“I’d rather be dead than singing "Satisfaction" when I’m 45,” Mick Jagger famously suggested in 1975. Defiantly flicking the bird at his younger self, The Rolling Stones are still touring more than 40 years later. Still one of the titans of the live circuit, Sir Mick has capped off the year with both a hit album (The Rolling Stones’ rootsy Blue & Lonesome) and a new child (Deveraux, the eighth for the 73-year-old). While acts such as The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, The Grateful Dead and Queen roll on despite the deaths and departures of founding members, other great musicians make a dignified exit from live performance… and then orchestrate amazing comebacks.

We’ve all got our favourite acts who we’d love to see return to the live domain (the unlikely returns of Talk Talk, XTC, The KLF or Bill Withers would make a nice start), but here’s a top 10 of artists who’ve ditched retirement and thrilled fans by getting back on the stage. (Note: we’ve avoided including spellbinding reunions such as Pixies, Refused, Led Zeppelin and The Stooges, since their key members continued to perform live in other iterations rather than ‘retiring’ per se.)

1. KATE BUSH

When Kate Bush announced her 2014 performances at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, tickets for the 22 dates sold out in 15 minutes. The demand was hardly surprising – the Cloudbusting singer had last performed live shows in 1979. Performing ethereal versions of Hounds Of Love and Aerial, Bush’s performances received glowing reviews from critics fumbling for new adjectives. The highly theatrical 2014 gigs have now been immortalised on Before The Dawn, an epic three CD collection of Bush’s ethereal and powerful musical exploits. Come back soon, Ms Bush.

Time away from stage: 35 years

2. PHIL COLLINS

Currently enjoying critical reappraisal on the back of recent iTunes number one compilation The Singles and the thoroughly enjoyable autobiography Not Dead Yet, Phil Collins has made his first steps back onto the live stage after announcing his retirement in 2011. This year has seen him perform on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and at the US Open in preparation for his 2017 live comeback, which includes a massive show at Hyde Park in July.

Time away from stage: Seven years (or thereabouts, once he does a ‘proper’ gig)

3. CHRISTINE MCVIE, FLEETWOOD MAC

She’d quit Fleetwood Mac after 1990’s Before The Mask before being begrudgingly coaxed back, but in 1998 keyboardist Christine McVie finally called time on live performance. After 28 years in the band that brought her hits Songbird, Say That You Love Me and Everywhere to life, McVie decided to put her feet up and spend her days tending to the garden surrounding her ornate Kent estate. The only problem was, she explained to The Guardian while promoting a Rumours box set in 2012, she soon became bored of the country life. “I suffered from some delusion that I wanted to be an English country girl...” McVie said. “And it's taken me 14 or 15 years to realise that it's not really what I want at all." McVie was warmly received by fans around the world when she eventually made her return to the piano stool for Fleetwood Mac’s 2015 stadium shows. Having stated she’s now in the band “for perpetuity”, she has no plans to return to a country garden anytime soon – she sold her Kent property while on tour in Australia late last year.

Time away from stage: 16 years

4. ELIZABETH FRASER, COCTEAU TWINS

When Elizabeth Fraser performed a handful of solo shows in 2012, it was her first time playing a full set of material since her influential act Cocteau Twins broke up in 1997. The hallowed 4AD artists have inspired contemporary acts such as The xx, Grimes and Australia’s The Jezabels, but after their split Fraser went to ground. For a decade, Fraser’s live appearances rarely extended beyond intermittent guest appearances at Massive Attack shows around Europe to reprise her famous vocal on their massive 1998 hit Teardrop. After getting Cocteau Twins fans’ hopes up for a reunion at the Coachella Festival in 2005, Fraser belatedly canned the comeback. Her 2012 solo dates around her Meltdown Festival appearance in London are, to date, the only times Fraser has performed Cocteau Twins and solo material this century.

Time away from stage: 16 years

5. ROKY ERICKSON

Roky Erickson’s band The 13th Floor Elevators were at the forefront of ‘60s psychedelia, but, like the US equivalent of Pink Floyd’s drug casualty Syd Barrett, Erickson’s career was stymied by long periods spent in institutions or unable to function coherently due to the voices in his head. Unlike Barrett, who never made it back into the entertainment world after sequestering himself away in his mother’s Cambridge basement in the mid-‘70s, Erickson made a wonderful return to the live arena some 40 years after forming The 13th Floor Elevators in Austin, Texas. In 2005 Erickson performed his first full length concert in 20 years, later touring Australia for the first time in 2012. A 2010 comeback album with Okkervil River, True Love Cast Out All Evil, had the fragile beauty of a southern Neil Young and is well worth checking out.

