Hey, hey, we're the....

[ladysprite]

Live music is almost always a goodness. Live music performed by your childhood idols is a mixed bag.

When I was about 12 years old, I became hopelessly addicted to the Monkees. My mom, who loved them the first time they were cool, made me sit down and watch the show with her, and by the second episode I was hooked. They were cute and funny, their music was harmless and happy, and I adored them. It never occurred to my young mind that, if my mom had watched the show when she was my age, the performers must be at least as old as she was.

Seeing them in concert was one of the most harsh confrontations with reality I ever experienced. Three wrinkled strangers bounced out onto stage pretending to be my favorite musicians. I was crushed. Last night, at the free Monkees concert here in Boston, I was much better prepared. I found a seat way back on the lawn, behind some trees, where I was guaranteed not to see Mickey and Davey as anything other than a colorful blur.

It made me start thinking, though, about what we can expect thirtymumble years from now when today's pop music is played on oldies stations and our current teen idols are trying to capitalize on their previous fame. Will we see boy bands metamorphose into geezer bands as Backstreet Boys and N'Sync wheeze back onto stage for a reunion tour? Will a highly-plasticked Britney Speirs squeeze her sagging middle-aged body into laughably outdated hip-hugger jeans in an attempt to regain the affections of her now-grandfatherly fans?

Disturbing thoughts, indeed....

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

*laugh*

Yeah, BT,DT, got the concert T-shirt.

Not long ago, I visited an aging friend in a "independing living facility," and couldn't help noticing the piped-in, Muzak-ized versions of popular standards from her day playing in the background in their recreation room: Big Band tunes, Top 40 hits from the '50s, etc. Which led me to speculate about what will be playing on the Muzak when *my generation" hits the nursing homes. Very scary.

On the other hand, when I saw Bob Dylan live last fall, there was something ... reassuring ... about noticing that not only has the master aged, but so has most of his audience. I was surrounded by balding, pudgy, greying, wrinkled people ... just like me. It was the first concert in a long time where I haven't felt like the chaperone ..

[jadasc.livejournal.com]

Will a highly-plasticked Britney Speirs squeeze her sagging middle-aged body into laughably
outdated hip-hugger jeans in an attempt to regain the affections of her now-grandfatherly fans?

You have succinctly described, I think, the most recent Cher tour.

[camwyn]

Reminds me of a comedian I saw once, about five or ten years ago. . . he was musing on a piano bar he'd visited recently and heard old people singing along in. "What will they be playing in the piano bars when I'm that age? Is it gonna be a bunch of eighty year olds sitting around trying to sing along with Billy Idol's "White Wedding"?"

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I saw the Monkees on tour in the late 80s and wasn't disappointed. OTOH, I wasn't expecting them to even play their own instruments, so they did more than I expected them to do.

The one I found sad and scary was Jan and Dean. One of the two was in a "Dead Man's Curve" type car accident in the 70s and never quite recovered from it (or the substances he'd abused back then).

Imagine two guys -- one fairly normal-looking, and one half-paralyzed but still trying, pathetically, to sing lead on "Surf City" (barely intelligbly) with lots of ghost singers in the background covering in the songs where he sings harmony. This was one sad act.