Some reunions are already quite ridiculous in themselves. But Refused take it to the next level. On January 10, 2012, the Swedish hardcore band announced their reunion 14 years after their breakup. It didn’t take long until the split happened again, which was announced on October 29 of the same year.
So there were those years right after school, when you were 15 and pissed off and everyone thought you were a loser and you ran around with the other weirdos, generating weirdness and little else. And there were those years when what set you apart from the others became a fixation and a lifestyle and you had a band and people talked about what you did but you were so used to being weird you just lumped them in with the rest of the slanderers. Then there were those years when the ideas you’d clung to through late adolescence were beginning to ring hollow and you got more and more confused and destructive and the band broke up and you had rent to pay. That was among the tougher years. And then slowly, over a span of time, you began to sort yourself out and your friends started making sensible decisions in their lives and it suddenly began to seem like most of you were gonna be ok.
And then there was the year when you stopped being a petulant kid and you got your favorite musicians together in a room again and decided that you were gonna accept the love of thousands of listeners, accept the success that was waiting there to be had and just in general enjoy being appreciated for the exact same qualities that made you a freak to your contemporaries in your teens. This was one of the better years.
And now it is coming to a close. It’s been kind to us. And that old punk rock golem “The shape of punk to come” has done good. The hatchet is buried, 1998 is not such a terrible memory for us anymore. We’re going home. And we’re doing it in style.
With old friends and new acquaintances in tow we’re gonna take over our old hometown Umeå for one more night, just because we can. On December 15 at the Exel arena we’ll be sharing the stage with these magnificent comrades: Randy, a band of punk rock bandidos from the north who we befriended years before we even were Refused, Two White Horses, an excellent sister/brother duo from Sävar, both of whom we’ve individually collaborated with in different musical projects through the years, and Råd Kjetil Senza Testa, a new and exciting musical collective consisting of old Umeå pop and hardcore scenesters, among them the guy who produced the very first version of New noise for a local hardcore compilation in early 1997. We unconditionally endorse these bands.
Great music, good crude fun, what more do you need? It’s going to be one of those nights.
Thank you for populating the pit in 2012.
Over and out.
