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The joys of being an ageing rocker

At a Mumbai restaurant on karaoke night, bunches of grey-haired men leap up and belt out Neil Diamond’s greatest hits, with an occasional dip into the Eagles. They’re neither embarrassed nor shy. Heck, they’re having a blast. It’s their party and they’ll sing if they want to. One of the endearing problems of wannabe stars in a karaoke bar is that half can’t hold a tune. But then this is country which invented antakshari, so who are we to complain when someone massacres ‘Sweet Caroline’ in the sweetest possible way?

Cut to the America concert in Mumbai last week. The 3,000-strong crowd belted out every word of every song of what was, no offence, a band very much on the periphery of the rock scene, even when they were popular. This included patently absurd lyrics like, “But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man/ That he didn’t, didn’t already have/ And cause never was the reason for the evening/ Or the tropic of Sir Galahad”. It was a great experience.

In the concert hall, two young girls lamented that they were born too late. “If only we had been at Woodstock,” they sighed. So did most of the audience, most likely. But given its average age of about 50-ish, it probably no longer cared.

Since globalisation allowed every ageing rock band on the planet the chance to come to perform in this glorious country, every ageing rocker has had the chance to see childhood idols for real. The first time Jethro Tull played in India in the early ’90s, Ian Anderson had a sore throat. Ah well, even if he croaked his way through “It’s no fun being Jack-in-the green”, it was Ian Anderson! Live! In Mumbai!

Since then, we’ve even become a bit blasé. Hmmm, Rolling Stones was never my thing. Er, Roger Waters? I’d prefer The Who. Some of it is laziness, some of it is growing up. But the too-young-to-die rockers are in the minority, it seems. According to organisers, it’s more lucrative to bring down classic rock bands to India than it is to get new superstars.

The Beyonce concert in Mumbai attracted only about 2,000 people. The reasons are easy to understand: the age-old have proved themselves by becoming age-less and the young are fickle. The Roger Waters concert was jampacked — apart from the expected geriatrics brigade, every engineering student fromwithin a 2000 mile radius was there. Deep man, heavy. At the Scorpions gig — there, I used it — by comparison, they let the Rs1000 wallahs into the Rs1500 enclosure because there was space. The Scorpions, you see, are not quite old enough!

The money and time theory occurred to some Mumbai restaurateurs as well. In keeping with the current ‘youth or no one’ mantra, many opened what they thought were appropriately trendy joints. The youth came and the youth left as each fad died and a new one was born. But people in the 40s and above have money, are ready to spend it, want their own music and even better, don’t want constant excitement; they want comfort, familiarity and a bit of edge. You don’t often hear rap in karaoke bars. Comfort nostalgia is in, as the recent Led Zeppelin reunion showed.

There was some ranting that the America concert was held at the stodgy Shanmukhananda hall, better known for its Carnatic music concerts. But sitting was a dream. You don’t need to headbang anymore and your feet didn’t pain.(Now if only they had allowed food and alcohol). After all, it was a mature audience (though if you’d heard then singing ‘Muskrat Love’, mature was not the word that would have come to mind).

So that could be the new ‘old rockers’ demand: arena concerts with seating for the young at heart but old in years. Let the ‘yoof’ stand in the mosh pit and do that silly goat’s head satanic hand signal — do they know how silly it looks when you do it for glam rockers and soft poppers? — or wave their lighters, lasers, cell phones, ipods, whatevers. The real connoisseurs are sitting right there.

To form a rock music group sounds obscenely cultish. What old rockers want is to unashamedly sing, “a long long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile,” and who cares if you scoff. Age gives you that most wonderful defence of all — a thick skin and a propensity to remember godawful lyrics.