Should aging rockers need to pass a test?

ExittheLemming wrote: I'm a massive 59 year old Stones fan but I would happily sign a petition to have them retire or make a contribution to crowd funding their assassination. Similarly, ELP's final shambolic and embarrassing live performance at High Voltage in 2010 could have been avoided if they had just retired gracefully with their dignity still intact.

moshkito wrote: Hi,

You know... we've had this whole bootleg discussion here on PA before. Not so long ago. I must have other main musical interests than you have. Another focus. I love being at concerts of all kinds, but mostly just buy live jazz albums. Because they are often totally unique and sound wonderful. Other than that I collect live albums from a very limited group of bands, like Can, Magma and Tangerine Dream.

There's a whole world of music out there from all over the world that I still haven't heard at all. Not even once. So I focus on this checking out some band from Eastern Europe or North Africa for the first time rather than hearing the eleventh bootleg version of Set The Controls... Also I'm "into sound" in ways you aren't - which is probably why sh*tty sounding bootlegs will always by testing my patience, and have less appeal to me than they have for you. Plus I really don't like listening to audience clapping and cheering. Especially not huge crowds. I'm about as fond of that as I am listening to people chewing, slurping or lip-smacking out loud when they eat (=not fond at all).

Somehow I don't mind the polite applause, and quiet chit-chatting furthest back in the soundspace on some of my favorite live jazz-albums. Guess I prefer to pretend I'm at a lively little jazzbar in ca. 1964.

moshkito wrote: Saperlipopette! wrote: ... Good for you. I definitely feel something too, but not in a good way. I react similarly to this as to when a good text ruined by bad acting. I look the other way ... or leave. ... The only comment I will make about this is that we need to be careful, because sometimes the design is to shake up the institution of tradition, and this was a huge point in theater in the 50's in England (the angry young men) and then America (the Actor's Studio) when all of a sudden the theatrical style is to be more emotional and thus, stronger, something that was not "allowed" in the older versions of it. The same for Shakespeare, all of a sudden being acted WITHOUT THE POETRY, which drove English Professors at your local University into so much anger, that they still hate the Theater Departments for it! AND teach against it! The Iambic Pentcrapinches is more important than the words! I guess we don't really know what it all means, right?

But that was clearly not the issue here, and not what my analogy was about. I wasn't born yesterday, and I've seen, heard and experienced many different ways of human expression. Enough to know that there are different schools and different approaches to acting.

BrufordFreak wrote: Atavachron wrote: You people haven't listened to enough bootlegs from the '70s. It is rare for rock musicians to actually sound good, like how we imagine them, like how they sound on records.   It isn't real or within normal human means to perform at any level of greatness except under fleeting circumstances and at the height of an artist's powers.   You know why we have Band of Gypsys and The Song Remains the Same and Bursting Out ?   Because those were acceptable performances that, with a little enhancement, sounded golden.   But they weren't golden.   No performance ever is.   It show business, smoke and mirrors. Another problem we often have is that we are biased by the original, studio versions. As a kid, I wanted concert performances to provide perfect renditions of each band's studio versions. Some bands/artists were good at this, others not. Eventually, I got good at learning to engage with the artist at their current level, that day, expressing the music they felt like performing on the terms that inspired them. I think listening to jazz and learning about improvisation in music helped in this regard. Still, I have never acquired a love of live recordings--I'd much rather be present at the live performance as the energy of the whole is so important in order to feel and enjoy the full impact of the concert.

It depends. Colin Blunstone became a better vocalist in his late 50s when he actually took singing lessons for the first time to improve both his power and range. When he sang with the Zombies at the RRHOF a few years ago, having just turned 72, he was was great.

Edited by SteveG - April 24 2022 at 17:16

I appreciated the performance, although I would have rather heard an updated version of “My Generation”.

JD wrote: Well it looks like another one of my heroes has broken my heart by staying in the game too long. Honestly, when will they learn? I'm of the mind that aging rockers should have to pass some sort of Rock N Roll test, like some seniors need to do for a driver's license. It just ain't right I tell ya.

^I saw Zombies live sometime during that period. Maybe the same year. They were great!

Saperlipopette! wrote:            ^I saw Zombies live sometime during that period. Maybe the same year. They were great!

I saw them live, for the first time, around the same time too. Maybe a year or two sooner, and was blown away. I became a big fan after that.

The Anders wrote: But then there are also artists who have stood by their age and managed to make something genuine out of it. Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash are good examples of that. I might go as far as to say that Johnny Cash peaked in his final years.

 Defiantly seems like something that effects vocalists more. Many of the older guys , especially the ones that sing hard rock, don't have the range they use to have. 

Edited by Argo2112 - April 27 2022 at 10:56