Anyone watching this? I’m enjoying it.
It’s a four episode reality show currently on the BBC and the last episode is next week. Martin Kemp and Lady Leshurr (me neither) assemble and manage rival bands to play the Isle of Wight Festival. The gimmick is that all the members have to be over 64 years old. It’s a test to see if old rockers are up to it.
The participants are all likable and have interesting life stories to tell, most of them still clinging in their advanced years to the addictive lure of rock and roll from their youth, but just never having gotten that lucky break into proper success.
Some of it is painful – you realise how essential the poise and energy of youth is to rock performance. These guys REALLY have to work hard to even sound like a passable pub rock act. And it’s so difficult and hearbreaking to watch when some of them have to be cut from the lineup for not coming up to scratch. But for all that it’s such a feelgood vibe that you are willing them to succeed all the way, which makes it totally compelling.
I found myself a bit disappointed in the resulting musical performances so far (plodding covers of “Angels”, “No Woman No Cry” etc) and to an armchair rock manager like me the solutions seem screamingly obvious: Merge the two bands and cut the chaff! Keep the funky lady bass player (the star of the show) and lose the Stevie Nicks wannabe, the guitarist in the hat and Mr Creme-Brulee-from-League-of-Gentlemen! Play to the musicians’ strengths instead of foisting awful cover versions on them! Make the black guitarist/singer guy the lead singer and focus – he’s soulful and an amazing performer when he is just doing his thing, but he is just buried in the background just playing from chord charts!
But then maybe I’m missing the point. It wouldn’t half as entertaining a show without the flawed, human element and the sense of teamwork and camaraderie against the odds.
It certainly makes you realise how phenomenally difficult it is (for all we mock Jagger and McCartney et al) to be old and still look relatively cool on stage. I fully expect in the final episode the Isle of Wight crowd will greet them with slightly embarrassed confusion, but our performers will still have a whale of a time anyway, and may even keep playing together in future after the show ends.
I’m waiting to see who’ll be the first entrant to OD on Philosan
Glad you are enjoying it. I was involved in some interviews for the show (I have a “blink and you’ll miss it” credit in the end titles). Its the showband thing that is most problematic – “Angels”, Coldplay covers, etc. But maybe yoof like the familiar covers.
Oh, how exciting! Your name up in lights.
I was surprised how much the “yoof” seemed to enjoy the warm up shows (unless it was heavily edited?) – sometimes I feel that the roles have been reversed and the yoof these days are far more forgiving of showband/coverband culture than us oldies are, and don’t worry as much as we do about credibility and whatnot.
The sort of covers bands who play the local pub circuits fairly successfully, do so by playing familiar oldies from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. The yoof mostly know the songs, even if they don’t know (or much care) who did them originally in our everything-is-everywhere musical landscape. “Civilian” punters like to hear what they know.
My old bass-playing pal Martin was earning himself about £100-£120 a week on top of his pension until Covid struck, playing every Friday and Saturday night in pubs locally. Well-played Beatles, Stones, Spencer Davis Group, Animals, Kinks, Van Morrison, U2, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty etc. oldies seem to go down well with all age groups.
Leburn is a bit of a star:
Leburn! That’s the guy. He’s really good. I feel quite bad I wrote my post in a hurry and didn’t even bother to look up all the names.
I think just him playing acoustic soul music, with lady bass player (still too lazy to look up the names….) grooving behind him, plus a suitable drummer (which seems to be a big problem in the show) would be an excellent base building block for a fabulous and credible band. Maybe a couple of old jazzers playing brass to round it out?
I find it – the whole concept – all slightly cringeworthy: “look at the funny old people playing pop* music”. I had the same reaction when the Beeb website ran a story about a punk bad comprising “old ladies” (who were in their 50s).
As if we’re all going to start listening to Vera Lynn as soon as our bus passes arrive.
But I still watch it. Cos: music on telly.
