Rock reunions: Many bands return to the road
By SANDRA COHEN
Many bands are reviving old music and creating new to take on the road.
LOS ANGELES — Your favorite band ’90s band broke up? Fear not, they’ll be back.
Seventies and ’80s bands, too. And if not this year, maybe next.
This summer’s concert calendar boasts tours by reunited rockers and relics — Stone Temple Pilots (split in 2003) and New Kids on the Block (split in 1994) — and recently re-energized bands such as the B-52s, the Black Crowes, Motley Crue and Yes. A round of reunion shows filled last summer’s slate as well, with the Police, Led Zeppelin, Genesis and Van Halen playing their time-tested hits for fans.
It seems that no matter how storied the split, almost every band is bound to get back together — and that could make the magic of an anticipated reunion a little less magical.
“If you can say it’s a reunion of some sort, it does make it feel special and unique,” said Michael Endelman, senior editor of Rolling Stone magazine. “But some you hear and it’s exciting and some you hear and say, ‘Didn’t they just tour last summer?’”
The reunion-tour trend is inspired by money and the alluring power of nostalgia — for both fans and artists — so don’t expect any slowdown, Endelman said.
“To go back on stage in front of an adoring crowd and relive some of these great moments and play all these old songs of theirs, psychologically it must be very seductive and very powerful for them,” he said. “Because it’s become so profitable for so many bands, it’s become very attractive and it’s bringing out a lot of bands to try that. ... There’s a lot of money to be made in cashing in on people’s nostalgia for things they were excited about when they were teenagers.”
Not all reunion tours are created equal. They must be examined on a band-by-band basis, said Erik Pedersen, music coordinator and news editor at The Hollywood Reporter. Some are really for the fans, some are really for the bands and some are really for the money.
Stone Temple Pilots could hit all three. With songs still on radio playlists, the band has younger fans who know the tunes but have never seen them played live, Pedersen said. Their breakup was “spectacular” and like “a rock ’n’ roll soap opera,” Endelman added, so fan interest remained. And the quartet “ran out of money,” singer Scott Weiland quipped at a press conference announcing their summer tour, which began Saturday in Columbus.