As someone with a track record of watching some of the older popular beat combo outfits over the years, you might be surprised to learn that I am not exactly over-enthused at the news that the original Gun N Roses are reforming this year for a series of shows. I happen to think that Axl Rose and Slash were behind some of the greatest rock music ever made, but I am not remotely interested in paying an arm and a leg to watch them run through a selection of their greatest hits. For me to be interested, I would prefer it if they played new music as well.
Amongst the acts I saw in 2015 were Crosby, Stills and Nash and the Zombies, most of whom are in their seventies. Both bands played a good few new songs, the Zombies played pretty well an entire new album. New music, new life. Meanwhile, both the Specials and the Stone Roses, two of the finest bands of all time, have made comeback tours on a nostalgia kick no more relevant (to me) than the annual “Let’s Rock Bristol” festival featuring heritage acts, or members thereof, with nothing but the past to look forward to. If I want to hear nothing but old songs, I’ll buy a bloody record, thank you very much.
I would extend my cynicism to my all time favourite band, Steely Dan, who tour endlessly on a greatest hits platform with a setlist going back to the 70s and 80s. Impeccably played, of course, but without exception the exact same setlist every single night; going through the motions.
New music, new life was a term used by David Crosby of CSN who continue to write and play new material. In fact Crosby in 2014 and Nash this year are releasing albums of entirely new material. To me it gives the band added creditability, that they are not just living the past to make a few quid for the retirement fund.
This is not to say that many of the bands making new music are touring just for the love of it because that would not be true. It will certainly be part of the equation for them, whereas for the heritage acts who no longer make new music money will be their raison d’être. A Thompson twin plays a festival in a large field in Bristol will not, I suggest, be making music in order to serve his art form. But if people are paying good money and having a good time, who am I to complain?
I’ll make an exception for Brian Wilson if he tours Britain this year for the last time. His stellar back catalogue could be played on a permanent loop so far as I am concerned and anyone, with one or two exceptions his recent music has made grim listening.
Billy Joel is back in the UK this year, having not even written a song since the 1980s, and although his voice is not what it was, he will doubtless provide the jukebox to the lives of a great many people. I’d even be inclined to go myself if he wrote something new, but he’s not the only one.
