back and get me...though he actually liked me which was also kinda scary.

oh wait nevermind he died last year. can't believe that anything could kill him!

https://chicago.suntimes.com/obituaries/2023/10/13/23911261/james-pobiega-little-howlin-wolf-saxophone-player-busker-michigan-avenue-bridge-chicago-river-cruise

The least likely reunion I ever thought I'd see was one of the Cream shows at MSG in 2005. It was good! It helped that I didn't pay for the then-insanely-priced ticket, which was $300-plus iirc — a friend had a spare and gave it to me. It would probably be $2,500 now or something. I mean, if it were still possible to have a Cream reunion.

Having seen Clapton a few times before, it was a bit revelatory. He didn't seem to be phoning it in at all, I think the tensions within the band pushed all of them to work at it, nobody wanted to be shown up. It was pretty cool to hear those songs by the OG guys, even if Bruce's never-great vocals had deteriorated significantly.

FWIW, I think I've formally written about this kind of thing twice specifically -- once for the OC Weekly back in 2007, centered around a particular tour but more about the wider subject, and I tried not to let myself off the hook in the end:

https://www.ocweekly.com/music-all-of-this-and-nothing-6365954/

More recently for my Patreon, a little more indirectly but even so:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/when-youre-of-92658315

does anyone know of a disastrous attempt to get a reunion going with a band and having it fall apart?

Bauhaus?

does anyone know of a disastrous attempt to get a reunion going with a band and having it fall apart? i have to imagine drugs might be a factor. would probably make a good movie.

― scott seward, Tuesday, June 4, 2024 7:45 AM

this post made me say out loud, "uggghh, remember BANDS REUNITED on vh1?"

i don't really remember it but now i want to see it.

does anyone know of a disastrous attempt to get a reunion going with a band and having it fall apart? i have to imagine drugs might be a factor. would probably make a good movie.

― scott seward, Tuesday, June 4, 2024 10:45 AM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sunny day real estate (third reunion)

sad person wallowing in their middle-aged crisis whereas I, a distinguished critic,

I have definitely fretted that the late career records that I've thought were totally top rank (Read and Burn EPs, No Cities to Love, The Seer) are actually Voodoo Lounge level fodder, but trapped in my generational context, I cannot see. Those have held up though.

The Breeders seem like the exception to everything in the rock band arc. Deal so doesn't give a fuck and is such a confident, self-contained artist. I listed to the catalog last week, and while I'd still rate the records in descending chronological order, there's very little drop off.

oh yeah that cream show. agree that was good! i wish he'd been playing his les paul standard and not that stupid strat but that's a quibble. we were all the way in the rafters but side view so they were decent seats. they weren't too expensive.

we saw Go4 last year and he was still doing that lol

What a durable microwave!

that last Genesis tour definitely had the makings of it, Phil Collins' condition was deteriorating rapidly and they had to postpone everything a year due to COVID, he got through it somehow though

against all odds

does anyone know of a disastrous attempt to get a reunion going with a band and having it fall apart?

The Love reunion apparently ended with Arthur Lee threatening to have a band member's family murdered, although it seems to have worked for a while.

Simon & Garfunkel reuniting, breaking up again, and Simon erasing G-Funk from what would become Hearts and Bones.

Pixies were the huge $$$$ reunion that a lot of these bands looked at, yes. But I have to think they were following Mission of Burma who reunited a couple years before they did. I was so happy to catch Burma, it didn't feel like they were doing it just for money because how much would there even have been? They went on to put out a couple very decent "reunion albums"- but they truly felt like a going concern.

I think another vector in the equation is: how much of a commercial enterprise were these bands to begin with? I mean you see some of these post-rock bands that were pretty much only playing basements in their heyday now selling like, tote bags? No new music, but lots of merch and an Amex pre-sale.

― encino morricone (majorairbro)

yeah i fuckin' loved mission of burma's reunion - _the obliterati_ is my favorite mob record full stop. they broke up when i was 7! i couldn't have seen them originally

i was seeing... there's this band whose '90s demo cd went viral, and they're touring the us, which the original never would have done. they have fans now and they didn't before. i don't know if i'd see them or if they're good, but people get to _hear_ them live, they get to _play_ for audiences they never would have. and it's the same for a lot of reunion bands, i think. i saw magma's second-ever US gig. their first was in 1973, three years before i was born.

i'm old and a lot of the music i listen to is, i guess, "oldies" music for lack of a better term. what concerts have i seen recently? i saw the sleepytime gorilla museum reunion. in that case i did see the original band, and honestly, the reunion show was ok. i meant to see faun fables a month later but time slips away. i bet i would've liked faun fables better. the SGM reunion was better than free salamander exhibit, who were kinda meh, but i did at least get a chance to see cheer-accident, who are another one of those bands who've been around forever and whose work i... occasionally check in on, i haven't heard all their stuff. the last one i really clicked with was "fear draws misfortune", which is 15 years ago now. i should check out, like, _chicago xx_ or something.

