Steel Wheelchairs

Feel free to include fellow grandad rockers Pink Floyd.

A Pink Floyd tour would be on a different order of menace entirely.

Would you apply this argument to Dylan? If not why not?

I can't speak for the Stones because I've never heard them play live. All their records over the last 20 years have sounded leathery to me - not young man's music at all.

well of course they should call it a day (as should the fall), but then, y'know, if its fun for them, and people are going and enjoying it, maybe the aesthetic sensibilities should take a back seat?

I didn't mention Dylan because his tours aren't huge and expensive affairs like the Stones or Floyd. This is the aspect that sickens most ppl.

"All the records over the last 20 years sounded leathery-not young mans music at all" True. I was talking about when they dust off their old hits live, tho'. I'm starting to agree the view that if ppl are enjoying it, then so what? It's just that there has been a lot of invective directed against both bands for not quiting. Is it because their favorite bands have been reduced to museum pieces?

it's because meaningless yoof-fascist novelty is capitalism's secret weapon and ppl haf bin BRANEWASHED!!

Keef always makes the point that his blues idols - Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker etc. - carried on gigging well past their pensionable age, so why shouldn't The Stones do the same? Of course, I imagine that seeing The Stones grind through their greatest hits in some over-sized arenadrome isn't a terribly thrilling experience nowadays, but, with Dylan in particular, youthful frenzy can give way to middle-aged contemplation/reinterpretation and still make sense. And there are an awful lot of fresh-faced indie fucks who don't know the first thing about stagecraft etc.

Best performance I saw last year - 71 year old Derek Bailey at Camber Sands...

Sure they should keep going. People are enjoying themselves, nobody is getting hurt. It'd be something if the Stones stopped touring because they knew a few people found their massive shows irritating!

All their records over the last 20 years have sounded leathery to me - not young man's music at all.

I wish they sounded more leathery and old. Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen and Dylan made their best records in years by acting their ages. Even semi-old men like Nick Cave and Tom Waits are becoming less schticky as they grow older. But unlike these others, Mick's stuck projecting a theatrical skirt-chasing sexiness which is now less Casanova than it is Benny Hill.

On the other hand, I don't mind that they're still touring. Anything that keeps Mick too busy to work on his next solo album is fine by me.

I think they should be permitted to tour only under the following circumstances:

1) They get themselves a bass player again, and not a session guy.

2) They tour without sets, additional musicians, or backdrops. A discreet light show is permissible.

2) They announce in advance that they will _only_ be playing songs they've written within the last two years--anyone wanting to hear the oldies had better stay home. (This would also force them to write songs they or anyone else would be able to bear listening to more than twice, let alone bear playing them.)

On the other hand, I don't mind that they're still touring. Anything that keeps Mick too busy to work on his next solo album is fine by me.

What! You mean you're not eagerly awaiting "Let's Work," Part Deux? :-p

Let's Work part two? It would be awesome if Mick kicked off a legwarmers revival; alas, the prospects seem unlikely.

Yeah Fritz - they are acting like 40 year old men in a midlife crisis (my ex-boss wishes he were Mick now), not like 60 year old men. But not like 20 year old men either.

Surely the big difference with Dylan and all the blues singers is that they are not a band. There's something particularly juvenile about a rock and roll band and it just seems ridiculous to carry it on to pensionable age. I don't have much of a problem with elderly solo performers.

"they're congratulating the Stones on being together 112 years...In the Eighties, they'll be asking, "Why are those guys still together? Can't they hack it on their own? Why do they have to be surrounded by a gang? Is the little leader scared somebody's gonna knife him in the back?" ...They will be showing pictures of the guy with lipstick wriggling his ass and the four guys with the evil black make-up on their eyes trying to look raunchy...It's all right when you're 16, 17, 18 to have male companions and idols, OK? It's tribal and it's gang and it's fine. But when it continues and you're still doing it when you're 40, that means you're still 16 in the head." - John Lennon, playboy interview

yea, but lennon was a prick.

Taking Sides: Rolling Stones vs Last Orders.

Basically Lennon lost his best mates because they couldn't stand his girlfriend. The wrongs or rights of that were between him and them but it colours his perspective somewhat.

yea, but in this case he was a correct prick

I think they should have split up yonks ago to preserve any legendary status - "Quit while you're ahead!". I know this a bit of an old chestnut, but I often wonder what The Beatles would be like had they stayed together. ...just my opinion, like...

ELO?

Would you apply this argument to Dylan?

Sure. I'd pay to see a Certain Person Not Here cry at the prospect of never seeing him again.

I think what dear Mr. Keef tends to forget is that most of his blues idols probably were playing right up to the grave because they *had* to in order to eat, I suspect.

As a Gen-Y'er, I'd have to say that I saw Pink Floyd live that last tour, and it was tres cool. The caveat, of course, is that I have no prior frame of reference, other than watching that interminable Delicate Sound of Thunder concert on HBO, so maybe I don't share in the embarrassment that someone a little older might feel. But it was like one of those terribly gaudy but mesmerizing laser light shows, only Dave Gilmour was really there! How much cooler can that possibly get?

So maybe Floyd can keep on touring as long as they mount more and more expensive and freaky shows--although I heard recently that Mr. G has apparently decided to retire more or less, and he also sold his insanely expensive house and donated all the proceeds to charity. What a nice guy.

People who went said the last Who tour was amazing... they were just on fire. However, since they haven't called Kenny Jones in years, I won't be attending.

You know what? These bands tour and tour and tour because people keep paying to see them, and will keep paying for the new records. You consider it embarassing, but obv. enough people are still willing to go see it. I don't know how bad they are onstage now, but when I saw them on the Voodoo Lounge tour (a link to my review of the show posted elsewhere on the board), it was a pretty good show despite my not being a fan of the band, being at odds with the stadium crowd and general feelings of claustrophobia. So what if they play their old hits? If you went to see anyone else with a few albums in them, would you expect them to play only stuff from the new album?

Don't get me wrong, I understand why people have the "enough is enough" mentality--personally speaking, I'd much rather hear new bands and new music than revel around in "the old music is better than the crap coming out today" that so often fuels peoples' desire to go see another Stones or Who reunion tour, or pick up the latest Depeche mode album, for that matter. But if people are willing to pay for more Stones tours, I won't deny them that right.

Just fer shits and giggles, and inspired by this thread, I just downloaded Mick Jagger's "Let's Work." God, I'd forgotten just how horrible it was -- between the cheesy Big Eighties production and the smug lyrics (to the right of G.W. or Raygun, and just as appropriate coming from Mick as from either of them). As dave q. said in some long-forgotten thread, it's more offensive than Patrick Sky, GG Allin, and Anal Cunt combined :-)

Yeah, better that Mick shakes his wrinkled, 60-year-old ass on stage than do more solo work.