Repackaged Packages | Suite101.com

Posted by
Kendall Defoe
Dec 19, 2006

I am sure that you and yours have heard about such things as Beatlemania. Not the phenomenon of the Beatles, but the Broadway show that travelled and recreated the atmosphere of the concerts and songs for a substantial audience. You may not know about the Australian Pink Floyd Tour or The Musical Box (based on Genesis` Foxtrot and Selling England by the Pound tours). I will not attempt a deep analysis of this phenomenon. There isn`t much that is too deep about it.

Listen, I deal in nostalgia. It is hard to write what I write without engaging it in some manner. What bothers me about the entities above is that they are attempts to recreate something which can only live in time (or on celluloid and chromium tape). These things have already happened. I know what a Pink Floyd show from the seventies sounded like because of all the information available out there (bootlegs and web pages, of course). I know that Peter Gabriel dressed himself up as a flower or a fox in front of a paying audience. And the Beatles had the sense to stop before the decade of nostalgia in excelsis overwhelmed their talent. None of the above needs to be remembered with another planned performance that adds nothing to the music.

Check out the following, if you dare:

http://themusicalbox.net/index.html (for Genesis, re-vamped)

http://www.moptops.com/ (Beatlemania)

http://www.aussiefloyd.com/ (Pink Floyd)

On a final note: this is going to be my last blog until the new year, so I wish all you the best in the new year and the hope that it is an improvement on this one.