"The Starship Rises Again"

I was flipping channels, bored on a Sunday night…again when I stumbled on something very compelling on the cable channel HDNet. On Sunday nights they have rock concerts. They tend to show famous bands from the past, performing in the present.
Tonight it was the great band Jefferson Starship. They were performing with the Cleveland Youth Orchestra and choir. They were doing a concert from the Jacobs Pavilion on the Ohio River. So check this out:

Here are these 60+ years old rockers playing with these 13-16 year olds and trust me it worked. The kids really got into the music, (of an era they weren't even alive in). They rocked, sang and the many others played cellos, violins, flutes, drums and more. Nothing like seeing and hearing a full orchestra of 15 year olds with Jefferson Starship doing a version of their song "White Rabbit". That plus in the background was the Ohio River and the Cleveland skyline. It was really cool.

That gets me to this: I do feel sad for the great rock stars from the past because they can still bring it but they look one day removed from a rocking chair. Some show the years of hard living big time. I mean two of the Starship band members had white hair (like me) and looked like the two dudes I saw in my doctor's office waiting room but man they still had the talent. There is no getting around it, Bob Dylan is almost 70, Paul McCartney is 69, and Paul Simon is 68. There in lies the weirdness of it all because they sound almost as good as they did 30-40 years ago, they clearly like performing and still can. It saddens me that time renders them grandmas and grandpas singing about “feeding your head”, or someone 70 singing "Just Like a Rolling Stone". He's not rolling much these days.

For those of you younger try to imagine Josh Groban at 65, or Justin Bieber at age 63 with his floppy hair white as snow. How well will Lady Gaga's outfits look on the jowly, paunchy 64 year old frame? You can’t imagine it and you don’t want to imagine it anymore than I want to see Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young the aged hippies singing great but looking like my 95 Corolla. For the love of God!

Here is my wish, please universe, let all those stars from the 60’s through the 80’s, The Kinks, The Dave Clark Five, America, Dianna Ross, Boston, Dan Fogleberg, Linda Ronstadt, The Zombies, Chicago, Carlos Santana and many, many others go back to being the age they were at the height of their careers just for one last tour. Just one last tour with their youth, energy, and talent. You young folks would just shake your head in amazement. I mean I saw Jefferson Airplane in 1969 and there was Gracie Slick on stage with Paul Kantor and the others. She was dressed all in black with patent leather boots up to her knees, with heavy black eye liner and when she launched into "White Rabbit" my God it was magic. I wish these artists could go back and be at their best one last time and all you younger people get see today what we saw in them, then.