Me and My Friends #13 - J...
Of course I didn’t believe it at first; they’d clearly been hacked. Why wasn’t it on their Facebook? Their official site? Why was there complete radio silence surrounding it? This was… well, too good to be true isn’t the right phrase. It was just unbelievable. I’m still in genuine disbelief.
But I’ve been wrong before. I suppose I should offer an apology to everyone that I rolled my eyes towards over the last ten years when it was suggested that this might happen.
So John returns to the band. Again. It’s a hard sentence to get the head around. Who saw this coming? Not me. Not even Josh, apparently.
Joshua Adam Klinghoffer stepped in when John left over a decade ago and he did an incredible job. A full partner, not just a stand-in. He’s a fantastic guitar player, a beautiful singer, and the band would have been lost without him. Some of the tracks he had a hand in writing – “Brendan’s Death Song”, “Goodbye Angels”, “Never Is A Long Time” – are among my all-time favourites. They had grown and changed and done wonderful things. But that’s over now.
Mostly, at the moment, I’m stunned and a little upset. Josh dealt with a lot of pressure and a lot of negativity; every comment on every Instagram or Facebook post was always something to do with John returning, or when is John coming back, or some screed about how Josh wasn’t as good as John.
For him to be replaced feels like the bullies have won, somehow.
I don’t have any idea where the band goes from here. A new album, or a farewell tour? I’m still expecting a retraction, that this was all a misunderstanding. For now I’m thanking Josh, and thinking of him, and listening to the wonderful set of songs he left behind.
Hamish.