Music: Rock’n’Roll WILL Die: Your Bucket List of Bands

Massive bands like the AC/DC, Rolling Stones, Iron Maiden and Kiss are losing their singing voices and going deaf as the generation of ’70s hard rock nears its end. They are also the bands selling out arena tours at £100+ per ticket, with marketing that often outshines the show. Which ageing bands are worth the ticket price to see before they croak and which should be avoided to protect the memories of their heyday?

Aerosmith

The band that “don’t wanna miss a thing” is now on its “Aero-Vederci” farewell tour, though critics question whether this really will be the end. Guitarist Joe Perry has said they have no final date and intend to continue the tour for a few years. His comments came just after the band had scored top billing at several festivals.

Lead singer Steven Tyler is 69 while Perry, 67, has fully recovered from a 2016 heart attack that may have come with advice to slow things down. While the future of the band seems unclear it is still an act you won’t want to miss should it return to the UK after its headline spot at Download Festival on June 11.

Iron Maiden

Rock fans grow tired of seeing Iron Maiden headline UK festivals, so you probably have more time to see this iconic act than bands that rarely come  to the UK.

Now 58, the “trooper” lead singer Bruce Dickinson battled tongue cancer in 2015, which responded well to treatment with little if any impact to his voice. Guitarist Steve Harris is the only permanent member of the six-piece band, so if anyone leaves a stand-in could easily step up.

Ozzy Osbourne

Black Sabbath is over. Guitarist Tony Iommi decided to stop touring after years of performing while receiving lymphoma treatment but Ozzy is set to carry on. The only problem is his voice.

Many fans at Download Festival 2016 were disappointed that their last image of the heavy metal pioneers was of an aged Ozzy struggling to carry the notes of even the ranting hit Paranoid.

The Rolling Stones

Ronnie Wood is the youngest “Stone”, having recently reached 70. Much of their stagecraft now consists of walking with style and the occasional low kick, which is hardly worthwhile at more than £100 for some tickets.

Having said that, they have a new album of covers of the blues tracks they treasured before finding fame, “Blue & Lonesome”, which was recorded in just three days in Richmond in 2015. Hopefully the prices will come down when they are finally performing with wheelchairs and zimmer frames.

Kiss

The hard rock legends Kiss have been performing since 1973 and have become the epitome of arena-filling rock stars. While their 2017 tour Kisstory was a real thrill it relied on cliches to cover a lack of fresh substance, with bassist Gene Simmons constantly sticking out that monster tongue while huge pyrotechnics flared across the stage.

Frontman Paul Stanley’s voice showed more age than the wrinkles under his white face paint as he navigated around the wailing highs of hits like “I was made for loving you”. He has had hip replacements after 40 years of performing in platform boots but that does not limit the 63-year-old’s captivating stagecraft.

The band found time to feature in a straight-to-video Scooby Doo feature-length cartoon in 2015 but has released hardly any new material in recent years . That means you should expect “greatest hits” performances with lots of talking and solos to allow the old boys to catch their breath.

Alice Cooper

With a performance at London’s SSE Arena due for November 16, 69-year-old Cooper shows no signs of slowing down except perhaps for his love of golf. He still styles himself as a corpse but Cooper has amazing energy, which may come from the clean living that followed his resolution to control his alcohol abuse of the mid-1980s. he has even made time to help other rock stars like Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine control their own addictions.

If you don’t want to wait for Cooper to resurface every now and then for a tour you can hear him every weeknight on Planet Rock on his radio show broadcast from his home in Arizona.

 

AC/DC

Sadly this Aussie hard rock dream team is on a highway to care-home hell with guitarist Malcolm Young struck down with dementia in 2014 and the flat-capped frontman Brian Johnson now departed due to deafness. Johnson was forced to take a break from touring towards the end of the Rock or Bust world tour in 2016 and the band effectively fired him before taking on Guns n’Roses star Axl Rose.

The only remaining original member, Angus Young, intends to keep the band going but with this diminished lineup the band is going to struggle to continue unless they re-create themselves as they did when Bonn Scott drank himself to death.

 

by Stewart Vickers @VickHellfire

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