And it's too late to say you're sorry

I have very mixed feelings about once-great bands that get back together.

It's not exactly because I think music is a young person's game, at least I hope not. Although I am fond, as has been well documented on this blog, on a scrawny hottie with an instrument in his hands, I would still line up around the block to see Nick Cave or Leonard Cohen or someone similarly brilliant and distinctly... not young. (If I'm being honest I also would, and indeed have, pay to see Morrissey any day of the week. Shut up.)

I think the problem is the reforming part. With someone like Cave or Cohen they've been around for so long they have a huge list of songs and even though it might be the predictable old hits I look forward to hearing from them, there's not the sense that, say, Famous Blue Raincoat or The Mercy Seat is all these guys have. They might play their old stuff because people ask for it but they've evolved since then and don't mind showing it.

So I don't know what to think when I hear The Zombies have reformed. On the one hand Odessey & Oracle is a great album and listening to the hook of "She's Not There" still does the job but... eh, they split up 40 years ago. And in the interim it sort of sounds like they've just been wandering about selling insurance or something. Working down the road from you probably. And, from the sound of it, they're not quite sitting on a wealth of new material. Presumably, their comeback gigs will consist of playing the entirety of their old album.

So... I don't know. Wouldn't it be better to just listen to the record instead, really?

But because I'm such a contrary bint I am still much excited by the prospect of seeing The Jesus and Mary Chain play in April at the otherwise slightly cruddy looking V Festival. Nooo I will probably not be turning my eyes towards Smashing Pumpkins - even if I used to like them and I still kinda think Billy Corgan is a stone fox - or, Heaven Help Us, Duran Duran, but I will call loudly for all the greats from TJaMC.

Why does this not bother me when the Reid brothers are now officially in Old Fuckers territory? No it's not because I'm a hypocrite who can't make a point without contradicting herself, honest. It's because, well, they produced their last album Munki in 1994(ish) - a mere 14 years ago. And that was a brilliant, interesting and catchy album. Compared to The Zombies that's recent bloody history. And, so far as I know, they haven't spent four decades working in insurance. Thugh I would have enjoyed seeing that if they had.