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The Replacements reunite, but with a few replacements – Metro US

The Replacements reunite, but with a few replacements

The Replacements are pictured here at their rehearsal space on January 26, 1989 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Only half of these members will be reuniting. (Credit: Paul Natkin/Wire Image)   The Replacements are pictured here at their rehearsal space on January 26, 1989 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Only half of these members will be reuniting.
(Credit: Paul Natkin/Wire Image)

If you are a fan of The Replacements, you already know that they are reuniting and exactly who is reuniting through your Google alerts about the band.

As the film, “Color Me Obsessed” detailed, people who listen to The Replacements stretch the limits between fan and fanatic.

But if you don’t know this information already, you probably don’t even know who The Replacements are. For the uninitiated, they were a band from Minneapolis in the 1980s who actually played rock ‘n roll in the 1980s, not a very popular practice. Tellingly, during their dozen-year run, they did not make the big time. Their story is rife with struggle, self-destructive behavior, a whole lot of almosts and a catalog of beautiful songs for the disaffected, the unsatisfied, the sons of no one, those who were also aching to be. Those last epithets were paraphrases of some of their best tunes.

So last week they announced the lineup for their full-fledged reunion, which is not quite a full-fledged reunion, as original lead guitarist Bob Stinson died in 1995 and replacement Replacement Slim Dunlap suffered a stroke last year. Original drummer Chris Mars opted out of the reunion, and his replacement, Steve Foley, died in 2008. But the core of the band, chief songwriter Paul Westerberg and bassist Tommy Stinson, who for the past 15 years has been playing with Guns N’ Roses, will be joined by drummer Josh Freese (who has also played with G N’ R in addition to doing studio time with a billion other modern rock legends like Weezer and Nine Inch Nails) and Dave Minehan who Bostonians will know from The Neighborhoods, a band who were kind of a Boston version of The Replacements, though it is arguable whether them or the Del Fuegos really deserve that honor.

So if you count yourself as one who is already a ‘Mats fan, you’ll enjoy the clip below the band rehearsing “Favorite Thing” from their 1984 album “Let it Be.” The video comes courtesy of Slicing Up Eyeballs, and it’s interesting to note that they carefully don’t show Minehan or Freese!

If for some reason you are reading this and you don’t know The Replacements, then you will benefit from the Spotify playlist below.

Oh yeah, as far as those reunion dates go, they’re playing the Riot Fest in select cities here are the dates.

Hopefully more dates will be announced soon. It would be a great final chapter for the band if they finally received the recognition they deserve and had a multi-million dollar-grossing stadium tour. But it wouldn’t be very Replacements, would it?