What is it about the ‘classic album tour’ that is enticing artists and captivating fans around the world? It’s partly nostalgia, perhaps even a fad, but you can’t deny the fact fans want to see their favourite band playing their favourite album.
Earlier this week it was announced that Perth favourites Karnivool are celebrating the tenth anniversary of their debut album Themata byplaying the album in full on every night of their upcoming tour. Not only that, but Jebediah have announced a similar tour, playing the classic Slightly Odway on every stop of their 20th anniversary tour.
Famously, Weezer went on a massive US tour that saw them play through the ‘Blue Album’ and Pinkerton, and who can forget that mammoth tour The Living End undertook, covering all of their albums across multiple nights? Punters can’t seem to get enough of it, so we’ve highlighted a few albums we’d love to see get dug up and given the live treatment.
Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Yeezus’ last tour of Australia was a mixed show for someone who is arguably “one of the only genuine rock stars performing today”. So why not make it up to everyone by treating them to his seminal album in full?
Kanye isn’t one to follow the trend, which may be the hiccup in this whole plan, but he is one for the lavish, the expensive, and the over-the-top. What if him performing MBDTF involved everyone that featured on the album?
Imagine being at a Yeezy concert, when out comes Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, and Bon Iver? The roof would come off the building. Everyone would have no choice but to get on their knees and praise Yeezus. But is this just a pipedream, or an email I found when I hacked his Gmail account? At the risk of starting rumours, I can’t really tell.
Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan is a living music legend. But that’s not to say he is without his critics – his live shows have been called everything from life-changing to pure crap (but we thought he was pretty good last time he was here), and that’s the magic of his shows. A Dylan show is not for everyone, and you may not be sure what you are going to get, but it’s certainly an experience.
Dylan isn’t one to look into the past, and no-one is excepting him to strap the harmonica and acoustic guitar back on, but hearing him revisit an album from five decades ago, interpreting it how he sees fit, would be something to witness.
Highway 61 Revisited is the perfect album for it. It’s the album that let Dylan truly step out and cement himself as one of the greatest artists in a generation. It’s the album he went fully ‘electric’ on. Not to mention, it’s full of classic tracks such as ‘Tombstone Blues’, ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’ and the immortal ‘Like A Rolling Stone’.
Green Day – Dookie
Green Day have always been a band willing to try out an outlandish idea. From taking part in a Broadway musical to releasing an album trilogy, the Californian trio are an act who have reached the ‘give no fucks’ category of fame, and are pretty much free to do whatever they want with their time.
Their major label debut Dookie celebrated its 21st birthday this year, and the best way to celebrate this would be a tour that let them play it in full. Green Day have already proved they’ve still got it, playing the album in full at Reading and Leeds in 2013. Maybe Australia can get a piece of this on the 25th anniversary?
Metallica – Master Of Puppets
With the announcement that Metallica are re-releasing their 1983 demo tape, and have plans to do a whole bunch of “next-level reissues”, what better time is there for Metallica to pull off an album tour?
Metalheads will argue to the death about the greatest Metallica album, and on the list of their best albums, right after Lulu, is a little album called Ride The Lightning. Their sophomore album solidified their place in metal history, with tracks like ‘Fade To Black’ and ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’. It’s type of album that can take you back to a simpler time of denim and black T-shirts, before no-one had seen Some Kind Of Monster. Those were the days.
