I am in very much favour of events like Glanstonbury and Woodstock, I think they should be held every year, be very much advertised on tv, radio and newspaper, It should even be much cheaper to attend, so there would be a million or more spoilt junkies, then, at the summit of their congregation, they should be all tightly rounded and machinegunned to the last craphead standing. Seriously.

GAETANO PELLEGRINI, Slough, England

I agree with debbie... I'm in my early 20's and have noticed over the past few years how glastonbury and reading festival have become all about making money by shoving commercially popular bands on the stage instead of sticking to what they were about in the first place. this has led to loads of other festivals taking place which will all become just as commercialised.
I'm now waiting for download fes to turn to the darkside, but really hope this doesnt happen...
...however i agree with JC in that new bands are copying old ones... but i believe hes referring to bands like razorlight, kooks, hard-fi, and crap like that... which is all just pop dressed as rock in my view. Start listening to real rock (as in not run by money) and you will soon agree that there are plenty of rock bands who are not copying older ones.
Try Poison The Well or From Autumn To Ashes, there's no way you can compare them to The Who!

Jason H, Ash, Surrey

Glastonbury will always be about the past to most people, as Isle of Wight. What really bugs me is the middle classes and people nearer to my age (50) hijacking these events (as they are doing with virtually everything else they can get their greedy mits on). There is some brilliant music around now, pretty heavy rock music/great dance music. My children 21 and 22 respectively recently did Download and Global Gathering. How long until the oldies try to hijack these. No Mr Clarkson you are wrong, the kids have their own festivals they do not need Glastonbury - far too mainstream (yawn)

Debbie, Surbiton, Surrey

I was born in 1952, so aged 16 in 1968. The music I was listening to was made by people who were 5 or so years older, and they got most of the basic ideas from even older people, mostly US blues and jazz men. So we could argue for a long time about whose music that was.
The innovation of the period was also driven by technology - stereo recording and LPs were new, along with huge advances in instruments, amplification and other electronics. All that technology and playing technique is mature now, so you can't expect the same level of innovation.
Then, as now, the really good stuff wasn't in the charts or even on the radio. There are plenty of great rock bands around now, but they aren't at Glastonbury.

PT, Warwick,

All very well. He does know that The Who played glastonbury this year though, right?

Ben, Birmingham,

Jeremy is right as usual. Apart from the kinder-bands we now also have the Zimmers who were born in the 1930s! Hands off our music!

Epimethean, Reigate, Surrey

i belive youve hit the nail on the head Jezza, i think the term" plastic hippies " could be used,.

pat, oswestry, england-just

Rock music is dead, rebellion is dead, I blame the New Romantics, before them we had punk, rock & roll, OI and Ska, all types of music designed to make you feel something, go back far enough and you will find songs that stirred the blood, marching songs that called everyone together and helped them fight as one! What song have you heard in the last 20 years that made people stand up and be counted? Since the New Romantics came along and made everyone go a bit wishy‑washy music has become bland, exicting music just doesn't get the chance it used to, most money is made by churning out pap for the chav generation and letting youngsters believe they are helping the planet, rebellion is being choked for the sake of cash and modern 'rock & 'punk' is nothing like it used to be, the days of proper rock are long gone and may never return.
Regards Jake (with tonque firmly in cheek

Jake Lazarus, Cheam, Surrey

"Rock music is yours!" "Festivals were better in our day!" "Who cares about global warming!" Jez...you can be amusing when you rant at times but the above piece is a load of nonsense. For starters when "kids" post 1971 do invent something new all you are likely to do is berate it anyway (punk, dance etc etc). Great rock music has been made in recent years by truly talented acts...the fact you don't recognise that just shows your age. Festivals now are great but if they have been commercialised or runied, it is your generation that did it. And as for Global warming...of course you don't care, you'll be 6 foot under by the time it really effects us, leaving us lot to mop up the mess.
So we should enjoy ourselves in the meantime...good on your wife...you're the real stick in the mud!

Jonathan, Coventry,

I know facts aren't your thing when in mid-rant Jeremy, but if 'you were there' you would know Pink Floyd was only four men. Syd was on gardening leave in Cambridge during their stadium rock era.

Chas, Hong KOng,

All a part of the infantilisation of our society. Everybody had to be there to be able to say they were there. Yawn.

paul, barcelona, spain

To the person calling themselves 'That was my house', what?
First hand global warming? Come to where I live, I'll take you to an exhibition that is a monument to a catastrophic flood that happened in this country almost 200 years ago!
If you are so concerned and take offence to Mr Clarkson about his view on said 'warming' wy are you on the internet? The energy you have just burned!!

