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A recent dilemma here at Talk Talk Talk Talk Talk central has been whether to spring for tickets to see the reunited Gang of Four, who are playing locally next week. I saw them virtually half my lifetime ago, and it was one of the few times in my concert-going career that I saw what appeared to be an unplanned encore. (Webster's defines encore as "a demand for repetition or reappearance made by an audience." It's hardly a secret that "encores" are planned into a live show before a band even plays its first note, so to see someone come back to play some more when they hadn't expected to is a treat, indeed.) It was a great show, and they continue to be one of my all-time favorite groups, but as I said, that was half a lifetime ago. I've gotten older, and so have they. Part of their appeal is the energy steeped into the music--can they match it all these years later? If they can't, will they have some other quality to replace it with, making the show worthwhile anyway? I've still got the albums to play and my memories of the earlier show, and I don't want to sully either if this reunion turns out to be ill-advised.

Guitarist Andy Gill has continued to be involved with music. He produced some of the Futureheads album (although he stayed away from the single "Decent Days and Nights," which has a guitar line a bit too reminiscent of "My Sharona" for my liking), so he's still kept his hand in the new musical currents. Googling for recent news stories to see how they're being received may have made my decision for me. I found a few things that sounded interesting, but I think the capper was a New York Times story by Jon Pareles (which I'm linking to through the Contra Costa Times.)

It was Jan. 21 at the Montague Arms, a packed pub in the scruffy New Cross neighborhood of South London. . . . The four men, now in their 40s, were playing their first show together since 1981.

They immediately reclaimed the meticulous ferocity that made Gang of Four one of post-punk's most influential bands. Its old blend of the cerebral and the visceral was in full force.

And

"The goal is to be as incredibly intense as we were the first time around," [bassist Dave] Allen said. "What we have to do is leave them with their tongues hanging out again. If not, we don't retain our authority in the musical canon. There's no excuse that we're 23 years older."

As well as

The band members had to shape up for the tour. [Hugo] Burnham hadn't played drums since 1985; he started exercising with his wife, a Pilates trainer. [Singer Jon] King, who is still lean, teased the other band members with e-mail messages about the "celebrity fat club." But as they started to relearn the songs, old reflexes came back. "The blueprint was still in my body," Allen said.

On the 9-foot-by-18-foot stage of the Montague Arms, King flailed and twitched, dropped to the floor and leaped up like a funky scarecrow, as hyperactive as he was a generation ago. "It's the tragedy of old age that people stop doing stupid things," he said before the show. "When you're young, you're reckless and oppositional, and that's what you should be your whole life. Why should you not take a risk?"

It sounds like they recognized the same concerns I had, and they're facing them down. I'm getting my tickets tomorrow.