There’s an odd seasonality to concert schedules. Spring and early summer seem to bring more reunions, like those of the Pixies and Mission of Burma this year, while late summer and autumn bring more bands going on farewell tours and breaking up.
Last Saturday I saw what will be one of the last shows Guided by Voices ever plays. Last year, on the same weekend, I saw the the Dismemberment Plan’s last show. Even Phish has now disbanded for good. Maybe it’s just chance, or maybe centuries-old metaphors of renewal and decay are at play; the fact remains that certain times every year see great bands reuniting, combusting or simply disappearing.
This brings to mind the question of the significance of seeing a band at a certain time and place in their history. Few people would dispute that hearing a live cover is no substitute for the original song played by the original band. But is there an equivalent difference between seeing a band “in their prime,” and seeing the same people come back twenty years later to do the same thing?
It’s true that age takes its toll on musicians. Seeing Bob Dylan two years ago was like seeing a puppet show. Lacking his once-iconic acoustic guitar, he puttered around on stage like a figurehead, playing few actual instruments. His voice has grown even more unintelligible, and he has trouble remembering the words to his own songs. On the other hand, Keith Richards is alive today only in the strictest legal definition of the word, yet somehow he still manages to rip the same classic riffs he’s been playing for 40 years. And the recently reunited Pixies have triumphantly shattered any low expectations.
Seeing the Pixies play this summer was undisputedly the best rock concert I’ve ever seen. Could the experience of seeing them back in 1989, right after they released their epochal Doolittle album, have been that much greater? Granted, being right up against the stage in a tiny Boston hole-in-the-wall club might have been a better atmosphere than the massive, open air festival where I saw them play.
Following that line of reasoning, though, during the band’s first lifespan, there were obvious differences between the stages of their evolution, even down to the variations in each individual concert the band played. The question becomes one of how to define when the band’s prime actually was.
For the Pixies, that could well have been after the release of Doolittle, in my opinion their best album. But maybe the band’s live show had more youthful energy and ingenuity when they were touring three years earlier behind their stunning debut Surfer Rosa. Each concert played has to be approached on its own terms.
But it’s hard to gauge the difference when it comes to the individual experience. Maybe the significance lies more in the original zeitgeist, the experience of being on the ground floor of something revolutionary. With a truly great band, though, the music still speaks for itself, even 20 years later.
