Faded popgroups making a comeback is no big deal, with countless chancers from the nineties making comebacks in recent years - but none has sparked the nation's interest like the dawn of McBusted.
An unholy pop Frankenstein of guitar-wielding boyband Busted and their successors McFly is set to be one of the biggest tours of 2014, but why are people so excited about this one? The online interest has reached levels Liberty X and B*Witched could have only dreamed of when they signed up to The Big Reunion.
First of all - we have to consider hormones. The power of the boyband is incredible, especially when it comes to teenage girls and their first sexual stirrings. Loved Oasis and Blur when you were growing up? It doesn't come close to the obsessive nature of a boyband fan - just look at the global hysteria One Direction cause today. You wouldn't find Queens Of The Stone Age fans sleeping in Leicester Sqaure because Josh Homme is planning to attend a film premiere. And while Busted fans are all now in their late twenties, probably with sensible haircuts and nice jobs, those long forgotten feelings run deep. A lot of boyfriends and husbands have been neglected this week as women return to their buried fantasies about Matt Willis and James Bourne...
Secondly, Busted existed in those hazy days pre-social media, when popstars were unattainable megastars, and not simply people on Twitter who might, if you're lucky, reply to one of your million tweets saying 'lol'. Busted split in 2005 - a year before Twitter was launched.
Then of course, there's the 'supergroup' thing. Busted split in their prime, and fans graduated smoothly (in most cases) to McFly, with the band easily mopping up fans after Busted's break-up. Between them, the two bands career primes cover an entire adolescence, and having the two team up for a double-drumming, five-guitar band will bring back emotions (and probably a few cases of acne for good measure). Teaming them up works in a way no other pop collaboration would. Spice Girls and All Saints? Meh.
McFly and Busted also offered a generation of female fans a rebellious alternative to real boybands of the day, and to many were their first taste of guitar music - even if it was with songs like 'Air Hostess' or '5 Colours In Her Hair'.
So why have so many people gone so crazy for McBusted this week? The unholy union of McFly and Busted has ticked all the boxes for pop fans, pairing two huge boybands who shared an enormous fanbase and benefitting from emotionally charged nostalgia that only adolesence can spark. Expect to see a lot of 28-year-old women behaving very badly when McBusted hit the road in 2014...
Tickets for McBusted's 2014 tour go on sale tomorrow (15 November) at 8am. For more information visit Gigwise Gig Tickets. Full dates below.
19th April: Liverpool Echo Arena
21st April: Bournemouth International Centre
28th April: Metro Arena Newcastle
29th April: Capital FM Arena Nottingham
30th April: First Direct Arena
3rd May: Birmingham LG Arena
4th May: Motorpoint Arena Sheffield
6th May: Motorpoint Arena Cardiff
9th May: Phones4u Arena
