Re: Reunion Rumor **NON-VERIFIED**

[James Holloway <jwholloway@xxxxxxx>]

Actually the WSJ article was notable to this Zephead for not  
mentioning Zep, esp in conext of the recent discussions. The Police,  
yeah, Cream, yeah, The Smashing Pumpkins, yeah, Sebadoh, yeah.  
Zeppelin, no. Else I would have posted it. But here it is, for your  
convenience --

Better to Reunite than Fade Away (WSJ, 2/6/07)

Rock guitar icon Eddie Van Halen and his band's original lead singer,  
David Lee Roth, have spent the better part of 20 years bad mouthing  
each other over their bitter split in the mid-1980s. Yet last Friday,  
the band Van Halen posted a message on its Web site indicating that  
it would reunite with the flamboyant Mr. Roth this year for a 40-city  
tour.



The reason for letting bygones be bygones is simple: economically,  
many music acts are worth a lot more together than apart. The bad  
blood between Messrs. Van Halen and Roth will almost certainly stoke  
interest -- and that doesn't count the additional curiosity that will  
result from the fact that Mr. Van Halen has installed his 15-year-old  
son, Wolfgang, as his new bass player. Executives estimate the tour,  
based on a guaranteed fee of $850,000 per show, would likely generate  
sales of at least $34 million. That would make it a blockbuster.

As the concert industry revs up for the 2007 touring season, some of  
the greatest passion, among both fans and concert promoters, is  
reserved for bands that haven't been heard in live performance in  
years, if not decades. Comebacks or reunions have been announced by  
acts as disparate as Van Halen, Rage Against the Machine and a slew  
of smaller names.

The Police and Genesis are expected to mount tours, but have not yet  
made official announcements. The hints are coming fast and furious,  
however. This weekend the Police -- who released their last studio  
album in 1983 -- are set to perform together at the Grammy Awards.  
The band is likely to tour, although people close the situation said  
significant details have yet to be finalized. A few years ago, Prince  
used the Grammys to similarly preview what became a massively  
successful comeback tour.

The resurgence in old-timer tours is partly a byproduct of the  
ongoing decline of the recorded-music business. As the record  
industry has failed to launch many big new names in recent years, the  
concert industry has come to look to acts that are proven draws to  
keep their venues full. With rare exceptions -- like the Police's  
singer and bass player, Sting -- most members of these acts have not  
been as successful as solo performers as they were as part of a unit.



"There's a need for headliners throughout our business in a major  
way," says Randy Phillips, chief executive of Anschutz Corp.'s AEG  
Live, the country's No. 2 concert promoter. "On the bands' part  
there's a need for cash. When those needs merge it's a wonderful thing."

In 2005, a reunion tour by '80s metal band Motley Crue took the  
industry by surprise and became the No. 11 grossing tour of the year,  
taking in close to $40 million in 22 cities, according Pollstar,  
which tracks concert-industry data. A three-night stand by the blues  
rock band Cream at Madison Square Garden was the fourth-highest- 
grossing show the same year, taking in $10.6 million; it also helped  
to further propel the reunion phenomenon. A spokeswoman for Cream  
frontman Eric Clapton says the trio has no plans for further concert  
or recording activity.

Cream's box office performance notwithstanding, reunion shows are no  
longer reserved for grizzled boomer favorites. The window between a  
band's heyday and the time a reunion becomes feasible has narrowed so  
much that this year bands that were together as recently as a few  
years ago are mounting comeback concerts and tours.

Six years after breaking up, Smashing Pumpkins is planning what the  
band's Web site calls "a world tour of tears." Further details  
weren't available, but two of the original members of the alternative- 
rock quartet will not be on hand. The impact of such personnel  
changes can be hard to gauge, but a recent series of concerts by Guns  
N' Roses has had mixed box office performance, thanks largely to the  
absence of integral involvement from any original members beside lead  
singer Axl Rose.

Unofficially kicking off this year's touring season is Southern  
California's Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, which in late  
April will feature a performance by '90s alternative-rock icons Rage  
Against the Machine. Thanks largely to the Rage reunion, festival  
organizers say ticket sales are at triple the level they were at this  
time last year, with 100,000 sold so far. The festival is on track to  
sell out for the first time in its nine-year history. For now, Rage  
Against the Machine has given no indication that it will tour after  
Coachella, making the gig that much more attractive to fans.

Coachella has in recent years served as something of a launchpad for  
comeback tours, ever since a reunion there of the Pixies, a favorite  
of critics in the 1990s, created a strong buzz. That laid the  
groundwork for a tour that became No. 70 in ticket sales in 2004 -- a  
major feat for a band with the Pixies' limited mainstream appeal.

The Pixies tour, which continued through 2005, is an object lesson in  
the lucrative economics of reunions. The Pixies tour grossed an  
average $180,000 a show, according Pollstar. The band played bigger  
venues, to bigger audiences, than it ever did during its original  
career as influential alternative-rock pioneers in the late 1980s. By  
contrast, in the same period a solo tour by Pixies leader Frank Black  
took in just an average of $8,800 a show.

The Pixies' success has, in turn, inspired a slew of much smaller  
names to give it another whirl. This year alone marginal 1990s acts  
such as Chavez, Sebadoh and Bis have either announced or staged  
reunions.

Kevin French, booking agent for Sebadoh, says that the Internet has  
extended the shelf-life of otherwise obscure bands, thanks to Web  
sites where fans too young to have seen a band the first time around  
can find their music and videos. The fresh online attention helps  
spur bands to reform. Musicians who were in multiple bands may find  
themselves involved in more than one reunion.

Sebadoh, for example, is an offshoot of cult favorite band Dinosaur  
Jr., which had its own reunion tour last year.

"Eventually they all do it," says Mr. French.


On Nov 10, 2007, at 11:58 AM, Jonathan Mallard wrote:

> I guess its best to be perfectly clear when speaking on that topic.
>
> I got into a discussion yesterday with a friend of mine whose opinon I
> respect on this subject.  We had been trading emails off and on  
> discussing
> the Police re-forming.
>
> He told me that he read an article in the WSJ about how new entites  
> would
> pursue the Statium gate this summer as that particular market is  
> currently
> avaiable.  The acts he mentioned from the Journal story were the  
> Police, and
> Led Zeppelin.  It's not like they would have a hard time finding  
> venues.
> Venues would buy out of contracts to bring these guys in.
>
>
> Now......  can anyone find any legs to this?  I found nothing on  
> the WSJ
> site - but I am not a subscriber.
>

James Holloway
Brooklyn, New York
United States of America
jwholloway@xxxxxxx