Re: analogy in whether DT is The Who

[Sroundtable@xxxxxxx]

> >Bad analogy because the Beatles never did subsequent tours with a dimin-
> ished original line-up.
> 
> Good analogy, because that doesn't matter.
> 
> > If they had, then Ringo & Paul touring as the Beatles 
> *wouldn't* be that shocking. 

Look, the Beatles set much more of a precedent of being broken up, AND their solo careers were somewhat successful (Paul and John, George to a very limited extent, and Ringo with his bad acting), so reuniting as the Beatles wasn't really relevant to them.  It became far less so once John was assassinated.  A reunion would have seem forced and somehow fake.  The fact that The Beatles being a megaband which generated incredible output over a short period of time would have caused any reunion tour as The Beatles w/o an original member to tarnish the specialness of what they were.

The Who, on the other hand, had less output over a longer period, and they never officially broke up and went their separate ways.  The Who seemed to sort of plod along in the 70s, albeit largely because Pete tackled such complex concepts which tended to make album creation more time consuming. Overall, it seemed they would just take hiatuses them  return all the way to the present.  Even the 1982 "Farewell Tour" wasn't an official breaking up of the band, just an end to the Who as a touring entity (though it was a de facto break-up).  The Who continuing as The Who w/o Keith and John is not really comparable to The Beatles w/o John and George.

On the other hand, The Rolling Stones seem to move along despite the loss of individuals.  They just replace them with anonymous musicians and keep the whole Stones production going.  Absence of Jones and Wyman didn't seem to slow them down much, including new music (Voodoo Lounge).  It ends obviously if Mick or Keith, or even maybe Charlie or Ronnie because they have survived with the band for so long, but the Stones have taken the opposite approach to Beatles and Zeppelin, and I make no judgements as to the value of either approach.

Different bands act differently for different reasons.

Mc