On reunion tours: when your favourite band gets back together

Among other comments: 

“My husband has already been told I am going to whatever this is about. THIS IS MY TAYLOR SWIFT.”

“Excuse me while I quit my job so my schedule will be clear for whatever is happening.”

“I like to believe that what you’ve been offering the world this last week is equivalent to the feeling that happens just before you’re born. We need you now more than ever.”

“A Canadian tour will heal us all.”

Not all reunions are sweet. Bands break up for many reasons: creative differences, substance problems, road weariness, conflicting visions and of course the classic “personal differences.” Sometimes it’s better just to leave the past in the past. 

But sometimes, just sometimes, it’s just an artistic evolution, and reuniting is even sweeter than before. 

Tim Baker, lead songwriter for Hey Rosetta!, explains: 

"We always thought we would get back together and play again someday. But of course our lives began orbiting around new
projects and purposes, and to mobilise the will and energy and dedication to do the thing justice seemed almost
impossible,"

- Tim Baker, from an Instagram post on the Hey Rosetta! account

Full disclosure, I may be somewhat of a Hey Rosetta! superfan. More than one fan commented that HR’s teaser posts were going to break the internet. 

Well if so, I want to be part of the breaking.

I first discovered the band in 2008, following the release of their album “Into Your Lungs.” It soon became a household favourite. My eldest son, a toddler at the time, soon learned to sing/babble along to the hit track “New Goodbye.”

That album propelled the band to national recognition, as it was shortlisted for the Polaris Prize. 

In 2010, the song “Red Heart” from that album became an unofficial theme song for the Vancouver Olympics and Canadian unity after it featured in a video essay by the Globe and Mail's Stephen Brunt.

In 2015, our family saw Hey Rosetta live in concert at Cascade Gardens in Banff. It remains a core memory. 

Then in 2017, the band announced they were going on indefinite hiatus, after 10 grinding years on the road. That lasted for nearly 10 years, until just months ago, the impossible began to seem possible again. 

"And here we are, all still alive and well and six of us back in town and life so short and times so bleak, it's like I couldn't remember why not," Baker continues, in his letter to fans. "Why not go back into it, and celebrate it for what it was."

Things are no easier in the music biz—or in the world—in 2026. But sometimes, that is why.

Is it a new goodbye for Hey Rosetta!? Perhaps. But maybe it’s a sweet, warm hello from an old friend, too. 

"I know it will be good to connect again with all the people that loved our band so deeply," Baker writes. "This is what it was always for, and what it is for again." (Read the full letter from the band here.)

Whatever it may be, I like to believe it will be healing for many Canadians, at a time when we need it. When we need to feel united, to embrace our culture and identity, and celebrate our many strengths and our values and shared history. 

As Brunt says in his video essay, "it feels good to let your heart show." 

What favourite Canadian band would you like to see reunite?

What Canadian band would you love to see reunited? Is there a Canadian band whose return would make you feel like this? 

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