You’re a superstar. At the gay bar. Despite the Poetic
wonder of Electric Six’s 2003 work ‘Gay Bar’, the band have one thing that none
of the following acts in these 2 lists have- they haven't broken up (as of 2012). They are
rock solid. On that nostalgic note of the wonder of those 2003 Rock pioneers, this week I am going to list the 5 worst
comebacks in music-often caused by accountants reminding their clients that
they have blown all their music dollars on lavish ornaments to put around their
mansions and must now pretend they want to go back and ‘do it for the music and
the fans, man’. I am also going to list the 5 best comebacks, just for a
positive vibe, whereby we never expected our heroes to return, but not only did
they reform but they also blew us away by being even bigger and better than
before.
The 5 Worst Comebacks
5) Van Halen: MTV Video Music Awards 1996
I wont be making any jokes about 'Jumping' the Shark that's for sure. But when Van Halen bounced back into public consciousness in 1996 by reuniting not to perform but to announce the winner for Best Male Video at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards, David Lee Roth proudly declared "this is the first time we've actually stood on stage together for over a decade". Everyone naturally thought this would mean they'd (when I say they'd I mean specifically Roth and Eddie Van Halen) start playing music together again. But it turns out that music sucks, who needs to play 'music' when you can bend the rules and claim to have a reunion by simply standing awkwardly on a stage presenting an award to someone you don't care about. Luckily Van Halen's formula for a reunion doesn't work; weeks later Roth claimed he was an unwitting participant in a publicity stunt orchestrated by Van Halen, to which EVH replied with "Thank you for reminding us why we broke up with you eleven years ago". They're such a big gang of grown-ups that Van Halen lot.
4) Guns N Roses: MTV Music Awards 2002
Turn around Bitch I’ve
got a use for you, besides you haven’t got anything better to do, and I’m
bored. The poet laureate standard of lyrics we came to know and love from
Axl Rose, who in 1994 disappeared off the face of the earth for 8 years. When
he returned in 2002 at the MTV Music Awards with none of the original line-up
but with a man with a fucking KFC bucket on his head playing guitar, everyone
was naturally disappointed but not really surprised. Axl had transformed from an
aggressive, stage commanding, fresh faced handsome rebel to a dreadlocked tubby
middle aged man who couldn't sing or remember how to look cool on stage. Rose
is still dragging the Guns N Roses name through the mud with poor live
performances which still include coming on stage hours late, and the disappointing Chinese
Democracy, which only took 14 years to make.
3) The Doors: 2000 and 2011
Going to see the Doors without Jim Morrison would be a bit
like drinking non-alcoholic beer-a complete waste of your time and money. When young Jim passed
away in the tub in 1971, it was generally thought that to respect Jim’s legacy
and the bands honour (and because nobody would be interested) they would never
reunite. Sadly in 2002 the band forgot that everyone in the 60's turned
up for the Lizard King Morrisson, not the Keyboard playing nerd Ray Manzarek, and they toured
under the name The Doors of the 21st
Century. Original man on the skins John Densmore took his psychedelic chums
to the cleaners via the American legal system and they had to change their name
to Riders on the Storm. Recently old bespectacled Manzarek has been heard
saying enchanted things such as “I like to say this is the first new Doors
track of the 21st century” of the new song he recorded with…SKRILLEX!! Luckily I think somehow that Jim Morrison’s
vocals on Break on Through(To the Other
Side) will likely long outlive any Skrillex ft. Ray Manzarek collab.
2) Sex Pistols: Filthy Lucre Tour 1996
Many bad things happened in 1996. 2Pac was murdered. Linkin Park
were formed. Arnold Schwazneggers Jingle
All the Way was released and has been repeatedly shown on television every year since then. Oh and one of the most important bands of the 20th
century reunited. But this wasn't anarchy in the UK. It was a bunch of sweaty
middle-aged men, (of course minus the member who actually signified everything
that Punk meant, the late Sid Vicious), wanting more money to pay for the
extensions on their mansions in Surrey. You see the Pistols had only ever released one album, and despite it being one of the most iconic and pioneering Rock albums of the 20th century, a discography that only includes one studio album isn't exactly going to lead you to becoming Scrooge McDuck swimming in all those golden coins. So it was all for money, money for all. It was less Punk than Camilla Parker
Bowles' napkin collection. Rotten has made selling out into a sport now too,
getting into the anarchic spirit by selling Butter in tv adverts dressed as a
farmer.
