For anyone who had ever followed them, Big Star’s April 25, 1993 reunion performance at Missouri University was a most improbable and unpredictable occurrence: the beloved cult heroes had been broken up for 20 years, had no current or planned activities, and only came about because a MU student decided to contact Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens on a whim and they, incredibly, said yes.
The show—with Big Star acolytes Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of The Posies joining Chilton and Stephens—was captured for posterity as Columbia: Live at Missouri University 4/25/93 [Zoo-1993] and those of us who are quite partial to the band rejoiced over this fine-sounding document of what turned out to be the final and longest-running incarnation of the power pop deity considered by some to be the “American Beatles”.
But be still my beating heart: footage of the Columbia, MO show has been synced to the album’s audio by one Juan C. Marioni and uploaded to YouTube. God bless you, sir.
