Word: rocke
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...side the familiar sounds of the '60s: Bob Dylan, the Who, Van Morrison, the Bee Gees and the Jefferson Airplane. But the flashiest news was that the Rolling Stones, well aged and embattled, would be lumbering out of the woods and into the lights again. "The world's greatest rock 'n' roll band" (an unofficial title the band never originated but did little to discourage) had not only cut a new record but was embarking on a tour that would take it to nearly 40 U.S. cities...
What did this have to do with now? The fan grew up with rock 'n' roll. He gawped at Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show. He thought Jerry Lee Lewis on Steve Allen's TV program was the wildest and altogether greatest thing he had ever set eyes on. When Chuck Berry showed up on American Bandstand, one young world got jolted into a different orbit. The music was that strong. All velocity and no drag...
...past, either. Not at first. Rock 'n' roll put down roots like some jungle creeper, overnight, and was suddenly there one new morning, loud and outsize, full of lurid colors and maybe even a little poison. It was new, and it could be owned, wholly and instantly, by a new generation. It was what everyone was who heard it first and would love it forever. It was young...
...more. Not on the calendar, and not in the heart. Now rock has some 30 years of history behind it. That's time enough, and weight enough, to make it hidebound...
Honest, now: Can you be a veteran fan and still respond as rock 'n' roll demands you respond -- by belief, by passion, by always raising the stakes -- to performers who may be a quarter-century younger than you are? You could do it with Springsteen; you both were younger then. You did it with U2. But for somebody new? Was rock 'n' roll, forever young, finally middle-aged...