Scott McCaughey—friend, hero, and precious natural NW rock resource—has graced our sibling publication, the Portland Mercury, with A Match Made in Hell, a fantastic article about the history of the Young Fresh Fellows touring with the Replacements—including an account of the legendarily atrocious 1987 show in Portland. Memorable lines abound, including:

Westerberg, resplendent in marinara sauce, announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, the Young Fresh Fellows!" to thunderous silence.

And:

...it was put forth that the foray might be more interesting minus eyebrows. All four Replacements and one idiot Fellow went upstairs and shaved the offending facial hair clean off.

And:

Dutifully, we all swapped clothes.

And:

I'll be honest—I just don't remember a lot of that night. I know the dressing room couch went out the window, and in my mind's eye I can still see Paul swinging from a chandelier and falling flat on his back when it came out of the ceiling and landed on top of him.

Blood in the bathroom. Mustard and meat stuck to the walls. No encore.

But really, just read the whole damn thing. You may miss your bus stop, but you won't be sorry.

Now that the Replacements (I don't presume to use the 'M word) have reunited, they've invited the Fellows to open the Portland and Seattle dates. Willtonight at the Paramount reach the same debauched lows as these bands reached in their euphoric youth? In a word, no. In two words, hail no. But that's why the Replacements of 2015 actually feels good and promising, unlike some other reunions I could think of. If lore and cassette bootlegs (I still have The Shit Hits the Fans, $40 at Cellophane Square, 1995—worth every nickel for the ""Jailbreak") are to be believed, a great many people never got a chance to see Westerberg and co. actually play their songs, at least not all the way through, the first time around. (The only time I ever saw them was in 1989, when they opened for Tom Petty while wearing dresses snagged from Mrs. Petty's wardrobe at a big amphitheater in Nashville (disclosure: I was 15 and had barely even heard of them); it was such an aggressive mess—Patterson Hood from the Drive-By Truckers was apparently there as well, and once wrote that Westerberg called out from the stage, "Last night Tom Petty told us if we fuck up again we're fired. Fuck you, Tom Petty, and fuck you, Nashville"—that they got fired from the tour that very same night.) Not to discount the theater of hostility and decadent collapse, which is truly necessary and beautiful to behold, but there's a lot to be said for notorious wasters who not only live to tell the tale, but also to play on, and play better.

I get why hardcore Replacements fans might feel weird about going to the Paramount show. I also get why people hate reunions on principle, but I also think a principle that mandates submission on the grounds of some notion of purity is a pretty flimsy gambit. Which is to say it's 100% valid not to go, or to go with a conflicted or skeptical heart. (Or, obviously, to go demanding a good time like it's your birthright.) But for years now I've been hearing people suggest that folks who do go to reunion shows are in some way wrong or lame or traitorous—just one big human Volvo station wagon parking the glory bus in. I'd just like to say that even if the show sucks and everyone in the audience is a Spotify executive, that suggestion would still be stupid and poisonous.

Sure, there's a big component of nostalgia to rock band reunions; but there's a much greater—and therefore lesser—one in demanding that the past stay in the past, where you liked it better. Playing and listening to music is active. It brings the songs into the present tense, which is the only space really great rock and roll can ever actually occupy. It's true that rock has always been about being young. But why is the idea that people who are no longer 22 might have some interesting visceral perspective on youth—particularly their own squandered one—so unimaginable? Why should the idea of Westerberg singing "Bastards of Young" at age 55 be such a threat to people's golden years? Isn't the greater violation the attempt to keep the Replacements beyond reproach? They're the most reproachable band ever! Gramps of no one! You really want to deny people the joy of hearing "Gary's Got a Boner" out of dignity? Rock and roll is not a repository for dignity or unsullied legacies. Who better than the Replacements—and a couple thousand people who have now spent +/- 25 years building lives on the foundation of their records—to make that plain?

I've opted out of a lot of reunion shows by bands I used to worship, I suppose because I was worried my attachment to my memories was too fragile to withstand new information. I don't know if I regret it, and I don't know if I'm going tonight. BUT I have a feeling that show is going to make a lot of people very happy, and an even stronger feeling that the impulse of wanting to stand between those people and that happiness in the name of so-called, self-anointed rock and roll "realness" is a way bigger problem than a once-great band playing the old tunes one more time. And anyway, no matter how pro the Replacements might be or seem, I'll bet my original pressing of Hootenanny that the Young Fresh Fellows will be every bit as gloriously unpolished as they ever were.