Why do they do it? Solo artists who have long since departed, if not this world, then at least as far as the west coast of Ireland or to a quiet cove in Mallorca?
The band who long ago split up because of fierce arguments over royalty points and publishing rights. Why?
Divorced couples rarely wake up ten years after the decree absolute and call each other to give it another shot. Bobby Charlton has (we can safely assume) no burning ambition to wear, once more, the Manchester United number ten shirt. Mrs Thatcher (and I promise you this) is not for returning. Yet, in the underworld of popular music, singers and groups have an innate drive to bolster the retirement fund, and dismiss the ravages of time and reality as mere flotsam and jetsam on the shipping lane to Treasure Island.
Sadly, the motivation to put in the minimum required effort to take their reputation and career to a higher level was left behind, many years ago, backstage at the Mean Fiddler. So, at best, we are regaled with a re-re-re-packaged ‘greatest hits’, (“Let’s re-record them!” “Wait! Let’s go acoustic!”) with the obligatory two ‘additional tracks’, written by the guitarist on the way to the studio, where the arguments about royalty shares surface once more – the conciliatory meeting in The Flask two months ago now long forgotten.
Surrounded now by those whose very employment depends on their ability to say precisely what is required to sustain the hyperbole that a return to the heights of the musical universe is just one minor chord away, the myth is propagated.
Two hundred and seventeen followers are to be found on the Twitter feed. Seventy eight fans sign up for the new forum on the revamped website.
But all of those seventy eight fans download the two new tracks through file sharing. The reunion is featured on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, accompanied by a photo montage of a blubber whale scooping up dollar bills as if so many plankton.
Alexis Petridis reviews the showcase reunion gig at the Dublin Castle and likens it to having his ears removed by Edward Scissorhands wielding a chainsaw whilst high on acid. The self deception is complete; the illusion shattered like a thousand remnant CDs in a junkyard crusher.
So why do they do it? Is it the adrenalin rush; the memory of acclaim and recognition; or simply the vanity of hope and the dismissal of reality?
Why do they do it?
Terence Dackombe, November 2009
