8 June

The same people who cheer on McCartney and Springsteen doing stadium gigs in 2025 would have laughed at the ridiculous idea of Louis Armstrong or Count Basie being invited to play at Woodstock. They wouldn’t have been ‘cool’, old peoples’ music. And those giants would only have been in their 60s then. McCartney is 83, Springsteen is 75. I know I’m pretty much alone in finding it perverse and ridiculous that people in their 70s and 80s are still rock stars. (Freddie Mercury thought it would be ridiculous at 50, George Harrison was sick of it by 30.) It’s profoundly unhealthy that cultures have no stages of life now, just a permanent youth. You’ll discover this the hard way if you live to this age (which is extremely unlikely, sorry, with Covid rampant), without the hundreds of millions in the bank they have. Society will just let you die, as we’re doing right now in aged care, with Covid. You’re not allowed to be old.