Time & Perspective Quote by Roger Andrew Taylor

There is a particular kind of humility baked into a comeback: not the faux-modest kind celebrities deploy as branding, but the genuine uncertainty of someone walking back onstage after the world has moved on without them. Roger Andrew Taylor’s line lands because it admits the risk out loud. “After all this time” isn’t just a calendar marker; it’s a quiet nod to shifting tastes, new gatekeepers, and the fear that your old magic might read as nostalgia at best, irrelevance at worst.

The phrase “You never know how you’re going to be received” frames fame as something granted, not owned. It pushes against the rock-myth that legacy acts can simply cash in whenever they feel like it. Taylor is talking about audience reception as a live wire: unpredictable, emotional, and collective. The subtext is about control. A band can rehearse, rebrand, even remaster the past, but it can’t script the room.

Then comes the release valve: “overwhelming.” That word carries relief and disbelief, like the applause arrived before he’d fully allowed himself to expect it. Pointing to “that tour of the States” sharpens the context. The U.S. is often treated as the ultimate stress test for British rock royalty: vast, fickle, culturally loud. To be met with enthusiasm there isn’t just commercial validation; it’s proof the songs still travel, that the story still translates, that the audience didn’t just remember them - it showed up.