Got to Be There

Something that's become increasingly popular are bands from my youth reuniting to play "nostalgia" reunion shows or tours. I guess that this is mostly a result of me entering my 30s, and things from earlier in my life now coming around again for a second time. When I was younger, it was funny to think of old bands from the 80s and 90s being fat shells of themselves and playing small clubs because I couldn't imagine that any pop-punk band of the 00s could ever be fat shells of themselves playing small clubs.

So then, three questions to answer during this post:

1. Are nostalgia reunion tours either good or worth it?

2. Is it better to bring back the original lineup, or use touring musicians?

3. Are full album shows bad?

Now that huge festivals are the norm for live music experiences, I feel like having a marquee reunion to headline the festival has become just as normal. It's no longer enough to just gather every band under the sun to play for 30 minutes over three days; you need at least one band to play on Saturday night that people thought they would never ever see.

This trickles down to smaller festivals, and even tours too. Even if you are putting together a mid-level punk festival, it seems like securing a reunion of some band from the 90s/00s is a top priority. I can think of when I saw Lifetime and Bad Astronaut at Pouzza I (very good!) and Treble Charger at Koi Fest in 2013 (very bad!).

These nostalgia reunions can be a lot more fun when you are younger and care more about going to festivals. When you're 22 and drunk for the entire weekend, the event is almost as fun as the sets themselves.

While I was in my most pop-punk phase during university, one of my favourite bands at the time was the Movielife, who were active in the late 90s and early 00s. I missed them the first time around, but fell in love with their album 40 Hour Train Back to Penn because of the influence of my friend Brian, who I was attached at the hip with at the time. The principal songwriter had gone on to form I Am the Avalanche (in hindsight, a much better band), and there hadn't been any indication of future activity since they broke up in 2003 (4? I'm not going to look that up). They quickly became one of those "Imagine if it happened?" bands and then the singer playing a Movielife set with Set Your Goals at the extremely 2010s emo festival Bamboozle.

They eventually did a reunion tour that I missed because I wasn't listening to the band very much and had grown out of my pop-punk phase. Then, last year that did another tour playing all of 40 Hour Train Back to Penn and Has a Gambling Problem at each show. I hadn't been to a show in a while and was feeling extremely guilty about that, so I decided to go, since I loved those albums so much.

The show was pretty bad and very embarrassing. Everyone who was there seemed to be in the same boat as me, and was more interested in standing near the back than doing stage dives to 40-year-olds playing songs from 2002. The singer was getting increasingly frustrated at the terrible crowd response throughout the show. He gave some pretty cringey speeches about how much fun it was to tour "back in the day" and how good the scene used to be. Singing a song about people get too caught up in the past while being on a tour playing an album from 20 years ago. It was impossible to read it as anything other than a guy trying cling to his last bits of relevance.

I think the last time I saw Less Than Jake falls into this too.

These two experiences convinced me that seeing old bands I used to like is always bad. Unfortunately, punk is mostly a young man's game and seeing bands you loved when you were 22 has diminishing returns. I can give a definite "no" to the first question.

But then I also saw Daggermouth play a reunion show in 2017 and it was so much fun. The band was obviously there to have fun and that came through so much in the performance. As much as I'm sure they were interested in re-living the glory days, it was, somehow, done in a non-pretentious way and everyone had a great time.

So, sometimes they work?

Neither the Movielife or Daggermouth brought original lineups with them, as I'm sure the hesitance to relive pop-punk's glory days as a 40-year-old is what broke up the bands to begin with. Instead, they had capable hands with them to fill out the sound. Hell, the Movielife's only original member was the singer, I'm pretty sure. It's hard to say that getting the band together is the missing element, because I'm sure that people who moved on from playing music when they were younger haven't practicing since then.

The full-album thing still really sticks with me though, as it's gotten so popular lately. Sometimes even active bands advertise that they will play their full classic album in lieu of a regular set. I will admit that this element is what drew me to the Movielife set. I figured that if I was going to the show, these are the songs I would want to see anyways, right? Instead it came off as such a cloying desperate move to get as many people to come to the show as possible.

When I saw Saves the Day in 2012, it wasn't exactly a reunion show, as they've steadily put out albums and toured throughout their whole existence, but it was pretty well after their period they're most well-known for. They played a mix of everything, including new songs, and it was great! I want bands to be excited for their own material. Play your songs because you are excited about them, not just so that we can hear them.

I'm firmly "full album shows are bad" now. Call me old fashioned, but I like being surprised when they play a song live. I like things being different from the album. I like it being live.

So, let's give it a no, no, yes.