Jez is the best, uk,

Really enjoyed your comments. Very funny.

jim messenger, Chiang Mai,

Mr Clarkson, thanks for that! Although you are the Grand Master of generalisation I agree with you: rock was at its best in the 60s and 70s. Nowadays it is about young lads with stupid haircuts copying the old idols. Nothing more has come out of that. But hey, there has not been a new instrument invented for many decades. The last one was the Trinidadian steel pan, I think. Which gave the World great music.

Sven Krause, Derby, UK

Oh, just pack your bag and loo roll and go with the wife, take the drugs,let your hair down "whats left of it" and enjoy yourself, although i doubt you will as you will be hounded for your autograph, by the odious teenagers mothers who will recognize you as the icon of today.

mikeart, Maidstone, Kent

To Sam from Paris:

Sounds to me like Alex may have been at "Radio City" on Patpong Soi 2, off the Silom Road in Bangkok. Goes out live on radio, hence the name. Elvis is usually followed by Thai Tom Jones! Enjoy ...

Mike, Singapore,

After months of rumours, Spice Girls confirm reunion.

Posh, Ginger, Scary, Baby and Sporty have announced they are bringing back Girl Power for a world tour.

"Girl Power is back and stronger than ever". With these words the Spice Girls announced they are to reform and embark on a world tour, six years after they split up and the day after a line was drawn under the era they helped to define.

Less than 24 hours after Tony Blair left Downing Street, the band, who as much as anything else came to represent the Cool Britannia years, formally revealed their plans at a press conference at the O2, the venue known until recently as the Millennium Dome.

"We wanted to say thank you to our fans. It just feels very right for us", said Mel C, explaining the decision.

"Obviously it's nostalgic. But equally, if new fans want to come along, that's fantastic," Geri Halliwell said. "We ARE girl power. It doesn't matter how old you are, 5 or 65. I like to think our songs are etc etc etc"

v putin, moscow, russia

I have been to Glastonbury.This is a pure global market.You spend most of your time queing,and yes you can see all this bunch of idiot pretending to be green or worried about Africa when back to their daily life they would even not give a penny to a homeless in the street or even walk rather than take their car to get a pint of milk....
I think,this is part of the "we have to be good or pretend to be".
Honnestly where was the music in Glastonbury?
It all about MONEY<MONEY<MONEY.The organisaters know how to do it good,pretending that you will have a life experience...
They should send £145 each to Africa but I believe the call of the drugs is stronger.

Francoise, London, UK.

Clarkson needs to lock the doors, turn out the lights, put on his slippers, pick up his pipe, sit in the rocking chair by the fire & tell us how nothing's as good as when he were a lad.

How can I trust someone who's too old for going out & getting muddy & drunk in a field, to give me a review of the latest & greatest fire-breathing non-green automobile.

Dry Heat Dave , Phoenix, Arizona USA

Jeremy, you're the Bernard Manning of Journalism, appealing to people like you who are equally ignorant.

sonny, london,

Dear all
I'm with Ckarkson on this.
This is all pure profiteering and owes little to the spirit of the 'festival'.
Michael Eavis owns the farm on which the 'rock' festival is staged.
He doesn't own Glastonbury. Or the festival. That is all owned by the same people who own (and book) all the other festivals (Reading, T In The Park, Download, etc etc and all the country's major music venues).
Glastonbury spirit?
Sorry guys.

Luca Brazzi, Reading, UK

But the music is quite awful these days. It is too generic, cold, clinical, and worst of all, approved by marketing people who know nothing about music in first place.

Music should be about emotional reward, not about CD sales.

Rodion Tseitlin, West Bloomfield, MI, USA

It pains me to say this Mr Clarkson, but you are so right. I was at Live 8 in Hyde Park for the whole tortuous proceedings until the whole charity-free-publicity-celebrity-group-therapy event (for a good cause) was rescued at the (much delayed) end by the Floyd, complete with Waters... and awesome lasers.

B. Wall, London,

Let me get this straight. Your wife went off to Glastonbury, to spend the weekend listening to live bands (albeit rubbish ones) and frolicking with other rich people pretending to be hippies - while you stayed at home, looking after the children and listening to Floyd in a darkened room?

Your wife is an absolute legend.

Sarah, Worthing, West Sussex

Jeremy, I invite you to come over to East Yorkshire and see first hand the destruction caused by global warming. Regardless of whether it is caused through car exhausts, farting cows or leaving your dishwasher on, the floods this week have left thousands of people without their homes. Nature cannot be stopped, but we can each do our bit to help ease the speed of the ever changing global weather patterns. Get your wellies on and get in the spirit!

