Imagine this… the year is 2025, we still haven't left the EU, Parliament is in deadlock, as Boris asks for the thirtieth Brexit extension, the EU is hesitant but agrees on the premise that it’s the last one (it never is). Britain couldn’t be looking any bleaker if it tried, yet illustrious light shines through – Liam and Noel have agreed to put the bickering (and their acrid solo music) to one side, and are embarking on a most likely sold-out arena tour. Noel is 57, Liam 52 - they insist Wonderwall has never sounded so good. Bucket-hat-wearing ‘indie kids’ everywhere rejoice at the Mancunian reunion as a chance to see their favourite band live in action.
Joining the droves, £100 ticket in hand, the day has finally arrived to witness the ultimate indie-rock sacrament. The excitement in the air is palpable. You reach the arena, donning a tropical – print shirt and your very common, very ugly Adidas jacket (your mum said you looked cool and that’s good enough for you) - you look around and realise
you’re swamped by Adidas and ridiculously - patterned shirts; you realise that you have finally found YOUR people, and yours alone. Finally, Oasis takes to the stage. They don’t exactly strut on as you expected, but rather plod on - Noel mumbles something about a hip. But you don’t care, your idols are stood right in front of you and you are nothing but awestruck. The opening chords of Champagne Supernova begin to play, Liam soon takes to the mic, and then it dawns upon you… did it always sound this bad?
Oh look it’s the Stone Roses at their next band reunion… what a fright!
And with all that rambling aside, the point is that band reunions are, in reality, acutely disturbing - there’s just something not quite right about men and women, who are quite literally old enough to be your grandparents (and in some horrific cases, great - grandparents), trying to pull off skinny jeans without busting a fly and swaggering round on stage with greying hair, an assemblage of wrinkles and a slight limp that prevents them from moving more than one leg at a time. Why ruin greatness? A band of pensioners on stage are not at all cool or remotely great. No matter how Mick Jagger – esque they were back in the day, they no longer possess that spark that makes the fans giddy with excitement, so who are they kidding? Band reunions are the epitome of tackiness in the music industry. How unoriginal can you be? Teenagers don’t want the same old, tired bands, just like you wouldn’t want shepherd’s pie for tea five nights in a row. Instead, we want new music, we crave something fresh, something that resonates with our era. Music is what defines an era, it’s the vision for the future; so why are we so stuck in the past? The way things are, our era is seemingly a carbon copy of those that have already happened.
As an avid Smiths fan it does spiritually, mentally and physically pain me to quite a high degree to come to this conclusion, when part of me would sell my kidney on the black market just to raise the funds to see the flower - wielding magic that is Morrissey and Marr in action just one more time. But if I really thought about it, really dug deep down, would I really want to sway the idyllic, almost perfect image I have of them now? What if they put on a show that was anything less than flawless when after all that time I had built them up to deity-worthy level?
And so art should be left as it is. Why jeopardise a perfectly good masterpiece? When people flock to catch a fleeting glimpse of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, they are not there to paint over it, oh no, they are there to appreciate it. And the same, ultimately, should go for bands. Bands, as the art form they are, should be left for us to admire in their original state. Perhaps, we should fixate instead upon our own Renaissance…
This article was written by Upper Sixth Student Ella Brownbill
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