I just downloaded a show from Van Der Graaf Generator, one of the progressive rock darlings of my college days.
I've seen that Kiss and Steve Miller are out on tour. Peter Frampton.....Yes........and more I can't think of.

Does it seem there are more fossil rock* shows today featuring groups whose heydays might have been 30-40 years ago than there were 30 years ago?????

Or are we just AWARE of all the geriatric tours because of the internet/ millions of cable shows and there were just as many tours by fifties groups in the 80's??

Or am I just aware of this because I'm about the same age as the fossils-on-tour?

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*I'm thinking of groups who merely rehash their old hits rather than artists like Peter Gabriel/ David Bowie/ Robert Plant who reinvent themselves rather than sing "The Knife"/"Space Oddity" & "Whole Lotta Love".

Kansas is also on tour. Definitely belongs to fossil rock. I think they are milking the cow before it keels over.

steppenwolf, steve miller, huey lewis, kansas, blood sweat and tears, and the doobie bros all just played a festival here this weekend.

strange festival line up, among the fossils, the fest also featured bon jovi (possible fossil?), kenny chesney, dave matthews, the avett bros, zac brown band, loretta lynn (too great to ever be a fossil), the black crowes, gov't mule, al green (again, too great to ever be a fossil), sam bush, dwight yokam, joan osborne, ben folds...

I just listened to a boot on Sugar Megs of Grand Funk Railroad. They played a fair in California earlier this month. Two of the original 3 members are still in the band. They sound amazing.

So I"m just wondering what exactly a fossil is. It can't be just an age thing, because Dylan isn't a fossil, right? From the examples in earlier posts, it seems like they are groups from the 70's and early 80's that were never very good, haven't made any relevant new music, but are still touring. Is that kind of it? Is Heart a fossil? Fleetwood Mac? If they are, and if I still like them, does that make me an archeologist? Paleontologist?

Kevin

personally, I'd disagree with the "never very good" label....I think Van Der Graaf was great in its day as was the real Genesis or Steve Miller.
For me, it's the lack of relevant new music and trading on nostalgia that defines "fossil rock" (Robert Plant reinventing "Gallow's Pole" is an exception as was Eric Burdon updating The Animals' "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood").
I loved Kiss in its early days, but the thought of seeing 60 year olds in makeup in 2010 doing "Strutter" seems as ludicrous as going to a 40 year high school reunion and trying to re-enact the high school musical.

Well, I happen to know Rush will be gracing the stage at the MN State Fair next month.

Rush Limbaugh? or Geddy Lee??

Our local fossil rock radio plays Rush constantly, but it seems to be the same 10 songs over & over. Sometimes, I wouldn't mind hearing some nostalgia rock, but it'd be nice to hear something out-of-the-ordinary.

I bet you've wondered when I was going to grace this thread Bruce

Well.... as a fellow fossil and ageing 'rocker' I'm hardly suprised that bands like you've mentioned are still pulling in the crowds.
I mean, who's really come through to blow the cobwebs of our era away?
Of the current crop of rock bands, I struggle to think of many who capture my imagination... Muse perhaps?
However, my young daughters continue to steal my Free/Stones/Floyd/Zeppelin cds, with no reciprocal arrangement in place.

Maybe it was a 'Golden age of rock and roll'... I don't know.

I'm going with family and a few friends to see Robin Trower next month. Another dinosaur maybe but hey! what a performer.

I'm not sure about that---I think most of what I listened to in the 70's was mediocre at best, so I'm always surprised when I rediscover something from that period that still holds up today.
With some notable exceptions, I've replaced little of my 70's vinyl/ tapes with shiny new CDs (or iTunes mp3s).
And I'm not looking forward to many/ any of those groups going out on tour.

I think alot of this music still stands up today! But...yes I see fossil rock as guys (mostly guys I guess?) whose creative peak is decades back but have heard that there's still some money to be made if they take the ol' act out on the road again. I don't have a lot of respect for artists that have not continued to develop themselves is all.

Sorry to hear your about your taste in 70's music Tonto
Actually I 'have' replaced most of the better vinyl that I listened to back then like Queen, The Who, Floyd, Zeppelin, Bad Company, Genesis etc

Yes of course, there was also some dreadful and pretentious stuff that I listened to back then like ELP for instance but that was all part of growing up and nothing to be ashamed of.

As for the artists not developing themselves (@MB), I guess a lot of the bands that I'm thinking of went their seperate ways in their heyday. The artists themselves may or may not have continued to develop but I must admit I'd be pretty pissed off if I went to see a reformed Bad Company gig and instead of them playing the stuff that made them famous, they played the music they'd all been working on individually for the last 25 years.

*sighs* nostalgia just aint what it used to be

That's a pretty broad statement there, MB. I'm sure most of those artists have continued to create music, it's just that they're so iconic, they're forever tied to the period in which they became famous. That's what people pay to see, and to delve into it a bit, it's the nature of not only the business, but human nature as well.

When you begin taking into account the fact that commercial radio has long been about playing hits, it creates a giant heap of nostalgia that for the most part, obliterates any new music these artists create. I recently saw a famous New York DJ who used to work at WNEW-FM here in New York. He said April 1, 1979 (he remembers the date) is when the owners of these huge, groundbreaking stations that made much of this music famous, put into effect playlists for their stations. They all did it, from the famed disco stations to the legendary rock-n-roll stations. Hence, DJ's no longer had the freedom to play what they wanted. And that subsequently created even more of a market for the songs and bands that made those lists. For all intents and purposes, it fossilized them. And that fossilization was obviously going on long before 1979 in many markets, $$$$ being the constant.

What's old is new again. That's essentially what these tours are. And if the artists can still perform well, it can be a great nostalgic show. Like this guy...

To appease the "Fossil from Stoke", I played "Benefit" & "Passion Play" by Jethro Tull and a couple Greatest Hits CDs by Todd Rundgren this past week. Happy???

BTW, I have a Pavlovian response to listening to the spoken "Hare has lost his spectacles" story: whenever Ian Anderson says "But all this time, Owl had been
sitting on the fence, scowling!", I prepare to get up and flip the record over (even when listening to CD )

Wow! now that IS a flashback. I have to admit I hadn't considered upgrading my vinyl copy of Passion Play... in fact, I don't know of anybody (except you of course now) who has done so.

Now that you've jogged my memory about this, I'll have to dust off the old turntable and transfer it to mini disc so I can listen again (yes, that's the easiest route I have for performing this operation as the mic' input seems perfectly matched to the output from the magnetic cartridge).

Passion Play was indeed a masterpiece of lyrical genius but I wonder if anyone has patience enough to listen to concept albums of that nature any more.



We sleep by the ever-bright hole in the door, eat in the corner, talk to the floor
Cheating the spiders who come to say "Please", (politely) they, bend at the knees.
Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs.
Old gentlemen talk of when they were young, of ladies lost, of erring sons.
Lace covered dandies revel (with friends), pure as the truth, tied at both ends.



Yes .... Happy