That was my house, Hull, East Yorkshire

Similar age to JC went to Reading, Donnington, Glastonbury, Knebworth and so on, now David Gilmour, Albert Hall, Five Star Hotel, Room Service, Fly/First Class Rail- mud, politics, jingle jangle guitars and junior Bono's you're having a laugh if you take it seriously and even more so if you take JC'S article seriously.

Simon, Darlington, UK

Trust your wife has recovered from trenchfoot - apparently this year conditions were so bad they were giving out advice on how to avoid it!
If the generation born between 1950 and 1971 hadn't taken rock to their hearts and bought shed loads of the stuff rock would have died... so it is our generations music.
What I can't stand about Glastonbury is the presenters on the BBC - I don't want to see their opinions - I want to see the music - uninterrupted.
Whether you like the homilies about global warming or hate them they have to be better than what is coming our way next Sunday..
My last open air gig confirmed my status as middle-aged - The Beautiful South at Castle Howard - picnic beforehand, lots of lovely stalls selling refreshments, wine, fish and chips, and essentially British orderly queueing for the immaculate portaloos.
And if there's a vacancy in the wife department...

Jenny Baldock, York, North yorkshire

Rock 'n' roll belongs to the young. Old farts like Jeremy (and me) can hitch a ride if we're of a mind, but we should never, never believe we have some ownership of it. It's not even about the music, its about the next generation finding their identity and having 'their' time. This is probably the most wrong piece Jeremy has ever penned. Despite the wit, he sounds like a caricature of everyones dad.

Jeremy in Oz, Perth, Oz

It is sad when ageing and Toryfication run along hand in hand like skipping schoolgirls with pigtails bouncing under their straw hats.

If I had to choose between a boring old fart and his missus dripping wet in a tent, listening to sounds, blitzed out of her skull and giggling - well...pass the spliff love.

I'm old enough to remember the sixties and seventies - they were crap.

Ivor Griffiths, Lancaster, Lancashire

You took the words out of my mouth, JC. And I say this after having watched the whole succession of talentless 'bands' from the comfort of my couch on TV. The only bit of music was from 30 to 35 years ago, The Who (blistering performance), and John Fogerty.
I hope the new bands are all hanging their heads in shame and have realized that songs that live forever are more than a 3 minute nursery rhyme (makes chanting for imbeciles easier) followed by a repititive three note guitair 'lick' played with one finger. And huge concentration (they might get it wrong!).
Please stand for Prime Minister, and save us from this average world where average people make heroes of sub-average 'talent'.

Aleya Pillai, Belper, Derbyshire, UK

Actually, Jezzer is quite correct. Fair play to Elvis, Chuck Berry and Little Richard who were massively influential in the development of rock 'n' roll, not rock music - and there is a big difference.
Rock came from the likes of Deep Purple, Led Zep, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix who fused power, volume and supreme musicianship to create an altogether different musical offering.
Much of the stuff we have now is a remix of what went before - only trouble is it's not as enduring. Listen to the White Stripes and then go stick on "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC. Tell me that Jack White doesn't want to sound like the dearly departed Bon Scott!
Maybe it's just me, but the criteria for success set by today's 'rock' bands comprises a judiciously battered vintage Fender Telecaster, lots of energy and the occasional dip into the handbook of suitably shabby barre chords.
I'm not saying the new stuff is all bad - it's just a bit too instant for my liking.

Chris Murphy, Bolton, UK

The devil you know... .

Left to their own devices, others dreamed up disco and almost killed every male in the late 70's. While we were in our rooms listening to Brain Salad Surgery at ear-bleeding volume, women were dancing with each other and the single fop who "really, really got the groove". He is now a Labor Party under minister in Milton Keynes and "really, really likes the architecture". Staying Alive? Barely.

Next we were assalted by boy bands and Hip - Hop. Sorry, my voice broke years ago and I have no desire to get shot 5 times by a poser thug in an Escalade or to have a tattoo of the Virgin Mary flashing her gang sign on my left bicep.

Rock as we know it may be dead but I say, "Rock is dead, rock is dead, long live rock" even watered down.

Got to go. Just took out my iPod headphones after noticing blood coagulating on my Pink shirt and Hermes tie.

Richard Patronik, Fairfield, CT USA

Come on Jeremy, Michael Eavis is a fair bit older than you and I’m glad he doesn't have the same attitude or they'd need a fleet of zimmer frames and mobility vehicles to cater for the bands you want to see. He said this year he didn’t want to book ‘has beens’ as there is so much new talent around at the moment, and I agree.

