Hey, I Remember That Day

Today, September 15th, 2017, is the first day of this year's edition of Riot Fest, which has now firmly unseated The Fest as North America's most popular punk music festival. This year's edition of the festival has been notable because it is being headlined by the incredible and influential 90's emo/punk band Jawbreaker. While my non-punk friends will yawn at this, this is the biggest deal to punk fans because for the last twenty years, since breaking up shortly after their 1995 album Dear You was released, a Jawbreaker reunion has been labelled as one of those things "that will just never happen".

Jawbreaker along with Operation Ivy, the Dead Kennedys, the Misfits, Hüsker Dü (A hearty RIP to Grant Hart, who passed away this week, for contributing to one of punk's all-time greats), and The Replacements were seen as perfect bands whose role in important punk scenes and influence on later bands reached legendary status after their dissolution. Each band's break-up was also fraught with interpersonal tension (except Operation Ivy), which meant that any chance of the bands getting back together for later fans to see them would be unlikely. Speaking from my own perspective, this only made them even more appealing to me when I was discovering them much later. I discovered Jawbreaker through hearing other bands cite them as an integral influence on their own music, and the fact that I was living my Jawbreaker experience through somebody else's seem exciting and important.

I also thought it was really cool that there were bands out there who were "too punk too reunite". I still enjoyed it when The Ergs and Descendents came back to give me a chance to experience them again, but the fact that some bands valued their own convictions more than the pay they would receive further cemented my own values. It feels good to know that there are other true believers out there.

A brief aside: I also experience this type of feeling when the golden god Roy Halladay signed a one-day contract with the Toronto Blue Jays to retire at the age of 36, saying that he would rather retire then than continue to play later into life when he wouldn't be able to pitch as well and not live up to his own expectations in competition. Roy Halladay: More punk than Jawbreaker?

The "never-reuniting" myth was pretty much personified by Jawbreaker, as there were rumours that the band had turned down a $2,000,000 offer to get back together, and when asked about it, frontman Blake Schwarzenbach consistently said "No Way." There was even a band tongue-in-cheekly named "Jawbreaker Reunion" for fuck sakes.

A few years ago, Riot Fest started making "Holy Shit!" bands reunions their gimmick. This happened first when The Replacements played their first show in 22 years at the 2013 editions of the festival and then when they somehow got the friggin' Misfits to play a set at the 2016 version of the fest. The Misfits reunion was especially a significant moment, as nobody thought that Gelnn Danzig could possibly hold his chill for long enough to perform with the band.

This was all just an appetiser for this year's announcement of the Jawbreaker reunion, which was so significant that all of my punk friends immediately contacted each other about it. Takes were abound. It seemed like I could feel Riot Fest's self-satisfied "Yeah, we just did this" grin from through my computer screen. It was something I really believed I would never see.

I guess I wrote this whole thing to a prelude to my own thoughts on the reunion, but they're hard to state because I'm still not sure exactly where I stand on everything.

One hand, I hate big festivals, as I find them impersonal and overcrowded, they always have bad sound, and always end up underwhelming. Riot Fest, in particular, was a pretty shitty time the last time I went. I definitely don't like the idea of a payday being the main reason of a band ending a lengthy hiatus. I can't shake the "I don't agree with this" feeling that I get when thinking about big reunions and the more I think about it, the harder it is for me to define.

On the other hand, why should a band not get theirs when they can? I mean, one of the main reasons a band tours , aside from the joy of playing and having fun with your friends and showing people your art (all more important in my book), is to make money. As much as I would like to divorce finance from art, it's impossible. I think there's also something to be said for being in attendance for the reunion and getting to take in a significant punk moment. Much like I felt when first discovering the band, I'm sure that seeing everyone react when Jawbreaker walks out onstage on Sunday will feel important.

I guess I'll close by saying that a lot people are losing it about this, in both ways. Some people are ecstatic that they are finally seeing their favourite band and some people are very mad (I wouldn't characterize myself as "mad" but I suppose that I fall into this category rather than the other). People weren't as polarized when the Misfits reunited last year, but now any uproar about it happening seems so distant in the past. Realistically, I think that in a year or so, the Jawbreaker reunion will be a thing that happened and nobody will really think about it. This reunion doesn't do anything to the quality of their records, which is what really matters.

And when that day comes, I suppose that I can go back to holding up Jesse Michaels and Jello Biafra for sticking to their values, even though I try to have no heroes.