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Chris Bond: The real reason bands get back together? Just ask Pink Floyd...
WHEN I heard that Pink Floyd's Richard Wright had passed away a few months back, it saddened me for two reasons.
Firstly, because the music world had lost not only a great keyboard player, but a talented songwriter responsible for such classic songs as The Great Gig in the Sky, and Us and Them.
Secondly, and more selfishly, it meant that I'd never be able to see Pink Floyd live. I'd always stubbornly refused to go and watch them on the grounds that without another original band member, Roger Waters, it wasn't really Pink Floyd.
Purists will say, well what about Syd Barrett? But he wasn't with the band during their '70s heyday when they created such masterpieces as Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, Waters was.
So it was with no small amount of envy that I sat in front of the TV and watched the band's reunion concert for Live 8 three years ago, wishing I was there.
Which brings me on to Blur, who announced this week that they were getting back together.
The former Britpop poster boys are doing a concert in London's Hyde Park next summer after Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon confirmed they had put their well-publicised differences behind them. "It just felt it was right again," claimed Albarn.
This may well be the case, and at least those who pay their 45 quid to go and watch them will be seeing the original line-up.
The same can't be said of some other bands. The Doors, for instance, would require a miracle of Lazarus-like proportions in order to get back together.
Sometimes, however, the miraculous can actually happen. Guitarist Glenn Frey was once asked if the Eagles would ever tour again, to which he famously replied: "When hell freezes over."
It was actually 12 years between their acrimonious split and them getting back together, a little sooner than Frey's apocalyptic prediction.
There are some bands, though, that have become bigger than their component parts.
The Rolling Stones will probably keep going as long as Mick and Keith do, and the same goes for Oasis and the Gallagher brothers.
However, the reason so many other acts have reformed is down to demand. Because when it comes to rock and pop music we wallow in misty-eyed nostalgia for the bands we grew up listening to.
Which would be fine if it hadn't spawned a whole industry that has, in recent years, seen just about every one-hit wonder and has-been under the sun jumping on the bandwagon.
So who's next? Given Michael Jackson's well-documented financial problems, it will probably only be a matter of time before he's back on stage doing ABC again. Because let's face it, beyond all the back-slapping and cheesy smiles, we know why most bands get back together – and who can blame them?
As Pink Floyd once said – "Money, it's a hit".
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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