Bands Attempting Big Comebacks

There must have been a secret meeting among all bands with the word "big" in their name because three of them have decided to reunite over the past few months.

First up was Big Audio Dynamite, Mick Jones' first project after he left the Clash, who reunited for a tour in 2011. As far as I know there are no plans to record any new material, so here's a decent quality live video of B.A.D. performing two of their better known songs.

Grade: B+




Big Sugar are one of my favourite Canadian bands of all-time, and Gordie Johnson had recorded several decent albums with his Texas-based side project Grady, so I had slightly higher hopes for this reunion than most, but my general feeling that lightning rarely strikes twice seems to have held true again.

All the pieces of the puzzle are here, but I feel like the inspiration is missing. It's as if Big Sugar's biggest hits were fed into a computer program that spat out Roads Ahead as an amalgam of all the band's biggest successes.

Grade: B-




And finally, here's something I never thought I'd have the chance to say again: Big Country have a new single out. Sort of.

I don't care what anyone says, as far as I'm concerned this new project is not Big Country. The idea of Big Country without Stuart Adamson is akin to Nirvana without Kurt Cobain.

If the surviving members of Big Country want to work with Mike Peters on new material, more power to them, but they shouldn't be using the name. I think this new project would be taken more seriously and would carry a lot less emotional baggage if it were operating under a new name, ala Audioslave or Foo Fighters.

I know there are many Big Country fans, myself included, who will never accept Big Country without Stuart Adamson, and there must be a lot of Mike Peters fans who would much rather see an Alarm reunion.

Grade: C+

(If the band were using a different name I might have given this a B.)