My Mum (74) still listens to the music of her yoof and to Radio 2. In her teens she followed the Unit 4+2 and Cliff and the Shads on tour. And continued to buy Sir Clifford of Richard records well into the beyond-his-prime 1980s. As I continue to do with, say, New Order.
(*) from 20 years ago.
I am really surprised you take that view @fentonsteve. I love the show but not the music. -but I do like the fact that people in their older years get the chance to fulfil a long held dream and I for one am not laughing at them at all. A great series and I think Martin Kemp has great humility.
It’s not my view at all, Steve, hence the quotes. It’s the vibe I get off the concept/publicity of the show that grates. Their ages is what the trade call “the angle”, but I don’t give a stuff about how old someone is.
That thing about the “old ladies” punk band had me spitting feathers, but was doubtless written by a 16-year-old intern. Full disclosure: one of my pals is a bigwig of the BBC news website. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with her editiorial decisions.
Seems I misunderstood your first post. It’s not highbrow that’s for sure but it is highly enjoyable and far better than the musical entertainment on a Saturday evening.
Yes I kind of know what you mean. I don’t get that kind of sneering vibe from the show itself though – I think it manages to overcome that. I wonder how young the production team are, or whatever you call the people who come up with the show?
The concept of age/time in pop music is all a bit fuzzy these days, isn’t it though? In the show, Coldplay’s song La Vida Loca or whatever it’s called, is touted by Lady Leshurr as a kind of “modern” classic for the band to sing… and it’s about 15 years old!
Lady Leshurr (me neither) was born in 1987, and the Coldplay song was 2008, so she’d have been peak receptive age of 21 when it was released.
Offspring the Elder was born in 2003, so Coldplay, the Fabs and Bing Crosby are all the same age to her – just “old”.
I’m still trying to process the “Story of ToTP 1991” shown the other night. How can 1991 – when I was 21 – be historical? Surely it was only last week?
I’ve always been known as a music buff (I bet a few folk on here can say that), but the further we get from the turn of the millennium the more my crown becomes rusty. My pop music knowledge goes off a bit when it comes to the mid-nineties, and pretty much everything since 2000 is a total blur and just “new” music that I know nothing about.
She was born in 1987? I’m surprised actually, I thought she was a lot younger than that. But then, I have a young brother who we all still consider the total baby in our family, and he was born in 1987 as well. I still think of him as about 18 years old.
I gave up wearing my gold-lamé jacket, skorts and platform ankle-boots long before I turned 34.
That’s my suspicion. Remember The Zimmers from a few years ago? I thought the basic premise might be a similar, patronising ‘Aw, bless. Look at at the old dears making fuck-awful music’. It’s certainly the impression the trailer gave so i’ll steer very far clear even if I’m wrong about that.
Many of the musicians at the festivals I frequent will be over 64. Such is the market, as rock, folk, jazz, blues and americana music is now by old people for old people. Even the dance tents are rammed with pensioners.
Leshurr is a noise I make when trying to speak French.
I will look out for it, so thanks for posting.
Some of the comments here remind me of something that really pisses me off but I haven’t been able to articulate it yet. But I’ll give it a try now.
When my dad was nearing the end of his life and in a residential care home I met some really excellent carers that treated people with respect and dignity. And then there was one loud-voiced young woman who was different. She gave the residents demeaning nicknames and “played to the gallery”. My dad was a quiet and affable man with a gentle sense of humour. I genuinely never heard him say a bad word about anyone. A typical exchange with the lady in question was along these lines “ oooh there he is! I bet you’re knackered after all your midnight canoodling with the ladies, aren’t yer? I know your type! “ (you know, stuff like that). At this point my dad was highly confused about things generally and his wife (my mother) of 60 years had died a few days earlier. Because she’s so loud, she’ll probably get an OBE. The quiet dignified carers will remain on minimum wage.
I think about that woman when I see TV ads for residential villages for older people to live in. The ads may have people in their 80s twerking on Tik Tok or dabbing, flossing or exchanging gangsta handshakes. This makes me very sad.