Although you often mock the young, I get the distinct impression you are insanely jealous of them, otherwise you'd happily get on with your middle age without the need to make ageist comments all the time.

Marc Richardson, Ipswich, UK

Here's a proper music festival

http://www.farmerphilsfestival.co.uk/

Stu, Edinburgh, UK

I was feeling set up for the morning by this deliciously entertaining dose of bile but then it was somewhat dampened by the sniffy, farty, taking-it-all-so-seriously responses. Lighten up!

Geebo, Ipswich, UK

"Probably the best performers live are Muse"

Only if they are playing someone else's songs as I can hear a Muse tune a mile off.

Muse as with so many other people these days, find a musical formula and stick with it so that all their songs sound the same. (Another good example is Fall Out Boy!)

I'm 24 but would much rather listen to listen to rock music from the 70s and 80s because it was far more creative. There are a few exceptions to the one tune formula out there I know, but these people never seem to get the credit they deserve.

Paul, Southampton, UK

Alex, i am going to Bangkok in August, and i'm an Elvis fan. Can you remember the place?
I go to Asia twice a year to get away from Europe, and it's always a bit of a culture shock...returning.

Sam, Paris, France

Rock on, Jeremy - top man!

Al, Bristol,

Ah, the arogant view that music was only good when you were young, and everything today is rubbish. Trust good old Jeremy to feel this way. Glastonbury may now be slightly over commersialised, but to the current generation the festival means just as much as to the last.

Laurence Thompson, Lincoln, UK,

Alex, i am going to Bangkok in August, and i'm an Elvis fan. Any chance you remember the place?
I go to Asia twice a year to get away from Europe, and it's always a bit of a culture shock...returning.

Sam, Paris, France

You do know that the Who played this year, don't you?

Gord, London,

Jeremy, I bet you sound just like your father did 30 years ago - " they don't make em like they used to....", "this modern music is a racket..." etc.

I'm almost the same age as you and whilst our generation were responsible for The Who, Led Zep etc. etc we must also share the blame for The Bay City Rollers, The Goombay Dance Band, Disco ( all of it), and even possibly Scott Aitken and Waterman, plus many many more.

As well as "useless, talentless ne'er do-wells " there are a host of great rock and punk orientated bands around today ( mainly American unfortunately ) who don't have a political or eco agenda.

Now that the male menopause has well and truly hit here's a few ideas for next weeks column - 1) How food tasted better in my day 2) Kids aren't as respectful as they used to be. 3) Why middle age has not narrowed my outlook as much as it has broadened my waist.

Jon Salt, Yoxall, Staffs, UK

Sorry Jeremy, but you've got it wrong again. Rock belongs to the generation from which its greatest exponents came. You cited Pink Floyd, The Who and Led Zeppelin as prime examples of the genre. Good choices. However, without exception the members of those great bands were all born between 1943 and 1948. I would therefore suggest that rock therefore belongs to us, i.e. people born in the 1940's.
The generation you (presumably) come from can really only lay claim to Punk music. Enough said.

Mike the Music, Higher Kinnerton, North Wales

your wife sounds like a good laugh, i ride an R1 so if she's up for coming out for a blast sometime let me know, i remember reading about you struggling to overtake a line of cars due to someone dawdling at the front, no problem on a bike, they are narrower, i think your mind should make like a car, broaden it !

TC, B'ham,

You're right to an extent. The problem is that everything feels as though it has already been done. There are though a few good, original bands out there who can't be compared to anyone else. Radiohead for instance. Come on Jeremy. Come to Glastonbury next year. Have a laugh whilst you still can. I'll share a tent with you if you like. After 24 hours of mud and hair plats, you might find yourself again (amongst other things!)

Jan A , London ,

So Rock was invented by the generation born after 1950. Well that puts Elvis, Chuck Berry and Little Richard in their place.

David Gwilliam, Leicester, England

Probably the best performers live are Muse, providing an exceptional spectacle at new Wembley Stadium with lasers and lights and even acrobats flying around on balloons! i think this is the exception, not the rule, but just be aware that not all rock bands are talentless, please listen to muse and your faith will be restored that there is musically gifted people out there!

Simon, London,

Of course while the baby boomer generation from the 50's through the 70's is responsible for the advent of rock'n'roll, they are also clearly to blame for its demise. The aging pantheons of rock have simutaneously become the ner-do-wells of authority; looking back on those heady days in wishfulness while attempting to ensure their children can wish in vain.

Couple that with the PC Police Force that is the media and what idols do we have to look up to? Rock stars that can't even go on a bender without a press conference before rehabilitation. If you want the younger generation to invent their own plaything you'll have to let them out of the playpen first.

