The Who are embarking on a 66-date world tour this year. No surprise there, then. That is what The Who should do. With a pensions crisis looming for the boomers — all too feckless to save adequately for a decent retirement — their spokesmen should exemplify working until death. As far as anyone between the ages of 50 and 65 is concerned, that kid’s going to have to play a mean pinball; deaf, dumb, blind, incontinent, arthritic and battling with senile dementia.
However, as befits a band who claim to have invented the internet*, The Who are ramping up the technology on this jaunt. Possibly mindful of fans who may be in a bath chair — or who, after sampling all the delights of the world, merely prefer the comfort of their own bed and toilet — the band are broadcasting the whole tour on the net. You can sample all 66 dates from your side-chair, casually comparing Pete Townshend’s scissor-kicks in Minsk to his windmills in Amsterdam. Rock’n’roll has gone from hi-fi to wi-fi in 20 years. From Under the Boardwalk to “What’s your baud rate?” in 30.
That The Who are the first band to do this seems little short of astonishing. It is, after all, the year 2006. It seems amazing that, as a civilisation, we have been able to download pictures of cats that look like Hitler (www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com — those cats really do look like Hitler) for more than a decade but have still been forced to fly to Tokyo, in a plane, should we wish to watch Bruce Springsteen play in Tokyo. Given the technology available, it’s only a little less unnecessary than having to go to Abbey Road, in a taxi, if one wishes to listen to Abbey Road. Or the dark side of the Moon, in a rocket, should one wish to listen to The Dark Side of the Moon.
However, while lazybones, workaholics and anyone with a sense of perspective will welcome this move to virtual touring, there are certain aspects of the plan that have yet to be addressed. Most of them, it must be admitted, relate to hoggins.
Let us be clear about the way things work. Everything in this world happens for one of three reasons: money, sex, or because a woman saw an interesting article about it in a magazine. Clearly, virtual touring will hundred-ruple potential earnings at a stroke. The money is assured. Clearly, also, women will read about this phenomenon in magazines. In this respect, virtual touring has a bright future. But when it comes to the third motor of the world — hoggins — virtual touring presents a huge problem. People just aren’t going to get laid on the net.
Of course, as far as pop stars are concerned, this won’t matter a huge amount — someone in a successful band can get laid anywhere. Indeed, someone in a band can get laid anywhere, full stop. I know someone in a not-gigantic Britpop band who was approached in a canteen during lunch, offered sex, and had returned to his bench before dessert. A man with a guitar need never have the trouble of taking off his own trousers again, should he so wish.
But sex is much like wealth — it has a trickle-down effect. If a lady fan cannot have sex with the lead singer, she will have the guitarist. If she can’t have the guitarist, she’ll have the bass player or the guy on synths. From there it is a straight line of sex succession to the band’s mates, the tour manager, the promoter, the roadies, the guy on the mixing desk, the guy on the merchandise stall, ticket touts and, finally, for the desperate, the drummer.
Should ladies start attending gigs via their laptops, however, there’s a whole strata of society that just won’t get laid. There won’t even be enough women to go round for the band, let along their hangers-on. And with the bonus of sex removed, the demographic make-up of the music industry will be immediately altered. Road crews will consist merely of people who see touring as a chance to travel the world while earning a steady wage — primarily middle-class students from Esher on a gap year.
Proper roadies, meanwhile — carousing trouser-pirates who make the A-Team look like St Winifred’s school choir — will abandon the music industry and seek employ in another career of boisterous rumpy and ill repute. Medicine, say, or sub-editing on trade magazines. While this will be a watershed moment for the industries concerned (having a proper, old-school roadie in your employ is like having a creature that is part-genie, part-private army with some amazing stories about Dave Stewart from Eurythmics. They are probably the only people really cut out for teaching modern history in an inner-city comprehensive), I can’t help but feel that it will lead to the virtual collapse of the music industry.
With all the sybarites, rock-pigs, wild-eyed loners at the gates of nether and those plain unable to get laid any other way seeking employ elsewhere, the charts will change irrevocably. Only husband-and-wife bands will bother to tour. This means that, as of next year, the only bands playing live will be Everything But The Girl, Sonic Youth and some prog-rock band knocked together by Richard and Judy.
* On the 1971 album Who’s Next they floated the idea of “the Grid”, a parallel world of interlinked computers. As befits feckless rock stars, however, they didn’t go on to develop Windows, continuing merely to throw televisions through them instead.
Stress busters
A study conducted by Leeds University discovered that the longer the hours a woman works, the more she snacks, smokes and drinks coffee. I think it’s quite noticeable that all these female methods of getting through the day are quick, cheap rewards that won’t inconvenience anyone. They are also, of course, comforts that lead to heart disease and/or getting a depressingly larger arse. Come on, ladies! Take a leaf out of the men’s book! They’ve had all of history to adapt to workplace stress and have clearly discovered the best and healthiest of solutions. To wit: shouting, reading Exchange & Mart on the toilet for up to an hour at a time, and regular appointments for sissification.
Chivalry is dead
In a recent experiment, 97 per cent of motorists drove past and did not stop to help a young woman change a tyre on her broken-down car. Many have taken it as the end of the age of chivalry — but consider it the other way round. More than 97 per cent of women wouldn’t stop to advise a young man against purchasing a shirt that did nothing for his eyes.
