Yes it sucks. Last week I had great seats to see the Dixie Dregs play with their original line up. They are still amazing each and everyone of them. Steve Morse is still the greatest guitar player in the world in my opinion. But arthritis is slowing him down. He has to wear a support on his right hand and changed his technique to where he moves his entire arm up and down instead of just his wrist. It seems like he is playing a lot fewer fast passages than before. It’s heartbreaking to think that soon he just won’t be able to do it any more.
Don’t get me started on Rush.
On a tangent Alan Sloan was absolutely amazing on violin after taking a few decades off to be a M.D.
I posted this somewhere before in a similar thread or off-topic tangent…anyhow…
When I saw Blue Oyster Cult in 2016, their set list was absent of most of the Eric Bloom songs for lead vocals, and the couple they did play were very simple unchallenging ones with long jam breaks to lighted the load on Eric. When Eric was singing, he was supported with the rest of the guys singing backing with him. Otherwise Buck Dharma was carrying the vocal load for the show. It was still an amazingly performed show, just empty of some of their greatest content.
He still wrote and played on the new album though. And it’s a great album, you should check it out. I saw them in concert last week and they still rocked. Halford can’t do the really high stuff as well, but he doesn’t fully try and has changed the range a bit, but it didn’t hurt the songs at all.
Gordon Lightfoot still puts on a hell of a show, but he looks like he’s not going to make it through the first 15 minutes.
Rick Nielsen is almost 70, but I can’t see that he plays any differently from when he was 40.
Alice Cooper is also almost 70. I’m surprised that he is still alive (same with Keith Richards), much less that he can last through a 90-minute show. Granted, he is only singing, but I know I’d have a hard time doing it and I’m a lot younger.
I’ve seen various lineups of Yes perform over the past 35 years; when I saw them in 2008, guitarist Steve Howe looked very thin and frail (as opposed to drummer Alan White and bassist Chris Squire, who were both looking quite burly ). Howe’s performance was still excellent, but when he reached his big guitar solo in the final third of “Starship Trooper,” and started really getting into it (shaking his body, and doing a bit of head-banging action), he looked like he might fall apart at any second.
Nine years later, he doesn’t lookany better. I love Steve, but old age has started to transform him into Gollum.
With regards to Yes, I got to do a “meet and greet” with them last year, and as we all lined up to go to the backstage area, Rule No. 1 was “Do Not Touch Mr. Howe!”.
Not them physically aging, but their songs. Occasionally bands sing about being young, either because they are or recently were young. Yesterday I saw Dashboard Confessional in concert and he opened with Swiss Army Romance which contains the line “We’re not 21, but the sooner we are the sooner the fun can begin.” The song was written in 2000, so it will soon be 21!
I saw a bit of** Iggy Pop** on Austin City Limits last night. Poor reception wouldn’t let me get any clear sound, but what I did hear was pretty shaky. True to his style he was performing bare chested. Eeeewww! His torso looks like a scrotum.
**Jeff Beck **is still in fine form, playing brilliantly. Like Paul McCartney, I wish he’d stop dying his hair, and his outfits are typically a hoot, but the man can still play.
I’m watching many of my metal heroes get old and creaky (and simply pass away) and there’s a few that I wish could/would stop performing. Iggy Pop, for example, should be able to live a fantastic life, relaxed and without any responsibilities for all he gave rock & roll but the universe was never especially kind to any of the Stooges. Slayer, now that it’s been just Kerry and Tom for half a decade, are calling it quits rather than get old on stage.
I notice the decline in skills most in vocalists, but doing vocals for metal and/or punk is pretty intense and difficult so it isn’t surprising IMO.
I was glad that Brian May finally stopped dying his hair, as it was looking increasingly bad. Plus, now, his long gray curls make the guitarist / astrophysicist look a little like Sir Isaac Newton.
A few days ago, I was reading some web site that featured a current picture of Plant. My wife looked over, and asked, “who’s that?” I answered, and she looked shocked. “Oh, my god, he looks terrible!”
I’m assuming he’s Herod. Speaking of Jesus Christ Superstar and aging music heroes, Ian Gillan. Last time I heard him sing he sounded good for a 72 year old but he was the best rock screamer ever. He hasn’t been that in a long time.
). Howe’s performance was still excellent, but when he reached his big guitar solo in the final third of “Starship Trooper,” and started really getting into it (shaking his body, and doing a bit of head-banging action), he looked like he might fall apart at any second.