i saw deerhoof with a friend last year and they were fun. i never listened to them much, i don't know their originals. they did the "knight rider" theme. the friend is a fan and i just kind of know who they are. again, they didn't break up.

i don't think melt-banana broke up either... they've been touring, they just haven't released a record in 11 years. they're releasing a new one this year. i never saw them live before. they were pretty amazing to watch to be honest. it wasn't all older hipsters like at the deerhoof concert. or at least i don't think so, i look at 40 year olds these days and think they're young. it was pretty great because of how yasuko is using technology. she and agata showed up there and just fucking killed. their last album was their best one yet, but that was over a decade ago... and with them being a duo i wasn't sure how they'd be able to play their songs live. i figured it'd be a lot of playing to backing tracks.

and what they did wound up being way cooler than that. yasuko had her phone out and she was using it to change up the bass and drum patterns on the fly. it's the first time i've ever seen technology used to create something that doesn't sound like singing to a backing track like on _top of the pops_ or some dude sitting behind a laptop. they were full-band songs performed by a duo but had the freedom of interpretation that i'm only used to hearing from rock groups - the songs _didn't_ sound exactly like the albums at all. it was felt like she was using the rhythms to kind of conduct the mosh pit. there was a mosh pit, too! they're a noise-rock duo of people in their like 50s and people were out there moshing. i was out there moshing, even though i regretted it. i'd rather hear melt-banana play "uncontrollable urge" than hear DEVO play "uncontrollable urge". devo are cool and all but i've never seen them and never really wanted to.

turns out yasuko is a guest vocalist on an album by a group called _squid pisser_, on the title track. it sounds great! yasuko sounds amazing!

the drop nineteens reunion interests me a little bit, but not for the new stuff... i'm just hoping they get to actually release the _mayfield_ demo, which is my favorite of their stuff.

My general rule with reunions is I will maybe go if I didn't see them the first time around or if they are doing mostly new material. I don't begrudge anyone wanting a payday but don't feel a need to see it.

i was all about the ATCQ reunion before it resulted in recorded music, I saw them in 2006, but had no idea how badly they were squabbling behind the scenes at the time

though disagreeing w/ upthread, I always enjoy listening to the reunion album they put out

I'd pay like $30 to go see Jane's but unfortunately prices are like 5 x that. Same issue I had with the Pavement shows.

Well, it's Jane's <and> Love And Rockets, so...

$150 for two bands!! that seems high.

i was thinking about going to the first day of the New England Metal And Hardcore Festival in September and its about $120 for, like, 20+ bands! i am a concert value shopper.

Headliner: KILLSWITCH ENGAGE - 25th ANNIVERSARY SHOW

Lineup (alphabetical order): 200 Stab Wounds, After The Burial, Alluvial, Balmora, Better Lovers, Converge, Emmure, Full of Hell, Incendiary, Integrity, Machine Head, Mammoth Grinder, Missing Link, Nails, No Cure, On Broken Wings, Overkill, Psycho Frame, Simulakra, Since The Flood, The Red Chord, Tribal Gaze, Xibalba + MANY MORE TBA

the second day is good too but i think i could only handle one day. and Converge/Full of Hell/Nails on the first day are the ones for me.

Headliner: SLAUGHTER TO PREVAIL

Lineup (alphabetical order):

As I Lay Dying, Bane, Brand Of Sacrifice, Brat, Corpse Pile, Death Before Dishonor, Disembodied Tyrant, Ends of Sanity, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Ingested, Jarhead Fertilizer, Life Cycles, Mouth For War, Pain of Truth, Peeling Flesh, Shadow of Intent, Snuffed On Sight, Suicidal Tendencies, Suicide Silence, The Zenith Passage, Throwdown, Trail Of Lies, Two Piece, Upon Stone, With Honor + MANY MORE TBA

in today's uncertain times, hardcore still good bang for the buck.

if i were a union tradesmen punk fan i would be able to afford the $325 Saturday VIP package:

SATURDAY DELUXE VIP PACKAGE

- ONE (1) GENERAL ADMISSION TICKET (SATURDAY ONLY)

- MEET & GREET WITH SELECT ARTISTS (SATURDAY ONLY - FULL LIST OF BANDS TBA)

- SEPARATE VIEWING AREA WITH PRIVATE CASH BAR + PRIVATE RESTROOMS

- COMMEMORATIVE FESTIVAL T-SHIRT

- EXCLUSIVE FESTIVAL POSTER

- EXCLUSIVE VIP NEMHF DICE

- EXCLUSIVE VIP NEMHF FOAM FINGER

- NEMHF 2024 KOOZIE

- NEMHF 2024 DRAWSTRING BAG

- EXCLUSIVE VIP SOUVENIR LAMINATE WITH LANYARD

- CD GRAB BAG FROM NUCLEAR BLAST AND SHARPTONE RECORDS

- FESTIVAL RE-ENTRY

PRIVATE CASH BAR say no more