Time away from stage: 20 years

6. KEVIN SHIELDS, MY BLOODY VALENTINE

When Scottish shoe-gazers My Bloody Valentine wrapped up the tour in support of their influential 1991 album Loveless with a November 1992 gig in Osaka, it seemed like they were on the cusp of something massive. Instead, frontman Kevin Shields “went crazy”, ditched a shedload of recordings and distanced himself from My Bloody Valentine’s canon for more than a decade. When they eventually re-emerged for a 2008 gig at London’s Institute Of Contemporary Arts, their influence stretched from Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails to Mogwai and …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. Despite years in oblivion, their live comeback proved they were also still one of the loudest bands on the planet.

Time away from stage: 16 years

7. JAY Z

Possibly the flimsiest retirement on this list, hip-hop titan Jay Z dubbed his Madison Square Garden show on November 25, 2003 his “retirement party”. On his critically lauded eighth album The Black Album released the same month, Jay Z had lyrically outlined his plans to swap the gangster life for golfing greens. The New York show at the Garden was seen as his final hurrah, but Jay later admitted to Entertainment Weekly it was the “worst retirement in history”. Within a couple of years he was collaborating with Linkin Park, touring the world again and releasing the 2006’s comeback album Kingdom Come.

Time away from stage: Barely a year

8. BRIAN WILSON

While the 1976 skit was done for laughs, the sad sight of Saturday Night Live comedians John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd dragging a fat and bearded Brian Wilson out of bed and into the surf was a sign of how far the Beach Boys star had regressed in the 12 years since he’d retired from live performance in 1964. While under the guidance of discredited psychotherapist Dr Eugene Landy between 1975 and 1992, the psychologically troubled Wilson made only a handful of one-off live appearances. After more than 20 years of not performing a full show, 1999 saw Wilson emerge from seclusion for his first solo tour. Even more astonishing was his tour with The Wondermints in support of his 2004 release Smile, which blew the cobwebs off an infamous, unreleased Beach Boys album from almost 40 years before and reinvigorated Wilson’s career.

Time away from stage: More than 20 years

9. JEFF MANGUM, NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL

Jeff Mangum, frontman of US alternative group Neutral Milk Hotel, found it hard to deal with the acclaim of 1998’s album In The Aeroplane Over The Sea and went to ground before century’s end amid rumours of a breakdown and health issues. The album grew in cult status in the early 2000s (often referenced as a touchstone in stories detailing Arcade Fire’s rising acclaim), with Mangum’s barely explained absence from the limelight merely added to the Neutral Milk Hotel enigma. The fragile songwriter popped up for a few sporadic guest appearances in his time away from the spotlight, however it wasn’t until October 2013 that Mangum and Neutral Milk Hotel reunited to play a full set. Sporadic appearances – including their debut Australian shows described in reviews as ‘magical’ and ‘euphoric’ – have followed.

Time away from stage: 15 years

10. LEONARD COHEN

A year after walking offstage at Victoria’s Royal Theatre, Canada on 30 July 1993, Leonard Cohen had taken up residency at California’s Mt Baldy Zen Center, a Japanese Buddhist monastery. Cohen spent the better part of a decade exploring his faith and seeking enlightenment, but his meditative existence was ruptured by the 2005 discovery his manager had pilfered more than US$5 million from the 71-year-old’s retirement fund. With only $150,000 left in the account, Cohen began plotting his return to live performance. “What can I do? I had to go to work,” the Canadian icon mused in typically Zen fashion. “I have no money left. I'm not saying it's bad; I have enough of an understanding of the way the world works to understand that these things happen." On May 11, 2008, Cohen played Fredericton, New Brunswick, kicking off a revered return to the stage which saw the be-suited poet play some 350 shows over the next five years. Cohen, who died in November, played his last show in New Zealand in December 2013.

Time away from stage: 15 years

Kate Bush’s Before The Dawn live album and Phil Collins’ The Singles collection are both out now.

- SM