A few weeks ago I went to an outdoor concert in suburban Minneapolis, featuring Foreigner, .38 Special and Loverboy.
Kids, ask your parents.
Now, if you're of a certain age - say, the age that remembers the Reagan Administration - those names ring a bell. Foreigner was the legendary arena rock band that, like so many '70s superstars, had a big, pop comeback in the eighties. .38 Special was the Gaineville Florida band originally fronted by the younger brother of Lynyrd Skynyrd's lead singer, that put a poppy-rock veneer on "southern rock" and turned it into a string of hits in the eighties.
And of course, Loverboy - the Canadian band I loved to hate back in the eighties, which was...er, let's call it 20 years ago and call it square.
Now, Loverboy was pretty much exactly as I remembered them; they did a 45 minute set of their hits - or, rather, half an hour of hits and some filler thrown in. But 46 years after their founding in Calgary Alberta, the band still has four of its original five members (they've changed bass players about as often as Spinal Tap switched drummers).
But lead singer Mike Reno - whose voice, always the band's calling card, was still strong and clear and hit those high notes, was - uh, 70 years old. And guitar player Paul Dean - not the band's calling card - will be turning 80 next winter, and is still plugging it out on the road.
.38 Special? 50 years after their founding amid the musical explosion that was Gainesville in the '70s (the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet and, eventually, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), lead singer and co-lead guitar Don Barnes is the only member left from their Reagan-era heyday. He hasn't lost a beat, and plays a pretty mean guitar to boot. He's 73.
And Foreigner? Well, they turned in a blistering set - really an excellent performance, for a band that got together almost fifty years ago.
Except their only remaining original member, guitarist Mick Jones, is sitting out this tour for health reasons. The entire band was ringers. The lead singer, Kelly Hanson, who announced his impending retirement this summer as the guy who replaced the guy who replaced the guy who replaced original lead singer Lou Gramm, is being replaced by Luis Maldonado, who does a fantastic Lou Gramm impression and was not yet born when Foreigner's first album came out during the Jimmy Carter administration.
I thought about that as I contemplated the passing of Garth Hudson of "The Band"...
Oops. I mean, David Johannson of "The New York Dolls" and "Buster Poindexter" fame, and one of my high school affectations...
...er, wait. I mean, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys...
...sorry. I mean, Mick Ralphs and George Kooyman, original guitar players for Mott the Hoople and Golden Earring, respectively...
...dang it. I mean, Ozzy Ozbourne.
That's the lastest, right? Nobody since Ozzy?
And that's just been 2025, so far.
If you're a music fan and a Baby Boomer, or an early X-er like me, these are parlous times to be a music fan. Some of us breathed a sign of relief when Brian Johnson returned to the mic with AC/DC, after a tour with Axl Rose filling in, leaving guitarist Angus Young as the only original member (Johnson replaced the legendary Bon Scott in...uh, 1980. Why split hairs - let's call it 25 years ago.
The surviving members of the Rolling Stones are mostly in their '80s, except for Ronnie Wood, a spring chicken at 78.
Paul McCartney is 81. Ringo? 85.
Springsteen? 75. Clarence Clemons would be 84 if he were alive, which is a particular buzzkill to me, a lifelong Bruce fanatic who has given standing orders to play "This Hard Land" at his funeral, hopefully a few decades down the road.
And the surviving half of The Who? Roger Daltrey is 81. And I'm sure Pete Townsend is tired of people pointing out that he, the guy who wrote the line "I hope I die before I get old" sixty years ago, just turned 80.
And there's not much solace in being one of the edgier punk Xers; John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon of the Sex Pistols is 69. Mick Jones (the one from the Clash, not the aforementioned one from Foreigner) is a spry 70. And his erstwhile bandmate Joe Strummer (John Graham Mellor) would have turned 73 this month, had he not actually died before he got old, 23 years ago. Also 73? My high school crush girl, Chrissy Hynde of the Pretenders.
If you're of a certain age, pretty much any other news you get today will make you feel better than this story.
