I get to Stockholm every now and again, maybe five or six times a year. This year I’ve seen a few very good bands in Stockholm and several of the musicians I saw were pensioners, in their seventies. I don’t go out of my way to see pensioners, it just sometimes turns out that way.
First up were The Pretty Things in May at Slaktkyrkan. Singer Phil May and guitarist Dick Taylor are both in their mid-seventies but have still very much got it together. I was a bit doubtful about going when Göran asked me if I was interested, but I’m very glad I went, and I had a grin like the Cheshire Cat on my face for the whole concert. Most of their set I wasn’t familiar with, though that made no difference at all. About midway they played a few songs from their masterpiece album S. F. Sorrow, which came out in 1968 and which I completely missed at the time. Nobody I knew listened to The Pretty Things back then, which is a great shame as I know I would have loved that album in ‘68 if I’d heard it. So it was completely unknown to me until about five years ago, but I’ve since made up for that in a big way on Spotify. There’s a good story behind that album that might be worth telling someday. This was to be their last tour according to Phil May. A pity, but they’re not getting any younger.
Next up was The The, real name Matt Johnson and I don’t think anybody calls him The. That was at Münchenbryggeriet in June and I was quite a fan of The The during the 80s – meaning I bought the albums, which was how fandom used to be defined. If you wanted to listen to an artist, you had to buy the album. Matt was good at Münchenbryggeriet, but in some way the concert felt slightly chilly. On the way to the gig he was informed that his father had died, so if he wasn’t on top form, nobody could blame him for that. I ended up seeing very little of the concert because a very tall guy pushed his way past me and stood in front of me. When he moved his arms, I could just see Matt through his armpit. Matt is not a pensioner of course, just a youngster of 57.
At the beginning of September Nick Mason, Pink Floyd’s drummer, took to the stage at Cirkus in Stockholm with his band of gypsies, Saucerful of Secrets. Again, I was a bit doubtful about going and again I made the right decision and went. Nick is a young buck of 74 and his band are all his juniors, around 60, so not quite pensioners. They played very early Pink Floyd stuff, which was anyway when I liked them best, and they did it with panache. So again, I had a big grin on my face for the entire concert. Panache is not a loaf of bread by the way – you’re thinking of baguette. Just to round this off, I saw Jeff Lynne’s ELO at The Globe in mid-September. Jeff is also into his eighth decade, but he can still do it well. The band was pretty much perfect, the sound was perfect too and I counted 13 musicians onstage. Best was Mr. Blue Sky which was first released in the middle of the new wave era in 1978 but was irresistible anyway. Funnily enough, pal Lennart and I had to move seats because we mistakenly sat in Jenny and Niklas Strömstedt’s and Anders Glenmark’s seats. In front of us was Robert Wells, and somewhere behind us, Tomas Ledin (all Swedish celebs). I tried to take a discrete photo of Jenny and Lennart while he checked our tickets with her, but I failed miserably.