I first posted this on my Rock N Roll Oatcake blog last year. Since then Rick Parfitt has sadly passed away, yet Status Quo carry on first announcing further acoustic dates and then deciding to plug in for a full electric tour.
The latest twist in keeping rock alive came as it was announced the late, great Ronnie Dio would tour as a hologram backed by Dio’s Disciples – the band features ex-Dio members Simon Wright, Craig Goldy and Scott Warren. Not something I’d personally want to see, but you can see the idea is keep the music alive. It could come across as a bit ghoulish though and of course every night would be the same vocals and presumably the same musical backing/solos, which loses a lot of the live thrill for fans.
Black Sabbath have finished their ‘The End’ tour earlier this year, but again they are open to future one-off shows. Aerosmith and the Scorpions seem to be happy to carry on touring, despite both saying in the recent past they were embarking on farewell tours. Deep Purple have announced a ‘Long Farwell’ tour for later this year but conversely Queen are still packing them in and touring worldwide with Adam Lambert fronting the band. Roger Taylor’s son Rufus (also a member of the Darkness) joins his dad on drums in the shows now. Jeff Lynne has reactivated ELO after many years and has recently completed a series of successful stadium shows here in the UK. Shows that you can never fully write off a musician or band coming back to the live arena. On the recent dates long standing ELO member Richard Tandy was absent and it is unsure if he will be in future ELO plans.
Do we have enough bands coming through to replace these rock giants? There are a few stadium filler bands like Foo Fighters, RHCP and Muse, with a healthy number of arena sized fillers like Nickelback, Alter Bridge, Arcade Fire, Avenged Sevenfold et al. Rock will carry on in the live arena, maybe in smaller venues and festivals, with different names as headliners, but the days of the 70’s rock giants are drawing to a close sadly…
‘First we had the sad passing of Lemmy which meant no more Motorhead, a band that lived to be on the road touring and playing to their fans.
Now we have the news that AC/DC have had to postpone their remaining US tour dates as vocalist Brian Johnson has been advised to stop performing live to save his hearing. The band have said they will be rescheduled later in the year with a guest vocalist. But it won’t be the same without Brian Johnson plus of course illness forced Malcolm Young to leave the band.
Age is catching up fast with the rock giants of the 1970’s sadly, even the mighty Status Quo have said no more electric gigs and their UK tour later this year will be their last.
The latest band to call time on touring has been Rush. Guitarist Alex Lifeson confirmed in a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine that the band won’t tour again due to the pain that drummer Neil Peart goes through.
When rock bands started way back in the 60’s and 70’s, they would not imagined the longevity many of them would have and now we are way into the twilight years for them sadly. But hey, they will still be drawn back to the stage I am sure for one-off shows and it is not all bad as Motley Crue have stopped as well 😉 ‘
