If anything sums up the sorry state of the music business, it is the reunion of Bros, the modestly talented popular beat combo outfit who had a few hits for a three and a bit year period at the end of the 1980s. That sorry state meaning the fact that their arena tour is expected to sell out in mere seconds
I have checked their unexceptional back catalogue to find they only made two records I had ever heard of, those being When Will I Be Famous? and I Owe You Nothing. Their final single, Try, reached the dizzy heights of 27 in the British hit parade and 39 in Belgium. Realising the game was up they split up. Now, realising they probably don’t have the talent to make money in any other way, here comes the reunion tour.
Bros are actually brothers, believe it or not. Luke is now almost completely lacking in hair which doesn’t matter too much since he plays drums but Matt has a fine head of hair which may well be somebody else’s. As well as Matt’s new hair – apologies to him if he managed to arrest male pattern baldness by natural means – I hope there is something new about next year’s tour. I somehow doubt it.
Bros represent something I detest about music these days, the band whose aim is simply to tour the old songs, even if the vast majority of their catalogue is unknown and, frankly, crap. This is why I cannot abide the annual Let’s Rock (insert city of your choice) where two and three hit wonders play their two or three hits to 20,000 undemanding 50-somethings. May I say at this point that there is absolutely nothing wrong with nostalgia gigs and festivals if that’s your bag. God knows I have done a few in my time, not least countless Brian Wilson shows where I really wish he wouldn’t make new music, so bad is his new output and in two weeks I am seeing Bad Company who have not made new music since God was a boy. At least Wilson and Paul Rodgers have substantial back catalogues to make it worthwhile. Which is more than you can say about Bros. Or the Thompson twin who shows up along with Howard Bleeding Jones.
There will be a new old Bros record to accompany the tour which will include both the “classics” to which I referred earlier, as well as Sister, Madly in Love and Are You Mine?, none of which ring any bells at all. It will be called ‘The Very Best of Bros’ or ‘The Essential Bros’, which is probably fair enough since I have never heard of a band having an inessential record. Imagine ‘The Inessential Bros’? Not going to happen, is it?
Doubtless the over-excited young girls who went to see Bros when they were famous will be over-excited older girls when Matt and Luke are wheeled out to perform their hits and good for them. In terms of music, it will be another step back to the eighties, surely the worst and least exciting and dynamic decades in the history of music, the decade the music nearly died.
This will certainly be a useful pension top up for the lads, but nothing more. They owe us nothing, nothing at all and I wish they’d kept it that way.
