Well, since you asked...
Stones/Turner etc may well put on very good gigs, but those gigs also tend to be massively expensive to attend. How much are these kind of 'superstar' gigs going for these days? 80 quid? 100? You know what the result of that is? The audience is wrong. The audience for a Stones gig will be almost as old as they are, since you have to require a huge disposable income to be able to attend and your disposable income generally peaks in your 40's, not your 20's.
I dunno about you but when I was 18 I was a poor student just about being able to feed myself and when I was 21 I was in a job that just about kept my head above water. I couldn't have thrown down 100 quid for a concert ticket even if Elvis and John Lennon had come back from the dead for a one off supergroup mash up. My concerts happened in the dingiest clubs (or... other places) but they were alive and loud and brash and didn't give a damn. Miles away from the corporate tours of the today. What sort of rock band gets sponsored by a mobile phone company? Surely it's Jack Daniels or nobody? 'Sellout' isn't the word. what would the 1970's Iggy Pop say about the 2010 Iggy Pop selling car insurance?
So the 'rock' music you speak of is increasingly the preserve not of the young, the energetic, the frenetically opinionated and hormonally explosive who are the true spirit of all rock/punk/indie. It is the preserve of settled, polite people with kids of their own who are worried about getting home before midnight. It's all about as far from genuine "f!ck you I won't do what you tell me" rock music as I am from Brad Pitt.
Also, what are these groups performing? Largely songs that were written decades ago. How long is it since the Great Touring Rock Bands actually wrote a decent tune? Do Bon Jovi still close their shows with 'Living on A Prayer' then? The great paradox of Rock is that bands generally write great tunes not when they have had years to perfect their craft and are technically proficient but when they are young, hungry, full of adrenaline and excited by the potential of what is to come. When he started, Liam Gallagher was wailing 'Tonight, I'm a Rock and Roll Star' in Manchester basement clubs, getting punched in the face for his troubles and it was genuinely electrifying. 10 years later Noel's living in a nice house in Notting Hill with his actress wife and writing songs complaining about how his life isn't fun any more. Rock? Dear Lord No.
Not that this kind of gentrification is entirely just the preserve of old rockers of course. Liam Hewlett married one of the All Saints, bought a mansion in Surrey and since he did so everything he's done has been god awful. The Prodigy turned from one of the best live bands in existence to (as a friend of mine said as we walked away from one of their gigs) 'The techno version of Slade'. These days he's almost a self parody. The Hartnoll brothers stopped going to raves and started writing film soundtracks.
I can sympathise with people wanting to hold on to the things that make them feel alive. Far be it from me to argue with Dylan Thomas
. But you can't hold onto it for ever and the more you try, the longer you hang on, the more desperate you seem to look.
The basic point is this - Tina Turner or Oasis or whoever may put on great, glossy, expansive shows but they have more in common with Las Vegas cabaret than they do with Rock. Rock isn't about the most lights and the biggest screens, it's about fire in the veins, rebellion in the heart and waking up with a headache next to someone whose name you can't even remember.
No, I'm sorry. It's impossible for music to fulfill the basic function of rock - to upset your parents - if your parents are the ones going to see it and the songs being sung are the ones they remember from when they were 18. It's still great music and it's great entertainment but it it simply isn't Rock.
Jon
