Five Band Reunions We’d Most Like To See In 2015

Everyone lost their minds earlier this year when the rumor of a Led Zeppelin reunion first started circulating. They lost their minds again, this time in a bad way, when it was announced that Robert Plant tore up a lucrative $800 million contract, effectively ending any talks of the reunion. While both the reunion and the contract destruction turned out to be overblown and false, it didn’t take long for fans to start speculating what it would be like to see the greatest heavy metal band of all time take the stage once more.

But, here at Glide, we took the conversation in a different direction. All this talk of reunions got us talking about other bands we would want to see get back together, either for another album or just a tour. We tried to stay away from bands that have broken up in the last few years, choosing instead to pull from bands that haven’t been around for a good long while and deserve another round in the spotlight. While there was no shortage of bands that fit this bill, after much discussion we finally whittled it down to the five we’d want to see most….

Rage Against the Machine: You know, it was real easy to be a radical, socialist, militant leftwing political band back in the 90s when, comparatively, everyone was doing pretty okay. Where are they now, when we need them? You can disagree with their politics all you want, but their presence in the scene was important—they not only incited but demanded conversation. A debate about the pros and cons of Zack de le Rocha’s political poetry becomes, necessarily, the type of political conversation that’s so missing from today’s spectrum. You’ve been away for too long, guys. Seriously. Not to mention, Zack’s verse on the new Run the Jewels record was a tantalizing tease of what would happen if he would just, you know, do fucking anything. I don’t care what it takes. You want to revamp the sound of the group with Tom Morello playing an acoustic guitar while Tim C. plays banjo and Brad Wilk rocks the tambourine? Fine. Or maybe you’re interested in doing an all instrumental jazz-fusion experiment while Zack plays the keyboards like on “One Day as a Lion”? I can dig it. I really don’t care, just as long as you’re doing something—anything—that gets you back into the consciousness of the people. PLEASE.

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Dire Straits: Like Zeppelin, it’s possible that Dire Straits have achieved everything they could hope to musically achieve with their existing catalogue. And that’s cool; I don’t necessarily need a new Dire Straits record. What I do need is to see Mark Knopfler embrace his spot in the limelight one more time for one last tour. He’s stated he would only consider reforming Dire Straits—one of the most popular bands of all time—for charity, so maybe they can find a suitable organization to donate proceeds to? Whatever, don’t care. Knopfler might be an accomplished solo artist, even if his records don’t move like Dire Straits’ did, but there comes a point when you’ve got to embrace your past. People just don’t write songs the way Dire Straits wrote songs, and it’s far past time the world was reminded what music can be when the right combination of technical ability and true passion is mixed.

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A Tribe Called Quest: It’s been almost 17 years since the release of The Love Movement, the final release from this seminal crew. While all involved have moved on to solo projects, nothing has ever gelled quite like it did when Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad were working together. Hell, you can even bring Jarobi back into the mix and give us a true old school reunion. It’s hard to overstate the influence A Tribe Called Quest had (and still has) on the entirety of hip-hop. They were one of the last of the true-school; their rhymes were fun while managing to be thought provoking. Their style set the blueprint for every crew that came after them. Hell, they even made a few established groups adjust their formula to better match with the vibe they were throwing down. And we need to be real here: none of the associated solo releases from former Tribe members have any real lasting appeal. Mostly it just reminds us of how much we loved Tribe. If Outkast can do it, anyone can. It doesn’t even need to evolve into a new record. Just seeing these three on the stage once again would be a powerful reminder of just what can be accomplished with hip-hop when the right crew puts their minds to it.

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Guns N’ Roses: I don’t mean whatever half-assed, lame project Axl Rose is trying to pass off as Guns and Roses these days. I mean a 100% return of all members of G ‘n’ F’n R from their glory days. Hell, everyone but Axl proved they still got their rock and roll chops with Velvet Revolver and Axl has done nothing but prove that no one particularly gives a shit about what he’s doing if it doesn’t involve Slash and Co. so maybe it’s time he stopped deluding himself. They were one of the last great rock and roll bands, wrongly thrown into the same ring as cock rockers like Motley Crue, Poison, and the like. A return to their glory days would be absolutely devastating to the rest of the rock and roll world as they could once again show everyone what happens when true behemoths take the stage to rock together. More than anyone else on this list, this is just pointless wishing, and I get that. There’s absolutely no way in Hell Axl will ever swallow his pride enough to allow for a full-fledged reunion and that’s our loss as much as it is his. But they’ll never stop me from imagining what it would be like to see Axl and Slash on the stage once more.

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Uncle Tupelo: I might have spoken too soon. It’s possible that Axl and Slash have a better chance at resolving old differences than Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy do. Even though they’ve both become successful without the other—Farrar with Sun Volt and his solo records, Tweedy (and the rest of Uncle Tupelo) with Wilco—the work they did together is still arguably some of the best work either has ever achieved (and that’s saying a lot). Uncle Tupelo helped define a scene; their cover of the Carter Family’s “No Depression” even helped provide the title for one of the most important scene-specific magazines in all of music publication. On top of that, Uncle Tupelo still sounds as great as it did 20-25 years ago. Though they quickly caved due to conflicts of personality and direction, it’s possible that there’s been some growth in the last couple of decades. Everyone is a little bit older, a little bit wiser. Maybe everyone has matured and tours won’t quickly descend into egomaniacal dick measuring contests and screaming matches. But, once again, this might be wishful thinking on my part. Some people just aren’t compatible and it might be that Farrar and Tweedy are too much like oil and water for their own good. That’s too bad, really. A reunion would be a magnificent final chapter for this band, who never got the commercial acclaim they absolutely deserved.

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