Dennis Kennedy

Every now and then you see something on cable TV that makes you think that there's still hope for television. Last night, I accidentally ran across a show on VH1 called Bands Reunited: The Alarm. The premise is kind of fun. They track down the former members of a band that was hot many years ago and then disappeared. They try to get the members to agree to meet, to talk and to play together again for a few songs.

The episode I watched focused on The Alarm. The story of their breakup is pretty classic - the singer announced on stage before the last song on the last tour that he was leaving and walked away.

It was good to be reminded of what a great band the Alarm was, how you don't seem to hear many of those great anthemic songs like "Sixty-eight Guns" anymore, and how much I enjoyed their early albums in particular.

And it was great to see them, years later, pick up the instruments, give the song a reading that captured both the enthusiasm of youth and the lessons learned in the years since in a way that just plain rocked.

Highly recommended.