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Rage against the reunion tours
By Megan Carneal
mcarneal@mscd.edu

This is the year of the reunion tour. Bands that said they would never reunite, and some that never should, are burying the hatchet and saying to hell with creative differences. This all comes at a price, though – not to the bands, but their fans.

The lineup for 2007 is impressive and makes it easy to fall victim to promises of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Rage Against the Machine has reunited to play Coachella. The Smashing Pumpkins are currently touring in Europe, and Genesis is planning a European tour as well. Van Halen, with David Lee Roth, has also announced a 2007 reunion. Even Led Zeppelin has teased the idea.

The most prominent reunion tour this year is the Police tour. After playing a set at the Grammy Awards, they announced a 2007 reunion tour. Their record label is promoting it as the 30th anniversary tour celebrating the release of their first single, “Roxanne,” even though it was officially released in 1978. Though they may not be great with simple math, when it comes to dollar signs, they’re geniuses.

So what is the price to see a band past their prime these days? For the Police show June 9 at the Pepsi Center, tickets range from $50 to $380 through Ticketmaster. Of course – for even bigger profit margins to coincide with these tours – various reissues will be released. EMI Records will be releasing 14 remastered Genesis studio albums in three waves over the course of this year. Anyone who has ever succumbed to a reissue can testify to its ridiculous price compared with the original.

That is the problem with the reunion tour. Through the blind eyes of a longtime fan it seems like a last chance to witness an idol. On the band’s side, it’s one last chance to cash in before all the members are too old to play their instruments. While that statement may not be true for the younger bands like Rage and the Pumpkins, the motives behind the reunion still need questioning.

Rage Against the Machine was once a popular and intelligent political band. Their message was strongly anti-government and anti-capitalism. But tickets for Coachella are $80 for day passes and $249 for the three-day pass. Sounds pretty capitalistic. Although Coachella might be worth the price for the number of quality bands on the bill, the motive behind Rage’s reunion is puzzling. It’s hard to deny Rage is reuniting for the money when the only other plausible explanation would be politics, and if their motives were really politically based, then why wait until now? Why not reunite when intellectual defiance was most desperately needed? In the last six years, Republicans have been more rebellious and vocal than Rage Against the Machine.

If reunion tours are really for the fans, why charge so much for tickets? Why inundate consumers with pricy reissues when the true fan probably likes the original more? As hard as it is to resist seeing a favorite band one last time, or even for the first time, I think fans should remember them for the band they once were, not the selfish, greedy and dated entities they have become.