Back again, naturally

Watched the Who closing the Glastonbury Festival on the tube last night. Despite the presence of a lot of musicians on the stage, the performance was so note-perfect that I almost suspected there was a backing track. Surely the Who are not turning into the Eagles, who have never been known to play an improvised note in public? In any case, it was a first-rate 90-minute tour of their back catalogue, spoiled only by a bit too much "Tommy" near the end. At one point a banner appeared at the bottom of the screen to advise viewers that they could switch to another channel to see the Chemical Brothers. It's hard to imagine that many people will have been tempted.

I thought of rooting through the old tapes gathering dust under the TV to see if I still have the recording I made of the Who's supposed "farewell concert" in Toronto. I recorded it on the first VCR I ever owned, some time in the early 1980s. It would have been interesting to compare the set lists for that show with the one at Glastonbury. I would bet there was something like a 90% overlap.

I don't suppose that the Who or anyone else imagined the appetite that baby boomers would have for geriatric rock acts more than two decades later. I have nothing against musicians of my age continuing to perform. In the last few years I've paid to see Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Mark Knopfler and Bryan Ferry, among others. But there's surely a limit, and we may have reached it. No, I'm not talking about the Spice Girls reunion. The weekend papers contained an ad for a series of concerts by......Gilbert O'Sullivan! Now I'm more than happy to admit that "Alone again, naturally" and (even moreso) "Nothing rhymed" are pretty good songs of their type. But let's face it, the rest of his material, even when he was at his peak, was pretty thin, and like the Who, he hasn't had a whole lot of hits since then. With his reedy voice, I don't recall that he was ever much in demand as a live performer.

If Gilbert O'Sullivan can fill halls around the country, then it's surely true that nostalgia isn't what it used to be. But hey, maybe there's even an opportunity for me to cash in here. Coming soon: my Jake Thackray tribute tour.