"Police at Stormont" could be a headline from the bad old days in the North. But the story instead refers to an English "pop group" scheduled to play "live" in the grounds of Belfast's parliamentary buildings on June 20th, writes Michael Parsons
According to the promoter, this will be the band's "last ever Irish concert". Oh, promises, promises. If only. Not even plunging a silver stake through their wizened hearts and wearing garlic for a month afterwards could rid us of these ghastly old rockers.
This is a great month for ageing nostalgists. A band called Bon Jovi has already appeared before 50,000 people at Punchestown and this weekend, Leonard Cohen is performing in Dublin at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. Other old-timers swinging by include Lou Reed at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast; Eric Clapton and Neil Young at Malahide Castle; something called "Meat Loaf" at the Marquee Festival in Cork; Dolly Parton serenading Kilkenny; Boyzone at the RDS; and Neil Diamond "playing" Croke Park. Still, as Queen Victoria might have put it, "the news are not all dreadful". Earlier this week came the wonderful announcement that the frightful "Prince" has cancelled his concert scheduled for next Monday at Croke Park and won't, therefore, be "Per4ming 4 one last time", as the publicity said.
The summer of geriatric gyrations kicked off with the visit last month of that old blue-collar hound-dog, Bruce Springsteen. And it will reach a grisly climax when the Sex Pistols brush off the cobwebs to attend an event called Electric Picnic in Co Laois in August. Rotten luck for Johnny, Her Majesty is still going strong, 31 years after his "anarchic" version of God Save The Queen. And looking better than any old punk.
The madness isn't confined to Ireland. "Highlights" of this summer's concert schedule in Britain include shows by the Osmonds ("with special guests Donny, Marie and Jimmy"), Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, UB40, Kid Creole The Coconuts and, if you don't mind, Bananarama.
Do you detect a common thread here? You thought all these people had passed, peacefully, on? Or, were ensconced in retirement homes enjoying well-deserved obscurity? If only.
There's no word yet (thank goodness) of summer plans for those apples of Grandmas' eyes - the Rolling Stones - or the suburban militants, U2. Both bands now seem to be particular favourites of the type of barrister who, after three glasses of Chateau Lafite, momentarily believes he was once "wild" and a left-wing radical. And secretly wishes he had been tearing up the cobblestones and manning the Parisian barricades "in '68, man". Though he was really in Clongowes. The same sort of fellow would take you to court if you even thought about building an extension within a three-mile radius of his south Dublin mansion. One consolation in this dire state of affairs is that least Sir "Fokken" Bob has had the good grace to give up the croak - as a singer.
Tens of thousands of people have already spent good money on tickets for these midsummer concerts which they infuriatingly refer to as "gigs". Prices average between €80 and €R100, not to mention the amount that will be spent on tatty "merchandise".
The seats (or standing-room spaces) will be filled by ranks of middle-aged, mostly middle-class people who pathetically refuse to accept that they have aged. Hordes of balding men and overweight women will dress like they think teenagers would, go for "a few scoops" and tootle off to try to recapture the "excitement" of their youth. Some will insist on being hoisted onto their "partner's" shoulders to better "see the stage" - a mile away. Others will instinctively reach for their cigarette-lighters to swayingly hold a "candle in the wind" and then remember that they gave up smoking years ago. They are pitiful. And they're all around us.
The most unexpected people are secret "gig-goers". You can be talking to someone apparently normal and respectable - a pin-striped businessman, say - who casually mentions that he's "just back from Florida" where he had taken his wife to a "Rod Stewart concert for her birthday".
News like this makes me want to scream like that character in Munch's painting. But I don't, of course. I politely enquire, "Was if good?" - and register mild, good-humoured surprise that I "didn't know" they were fans. When what I you really want to say is: "Are you both off your rockers?" Or, "Are you, a pillar of the 21st-century business community, not thoroughly ashamed to admit to a fondness for 1970s teeny-pop?"
Interviewed in The Irish Times recently, a senior trade union official (a man well into his sixth decade) was asked: "What's on your iPod now?" (What presumption! Yet, astonishingly he had one). Instead of saying: "What on earth is that?", he replied: "Bruce 'The Boss' Springsteen and Eric 'Slowhand' Clapton. No prizes for guessing who will be at their summer gigs this year in Dublin."
Whatever happened to growing older gracefully - to heeding the Bible's wonderful advice, from Corinthians, Chapter 13: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
You don't care? Well, the latest news - off the hot press, so to speak - is that Metallica will be here in August. You deserve them.