Literally zero relationship to the point I was making, which was clearly that artists who split, reform/come back can recreate the songs but nothing else of the circumstances in which they were birthed first time around. Kidding ourselves that they are doing so is delusional.
Anyone who saw the reformed Specials will have seen an entertaining evening of great songs. Given that that’s what you get, you may as well have seen a tribute band. They will not have seen The Specials who were created in a cauldron of racism, genuinely independent labels, physical attacks and who played with an intensity which reflected that.
Same with The Pixies who keep picking token women in order to pretend they’re still the Pixies and who are now a soft rock incredibly professional version of the intensity which used to see them exhausted by 45 minutes.
Not sure I see any connection to Robert Plant who, to the best of my knowledge, has never retired from music and certainly not from his solo career. I’m not a fan of the latest album, interestingly because I think he’s just put together a hand who are a facsimile of some of the earlier greater bands he put together (but that’s another thread) but creatively he’s never stopped and there’s no entirely separate past to recreate.