Boydlee, Gold Coast, QLD

Tee Heee... Worzel Gummidge in an Aston Martin? Why didn't you stop her, you cad? You KNEW she'd make a fool of herself. Everybody knows you should only attend such events in Magical Mystery Tour Dodge vans!!

elizabeth schumann, Paris, France

Oh yeah Jimmy Page and Led Zep, those were the days!! Shepton Mallet and the Bath Bles Festival!!! My god we're getting old!

Stephen Thomas, Moscow,

You might like Fairport Convention's annual Cropredy festival.
Very English, faithful to the old music, very well run.

CA Metcalfe, Essex,

Being unable to feel even the pulse of “older” folks, Jerry (or is it Jezza?) pretends to delve in “yoof music” and telling them how to do it, when and where. Go to sleep Grandpa, ya didn’t have it then and certainly don’t `ave it now.

* My wife left me this weekend* does it need 2000 words to say it? Or is this a taste of things to come?
Not long ago, a famous journalist- from a family of famous journalists - (JD) "lovingly" wrote about his (then) wife`s new found passion for motorbikes, and how he gazed while they both disappeared over the horizon.They separated.
It never occurs to Jerry that Glasto, G. Warming, A. Famine, The Who and other distraction may have nothing to do with this. The WIFE simply wanted some peace.

Given a choice of noise between Glasto and J. C. she didn`t think twice,off she "Astoned" away from him. The woman deserves a medal, living with this dude is beyond charity;any woman near/around him needs a recovery time once in a while- be it at GLASTO !

Blendi, London, England

Clarkson: Oh my aching kidneys. Hey, I agree with everything you write, but you're more upset with the wife than the principle of the thing.

"You Obviously no nothing about Music! " You don't no nuffin about writing correctly, sir.

I still play, and I'm pretty good....and I'll tell you, the best tunes are yet to be written.

But not like this! There is a place in celebrating the past, but there's even more of a place celebrating the future!

Doing a 'comb-over' to hide baldness isn't it!

I just don't get it. The price of vanity keeps going up. And so do the willing numbers of consumer wannabes.

Oh...yeah...

Jeff Beck rocks!

ssaines, toronto, canada

Jeremy : Isn't it one of the definitions of getting old that "modern music is rubbish" ?
Careful now - the next step is moaning about loud cars being driven too fast.

Dominic Shields, Cardiff,

I spent last night watching an Elvis impersonator and his house band rock out surrounded by strip joints in Bangkok. Nobody mentioned global warming, Geldof, Bono or Africa once. Over here, 'chrismartin' is a word for what comes out of your bottom, and 'sting' is a word for a nasty sexually transmitted disease. Of course you have the Glasto types - the smelly hippies who spend their time being miserable on the famous Khao San Rd, but they generally keep to themselves. Thank god. The point is that there are other places in the world that are willing to live and rock out. The English (not Scottish - Midge Ure and Marti Pellow don't count) used to do rock music well, but it's all been subverted by Tony and his gang of messianic meddlers.
Clarkson - it's your generation that's to blame for the demise of rock music.

alex, bangkok, thailand

Stick to Motors Jeremy!! You Obviously no nothing about Music! But thats what you wanted to hear isn't it?

Geoff Benton-Smith, Falmouth, Cornwall

Jeremy,

My most successful ley line is "I'm an eccentric billonaire with only six months to live. If I die without a wife is all goes to the government."

Richard, Sydney,

I was, apparently, brought up in the promiscuous rock era, with free sex and all that goes with it. Yeah, right. Everyone of my age group says the same, how did we manage to miss it? But we do remember the rock, and it IS ours. And, sorry, camping used to be my thing, but not now. So this latter-day teenager gets out of bed and, stil in his jim-jams, teeth out, carefully avoiding the mirror so as not to see that bald-headed loon who seems to have moved into the house. He switches on the computer so as not to actually have to buy the Sunday Times, feels his aching knee replacement and thinks, thank goodness I'm NOT at Glastonbury. Somehow I do not see myself romping in the mud to some out-of-tune idiots who think they are rockers. The drugs I do now are paracetamol. I won't even be watching it on BBC4, but hey -- my Dire Straits records are still at the top of the pile!

Roy, Trowbridge, Wiltshire

Our generation has invented its own music. Its R&B, or more commonly known as "Rythm and B#$%$#@!".

Letting younger generations dictate the musical revolution through the decades clearly has not worked.

And why do we have to pay 150 pounds to listen to some Irish git with sunglasses talk about African children? We didnt pay for the message, we paid for the music.

Jonathon Rogan, Northbridge , NSW