Flak Magazine: Kick Out the Sports! 03.29.04

This column isn't generally the place where you get, as radio stations breathlessly put it, A Major Concert Announcement, but when the act in question wrote a song that inspired the name of your column, you feel compelled to pass on the big news: the MC5 will go out on tour for the first time in more than 30 years.

On one hand, it's exciting that the three surviving members of the Detroit band that inspired punk and garage rockers well before Jack White was conceived are playing again. On the other hand, it may be depressing to watch these men in their 50s try to recreate the revolutionary fire of their 20s. Especially since two original members of the band will not go on tour, what with them being dead. So it's really the MC3, with guests drafted to fill out the lineup. It's as if the St. Louis Cardinals presented an old-timers' game featuring Ozzie Smith, Darrell Porter, George Hendrick and a bunch of guys who really liked Mark McGwire.

Certainly, both sports and popular music give us opportunities to reflect on how we age, how our heroes age and whether we're ready to face our own impending decrepitude by paying to watch our heroes play in their decrepitude. In each case, the answer depends on the sport and the band. For bands that may have been popular but didn't aspire to any more than that, and sports in which physical power is not the ultimate skill, the answer is yes, we'll pay. For bands and athletes who continue into their old age trying to appear competitive, the answer is mixed. For highly influential, emotionally powerful bands — and sports that mimic such power — the answer is no.

Baseball revels in old-timers' games. Basketball and hockey, not as much, though their fans don't find the idea offensive. Golf and tennis have whole professional circuits reserved for old-timers. For fans of these sports, the idea of being in the presence of greatness, even former greatness, is a thrill. It's not depressing to see how childhood icons have aged. It's reaffirming. It tells fans, hey, even the greatest athletes get old.

It's the same dynamic with pop bands that have come back to play the nostalgia circuit. It doesn't matter if the band is a shell of its former self. The bands in this category would be the "featuring" or "starring" bands — because they have names like the Grass Roots featuring Rob Grill or Herman's Hermits starring Peter Noone.

The star who just won't let go is often more problematic. Michael Jordan as a Washington Wizard. Emmitt Smith as an Arizona Cardinal. Tom Arnold as a sports talk-show host. You cringe, but you watch because somehow letting them go shakes your own self-confidence and reminds you that you're getting older, too. This may explain why people continue to pay to see fights involving Evander Holyfield and, in another looming comeback, George Foreman. They're like Paul McCartney — once spectacular, and still charging you premium rates to see them even though their prime has long passed.

A sport like football may acknowledge its old-timers, but rarely do you see an old-timers' game. Football is the ultimate power sport, and it's painful enough to see Mike Ditka try to wobble his artificial hips out from the sideline to the 50-yard line. (Or pitch erectile dysfunction pills — too much information, Mike!) Imagine two teams of injury-crippled retirees trying to play tackle football. Most football fans don't want to even think about their gladiators getting back on the field, leg-whipping each other with their walkers.

For some fans, the decision by Wayne Kramer, Dennis Thompson and Michael Davis to hit the road as the MC5 has the same cringe factor. They have already incurred some fans' wrath for reuniting at a previous, essentially private show put on with corporate backing. Sellouts! You guys were advocating rock 'n' roll, dope and fucking in the streets in your heyday! What in the name of John Sinclair is going on here?

The fact that one of the motivations for the reunion might be a paycheck, small as it might be — these guys barely registered on the charts in their 1968-72 incarnation, and they certainly won't be playing arenas now — is like how some college basketball fans react when they're told players don't go to school for the free education. Without the late singer Rob Tyner and late guitar player Fred "Sonic" Smith, they may as well be as crass as the Doors having a reunion tour 30 years after Jim Morrison's death, right?

I was an infant during the MC5's first go-round. Still, it's hard to see the band that cried "Kick out the jams, motherfucker!" try to make a go of it when it's possible kicking out anything these days could cause a back injury. Why tarnish the legacy?

Then again, maybe that says more about me than the band. Hey, if the MC5 — or the MC3 or whatever it is — wants to give it a go, have at it. They might be great, they might stink. Who knows? Like any great athlete in any sport, we tend to remember their best, even if they came back to show us their worst. Whether we want to see them past their prime — well, that's another question.

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.