You knew a list like this was going to pop up not long after the Tupac hologram appeared at Coachella.
Who else can we make holograms of and project on a concert tour? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to project a musician who’s no longer with us, or project a musician who’ll show up and perfect, and not give everybody a lot of nonsense and ego on the road?
It was something I thought of when Axl Rose didn’t show up for the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame induction. If only they could project that putz as a hologram, but knowing Axl, the technology will break down, and it will still take hours for him to show up. Still, much like Fred Astaire on television, there’s of course legal problems that would come with all of this about licensing and recreating someone’s image, but just thinking about all this in the spirit of fun, who would we live to see brought back via hologram?
Entertainment Weekly drew up a list of “10 Hologram Tours We’d Love to See,” and the first two musicians on the list were Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley. “What better way to relive youth than strapping on a pair of Docs for the resurrection of these two greats,” but of course the biggest challenges would be, “Getting the unwashed, messy hair just right (and getting Courtney Love, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic on speaking terms long enough to make it happen).”
Next up, The Beatles of course, and the biggest challenge, as EW jokes, would be “caring for elderly fans when they faint.” Next in line, Freddie Mercury of Queen, and it’s such a shame that American audiences didn’t get the chance to see Queen for most of the eighties, because the band always swore they wouldn’t play America unless they were still on top and headlining arenas. By the time Queen were finally coming back with the help of Wayne’s World and the resurrection of Bohemian Rhapsody, Freddie had already left us.
Next on the list, Tupac and Biggie, and thankfully they could now tour together without anyone getting shot. Next up, The Who, bringing back legendary drummer Keith Moon, and we’d need bassist John Entwhistle back too. Others on the list include obvious people like Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, Jim Morrison with The Doors, Axl with GNR, although Axl would do everything in his power to stop it (but just imagine touring with Axl and no drama, that would be worth fightingthe lawsuit alone), and funny enough, the big daddy I totally expected wasn’t on the list: Elvis!
As we often see with pop culture phenomenons, especially with rock and roll, the doors of opportunity to see a band or artist in their prime can often close pretty fast, and many rock careers are supernovas that are over in a flash. Until we perfect the hologram technology and can bring musicians and bands back, see what you love today as soon as you can, ’cause there’s no guarantees they’ll be around tomorrow, and cherish the memory of actually seeing real people creating music in the live arena, instead of a remarkably close facsimile.
