Whenever the prospect of a Replacements reunion had been broached—usually by lazy interviewers who didn’t have more creative questions to ask founding members Paul Westerberg or Tommy Stinson—reactions generally fell into two camps: near-rapturous hope or resounding indifference.
Then there were those of us squarely in the middle. Would a Replacements reunion be worth our time? Seeing Westerberg and Stinson together on the same stage would surely be thrilling, but the new material released a few years ago was pretty underwhelming. And any LP or tour at this juncture really wouldn’t be the Mats, would it? Drummer Chris Mars, focusing on his art, isn’t interested. Guitarist Bob Stinson (R.I.P.), well, he’s unavailable, and now so is replacement guitarist Slim Dunlap, as he’s recovering from a debilitating stroke. (You can help Dunlap via the Songs For Slim project.)
After it was announced that the Replacements would, indeed, reunite—with drummer Josh Freese and guitarist Dave Minehan rounding out the quartet—for Riot Fest shows in Toronto, Chicago and Denver, the band’s first gigs in 22 years, decision time was near for the naysayers. The hesitation was still there until the setlist and videos from Toronto started showing up online—they opened with Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash’s “Takin’ A Ride,” for crying out loud.
About three seconds into the Chicago set, anyone who’d doubted whether a reunion was a good idea surely felt like an idiot. Opening again with an absolutely blazing “Takin’ A Ride,” it was as if no time had elapsed since the band’s heyday. The energy didn’t flag as they ripped through “I’m In Trouble,” “Favorite Thing” and “Hanging Downtown,” and during “I Don’t Know,” they even added part of “Buck Hill.” (Seriously?!) It being the Replacements—and, you know, the whole bit about having played one gig in 22 years—a bit of raggedness was to be expected: Westerberg made a couple of comments about being out of tune and forgot the words to “Androgynous” (after asking if anyone had witnessed Joan Jett’s set on Friday night), and “Little Mascara” was a bit of a mess. It didn’t matter a bit.
With curfew approaching—even though he’d earlier destroyed the stage clock—Westerberg abruptly walked off after “Bastards Of Young,” followed by a bemused, and perhaps confused, Stinson, who merely shrugged. Roadies came out and strapped on their instruments, and for a brief moment, it looked like Westerberg might be creating an homage to the band’s final show in Chicago’s Grant Park on July 4, 1991, which ended with the Mats basically breaking up as crew members played what was left of “Hootenanny.” It would’ve been a perfect capper, but the band instead returned for “Hold My Life” and a version that “I.O.U.” as fierce as “Takin’ A Ride” an hour and a half earlier. The rain that had deluged the city most of the day, and which let up a couple of hours earlier, began to fall again; trudging through the mud to the exits, more than satisfied with what they’d just witnessed, not a single fan gave a damn.
There’s an infamous line in a New Rolling Stone Record Guide review of Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash, circa 1983—well, infamous to a small group of nerds who know about it—that dismissed the Mats with, “Who knows if we’ll ever hear from them again? Who really cares?” Decades later, the first question can’t be answered. The second one, however, is again a resounding, “We do.”
—Matt Hickey; photo by Katie Hovland
