666 : One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell

I have just parted with the total GDP of a small south American country to attend “Back to the Beginning” at Villa Park. The main selling point for me (aside from a large sense of FOMO) was the large letters proclaiming it to be Black Sabbath’s last ever show. As I've attended the three preceding last ever Sabbath gigs and been to both of Ozzy’s retirement tours I couldn’t miss this one. The night after I will travel down to London to see Slayer. This shows selling point is that it is the mighty Slayer’s first European headline shows in six years. What it fails to mention is that those concerts in 2019 were billed as the final ever chance to see Slayer, yet here they are again. Mötley Crüe even signed a legally binding contract to say that they would never ever play together again, only to tear up that contract up less than five years later when the right offer came in.

You are probably getting the feeling that metal bands aren’t very good at staying dead. However, unashamedly fiscal-fuelled resurrections aren’t new. Status Quo called it quits with a star-studded two-night stand at Milton Keynes Bowl in 1984, only to resurface less than twelve months later as the opening act at Live Aid. Bassist Alan Lancaster went back to his adopted Oz convinced that this was a one-off occurrence in response to the Ethiopian famine, only to discover months later that Rossi and Parfitt were happily recording a comeback album without him. And let's not get started on Sinatra who retired more times than he had mob connections. As long as there have been bands, there have been bust-ups and reunifications. If Mark David Chapman hadn’t taken John Lennon from this mortal world in 1981 its inevitable that financial incentives would have made the reunion gravy train too tempting for the Beatles to ignore. As John Lyndon proclaimed when the Sex Pistols first reunited in 1997 “We have found a common cause, and it’s your money”.

Yet we still flock to last ever tours, even though we know the likely scenario is that they will be back again in a couple of years. As Pantera have proved, even half the band being no longer with us doesn’t stop miraculous returns to the fray. Hell neither of the current touring reincarnations of Foreigner or Lynyrd Skynyrd have any original members left at all. The latter are apparently once again calling it a day but really do we believe them? But are we wrong to blame the bands and should we be looking at ourselves as the true culprits? After all if no one had been arsed about pitching up it is highly unlikely that the Gallagher brothers would have even considered getting back in the ring with each other. But with almost one in ten people in this country clamouring for tickets, the reunion just becomes a formality. Closer to our musical home, both Rush and Van Halen are currently permanently grounded due to deceased key members. Yet if Alex and Geddy decided to rope Dave Ghrol in for a final encore or Wolfgang stepped into his father's shoes with Diamond Dave, I’m there in the flash and I would happily offer up considerably more than I paid for my Black Sabbath tickets. 

So is any band truly defunct or out of service? I would concur that some holy cows will never be reanimated. The political chasm between Morrissey and Marr is so significant that The Smiths will never return and straight edge hardcore pioneers Fugazi are just so darn principled to ever be tempted back into the fray. Motörhead are also over forever because nobody can ever replace Lemmy. But the ultimate gone never to return is the Ramones. They lived fast, they all died young, and they left the most good-looking corpse in rock n’ roll history. God bless the Ramones, we will never see their like again, hang on, there is breaking news……