1) Led Zeppelin: Live Aid 1985
Who can quite forget Live Aid. Freddie Mercury’s incredible performance
with Queen. All the members of Band Aid reuniting and singing do they know its
Christmas in the middle of summer. Bob Geldof swearing his tits off. 1.9
billion people across 150 nations watched the bugger. At the JFK Stadium there
was an exorbitant amount of excitement, as Led Zeppelin were about to play
their first live show since arguably the greatest drummer of all time John
Bonham had died 5 years previous, and were going to play with Phil Collins, one
of the most famous drummers in the world at the time, so famous in fact he had
jetted between Wembley and JFK to play at both Live Aid events. What could go
wrong? Everything is the answer to that. The band members not playing in time
with each other, Jimmy Page clearly being off his tits and having an out of
tune guitar, the sound being terrible, the monitors not working properly, Phil
Collins clearly having never played with the band before, Robert Plant’s voice
cracking even in the first song…the list goes on. It could have been a school
band playing the songs. It was so bad the band didn’t allow the footage to be
used on the Live Aid DVD 19 years later, claiming it was a “sub-standard
performance”, and the experience was so bad it has scared them off from
performing live, only reuniting on stage a handful of times since the performance.
The 5 Best Comebacks
5) Pink Floyd: Live 8 2005
Yes Roger Waters was
clearly forcing himself to smile throughout, and yes they clearly still haven't ironed out their differences. But when Pink Floyd reunited in
2005 for a one-off reunion concert, it was for once not motivated by money like
the majority of superstar reunions are, but instead it was a the rare reunion kind of kindred brother-hood, with all the members showing up (obviously apart from Syd Barrett who'd gone crazy 35 years earlier) and despite sharing more time
in the court room than on the stage in the build-up to the event, and looking more like bankers on their day off than the Rock stars they looked like in the 70's, Pink Floyd put on an amazing and epic show
that blew everyone away, the emotion of the day melting away the hostility in the band, and, as probably last concerts go, this is one of the best there is.
4) Blur: Hyde Park 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe4s1MmX6us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe4s1MmX6us
When Brit-Pop legends Blur reunited on stage for the first time in 6 years, the 50,000 tickets for the concert at Hyde Park sold out in 10 minutes. There were thousands of fans who missed out on tickets. I was one of them, and yes I am bitter and I do hold grudges. Nonetheless I cannot shy away from the fact that incredibly the now dad-rockers somehow conjured up a tidal wave of energy which crashed down and swamped their audience, and rightly so achieved sheer veneration from their fans in return. It is remarkable that their best moment as a band was their first gig after a 6 year break, and its unlikely such a Rock band will ever achieve such perfection with a comeback performance. Song 2 is probably still ringing in the audiences ears 3 years on.
3) Roy Orbison: Travelling Wilbury's/Mystery Girl 1988
Roy Orbison reached the pinnacle of his career in 1964, with
his most famous song Oh Pretty Woman.
He was a pioneering Rockabilly singer, had a great voice, and generally looked
bloody cool. But Like I said, 1964 was the pinnacle. After a series of
tragedies in his life, and along with the rise of the psychedelic
movement, Orbison quickly became
forgotten and unfashionable. But in a bizarre combo of events in the late 1980’s
he shot back to the top. David Lynch used Orbison’s song In Dreams in the film Blue
Velvet (against Orbison’s wishes) and in turn they together made a video
for the song for MTV, and this was followed by Orbison collaborating with Bob
Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne to form the The Traveling Wilburys. This all gave
Orbison tremendous exposure, and briefly he was a mega-star again, only sadly
this period was cut short as he died in 1988, the pressure of being shot from a
canon back into stardom clearly taking its toll on the 52 year old Orbison’s health.
2) Johnny Cash: American IV: The Man Comes Around 2002
When Cash returned out of nowhere in 2002, people weren't expecting too much. A respected icon of Country Music, Cash was seen as something of the past. But when he released a cover Nine Inch Nails song Hurt, from the last album before his death American IV: The Man Comes Around, it touched such a chord with the music public that it re-shot him to the superstar status that the
legend enjoyed in the 1960’s. One of the finest swansongs in music, the album,
consisting largely of covers, is both haunting and beautiful, his gravelly and
wonderfully aged voice giving songs Hurt,
Personal Jesus, and Danny Boy a
new lease of life and in his terms, a new meaning. A final album is unlikely to
ever be released in such a way again, or achieve the same purpose or feeling that Cash managed to do did in his final days,
1) Elvis Pressley: Comeback Special 1968
Elvis may have died 10 years later in embarrassing
circumstances, having ballooned in size whilst having shrunk in musical
stature, but if you watch his comeback, his first time on stage in 7 years, you
will get goosebumps every time. Elvis’s career had been on a downwards slope
during the 60’s, his music being buried by the Beatles’s led British Invasion and psychedelic Rock such as The Doors and Jimi Hendrix. He spent a lot of the 60’s
appearing in dud movies largely all with the same plot and terrible songs. For this comeback performance in 1968, The
oppressive Col. Parker had made plans for Elvis to sing dull Christmas numbers
in the same form that he had to perform in his movies. However Elvis rebelled.
He dressed in black, and bought back the moves and blues music of his early
career, and for a brief moment re-lit the fire that had made Elvis a legend in
the first place. Elvis was back. It may have been short lived and his decline
into the abyss did accelerate after this, but for a man that so many across the
world still have an extreme veneration for, it was a triumphant moment of music
and television history.
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