A Different Kind of Reunion

“They’re getting back together”. Those words used to illicit such a reaction in the world of rock and roll. You don’t hear much about big reunions in the world of RnB because those acts tend to never break up, or if they lose a member or two, or three they just get replaced and the name stays on the marquee as is. This is not to say that the fans of the soul, Motown, disco, funk groups are having the wool pulled over their eyes; those fans just want to hear those songs live and played well. So what if there’s one remaining original member of the Temptations. Some of the musicians in that group have been Temptations three times as long as the original line-up and they sound better! In country music it tends to be the opposite. With the exception of The Judds, when country bands break up they pretty much stay broken up. The band Alabama was probably the biggest country group in history, and more than likely one of the biggest in any genre. They could probably ask for close to Rolling Stones money to get back together but mysteriously they don’t.

In rock music, the reunion is one of the most celebrated and scrutinized moments in the arc of the life of a rock band. The reason why this is for rock is because of just about everything else in rock; the Beatles. They were the first band where their split made international headlines, and polarized people who while fans speculated as to who was to blame. Once that initial moment was over, the words “reunion”, or “reunite” meant something far more than just a graduating class or large family picnic. The former members of The Beatles spent the entire seventies dodging, denying, and redirecting the never ending question, “do you think you’ll ever get back together?”. Even after the murder of the founder of the band in 1980, the other three still got hammered with requests and re-questioning. It never happened. Sure there’s stories, pictures and crappy recordings of jam sessions all four of them were involved in over the years, maybe not all four at the same time but certainly three of them.

Who had the first big reunion? I remember the Every Brothers reunion was pretty big when I was a kid in the early eighties. There was also the big Simon and Garfunkel reunion around the same time that a big favorite, but neither of which touched me with any major pomp and circumstance. There were reunions in the early eighties that took place with bands you didn’t even know broke up until you saw it years later on show’s like VH1’s “Behind the Music” for bands like The Animals, Yes, and The Byrds. The first big reunion for me was Deep Purple. The “Smoke on the Water” line-up reformed in 1984 and like Van Halen did recently, they released a reunion album. Not only did they release a reunion album, but a very strong one at that in “Perfect Strangers”. In the following year, 1985 the world saw a “reunion convention” in the Live Aid concerts on July 13th, 1985. I’m sure there were mini-reunions that didn’t get much press, but for the rock bands there were some big ones. Brian Wilson was back with the Beach Boys after undergoing some serious, controversial therapy that had him in shape physically. The original line-up of Black Sabbath with Ozzy Osbourne played a crushing set for the fearful yuppies and peaceniks in attendance at like 11:00 in the morning,(get better Tony, we’re pulling and praying). The Who, on what I would think was the first of their endless reunions, played very strong, and then finally the “big daddy” of reunions, Led Zeppelin.

This was potentially the rock moment of all time, history of Biblical proportions was about to take place. The stage was set and drama was in the air . The three surviving members of Led Zeppelin split almost five years earlier,which in hindsight is nothing in today’s rock world. It takes U2 that much time to come out with a new album. However, after the death of their pioneering drummer, John Bonham, the three men went their separate ways unable to overcome the emotional toll this had taken on them. All three went to make new music, some of which, (especially in the case of singer Robert Plant) was very markedly different from anything they had done in the previous decade. So now they’ve returned to aid in a humanitarian cause and must dig back into their musical past to unleash the hammer of gods once more. To guarantee success, and compensate the sound without Bonham, they brought in two super powered drummers in Phil Collins and Tony Thompson, (who came from the slick funk group Chic, and the Robert Palmer-fronted Power Station where his drumming was almost an homage to Bonham). After a quick tune up, the five men with the help of keyboardist/bassist Phil Martinez unleashed into the Little Richard-on-steroids-basher “Rock and Roll”. This was a reunion. This is what a rock reunion is all about. This is power and drama. This didn’t sound quite right.

Robert Plant was at a point in his career where he was perfect for what he was currently writing and performing, but for the Zeppelin catalogue not so much. He was too young and too good to require a tuning down of the instruments to match his range, but it had been too long since he had touched those songs and God knows what was going on back stage. These guys looked like they came out of a sauna before they even started. Robert Plant tells the story in some documentary that when it was time for the roadie or stage hand Jimmy Page his guitar they took it directly out of its case with no tuning or prep work at all, and it sounded like it. John Paul Jones kind of gets a pass on this one because you couldn’t hear him. It’s a toss up on who botched the drums on Whole Lotta Love but for the record the drums weren’t the problem. Youtube the backstage interview and it’s pretty apparent what went wrong. They weren’t ready,not just for the gig, but the reunion. They would try it again on and off for the fifteen years. It never really worked again, the magic that is; until 2007. They got it right on that late fall night in London in a tribute to their champion Ahmet Ertegun. They got so right that the reunion itself couldn’t withstand the enormity of the moment. After a two-hour powerhouse set, they left it on the stage that night, and it’s been there ever since…waiting.

With the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions now televised, we rock fans are pretty much guaranteed a reunion once a year, and sometimes you’ll get a dissolution right at the podium. When the RNRHOF started televising the program I really got into the reunion aspect of it, but as I get older I appreciate it even more when a younger band pays tribute to the honoree like Metallica did for Black Sabbath and Phish did for Genesis, even Joan Jett made me want to buy some Dave Clark Five itunes. There have been massively successful reunions possibly because of the Hall of Fame like; the Police, Cream, and probably the most successful one financially; The Eagles.

Now Van Halen have thrown down the gauntlet and taken the “triple-dog-dare” of rock reunions and released an album of new material. Don’t start with the old song nonsense. It’s new to me and it’s new to ASCAP, so it’s new. The Grateful Dead played Touch of Gray five years before they put out on record. Some of George Harrison’s best stuff was demoed with the Beatles before he put it out on his first solo album. So to Sammy…I mean the critics, let it go. The album is great. It’s a lot heavier than I expected and the sound on some of the tracks are little dark; think more Me Wise Magic, Hang Him High, and D.O.A. and less Dance the Night Away. This reunion looks like the real deal and they wisely took it for a test drive in 2007. They could even threaten to stick around some after the tour. Who knows? Who cares?, I do because as corny as this may sound I believe in the drama of rock, the celebration of rock, and once in a while when the time is right the power of rock returns putting smoke on the water one more time with the return of the hammer of the gods while we’re off running once again with the devil.


People also view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *