----------------------------------------------------- SEPTEMBER 17, 2001 ----------------------------------------------------- Source: Forbes, 9/17/2001, Vol. 168 Issue 7, p34, 1p, 1bw Dinosaur Rock By John Strausbaugh Edited by Tim Ferguson Talkin' 'bout my generation: The music may be here to stay, but it's time for the paunchy idols to go Rock is youth music. It's the music of youthful sexuality, youthful rebellion, youthful anxieties and energies. Rock simply cannot be credibly played by 60-year-old men with triple chins and bad toupees, pretending still to be excited about songs they wrote 30 or 40 years ago and have played some thousands of times since. Like baseball and the ballet, it is a young person's game. It's not like jazz or blues; those are grown-up art forms, and many musicians only get better at them as they age. Mick Jagger on a stool croaking the blues is fine; Mick butt-shaking in yellow spandex is a fright. And yet every summer legions of living-dead rock bands from the 1960s and 1970s rise up from their graves and drag their decaying carcasses across the stages of America's arenas, stadiums and county fairs. Voodoo Lounge? It can look more like a Zombie Jamboree out there. This summer Ringo Starr has been shuffling good-naturedly through his tour with a band of geriatric "all stars" that includes Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer (now, one observer quips, looking and sounding more like "Emerson, Lake Embalmer") and the 62-year-old Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople, who is still dining out, with no apparent irony, on his 30-year-old hit "All the Young Dudes." The grizzled old men of Yes played the Hollywood Bowl with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. On her summer tour, a barely ambulatory Stevie Nicks has offered diehard fans the faintest echo of Fleetwood Mac's glory days. As a clear concession to her frailty, she's had the younger Sheryl Crow along as a crutch. Something calling itself "Creedence Clearwater Revisited" hit the road this summer. It's all the other guys who were in the band, but not the Fogerty brothers. This is not rock. It's more like a Gettysburg reenactment. Some geezers have literally rocked till they dropped. In July Lynyrd Skynyrd's 49-year-old bassist--one of the few surviving original members-- was found dead in his Florida hotel room. And the 1980s hair-metal band Poison recently announced that it had canceled the remainder of its current tour because its bassist had undergone emergency back surgery. He followed in the grand tradition of Journey's Steve Perry, forced to retire because of his arthritis in 1998, and Eddie Van Halen, who needed hip replacement surgery in 1999 and is currently battling cancer. The old rockers are not solely to blame. If hordes of baby boomers are willing to spend up to $250 a seat for a nostalgic evening out with vestiges of The Who, why shouldn't graybeard Pete Townshend play "My Generation" for them one more time? What's to stop Clear Channel Communications, (which, since acquiring SFX Entertainment last year, has a virtual monopoly of the acts, the concert venues and the radio promotion of big rock tours in America and is now being sued by a competing promoter in Denver on precisely those grounds) from repackaging Jurassic Rock for middle-aged fans hoping to recapture a few magic moments of their youth? Still, age and entropy may be taking hold. Pollstar, the firm that monitors concert attendance, has reported that ticket sales for the top 50 acts were down 15% in the first six months of 2001. Big names like Paul Simon, Janet Jackson, Stevie Nicks and the craggy Rod Stewart have all been playing to rows of empty seats this summer. Electric Light Orchestra canceled a planned North American tour because of poor advance sales. Even the Rolling Stones may have finally worn out their welcome. In July their tour managers advised them against plans for a 40th anniversary tour in 2002. Some in the music industry blame the general economy for the ticket slump, others the often ridiculously high ticket prices. But pop concert attendance has traditionally been immune to slowdowns. Could the real cause be that baby boomers are finally admitting that it's just no fun anymore to see their former teen idols as self-parodying senior citizens? Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, problems, corrections, or additions, contact YesinthePress@aol.com