Mind you, Hooker did have the odd seniors moment. Van Morrison convinced a very old Hooker to join him onstage for a version of Them's Gloria. In the rehearsal Morrison did the standard spelling out of the girl's name: 'G, L, O, R, I, A', then called out, 'What's her name, Johnny?'

'Mary-Lou!'

Some of the jazz players kept it up into old age, too. Louis Armstrong might have slowed down the trumpet playing, but his essence, his irrepressible spirit, was undimmed, and that voice was still amazing.

But rock is different. Pop, too. Madonna at 60? She will have gone from Like a Virgin to like, aversion.

Madge will have to dance, because lip-syncing alone won't cut it, and dancing gets harder as you get older. When James Brown went 'ooooowww' as he went into the splits in his last Australian shows, it was because it HURT, man. Mick Jagger still insists on pulling out his strutting chicken moves, but it's obviously tougher now – and he looks ridiculous. Stand still, Mick, for Chrissakes.

Mick's guitarist, Keef, has other problems. He's flat out just dealing with the senior moments. Remember that Keith Richards single-handedly accounted for about a quarter of all the drugs consumed between 1965 and 1980. There are moments in Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese's film of the Stones playing live last year, when he looks like he's not sure where he is, let alone which song he's playing. He might be the human riff (or is that the human spliff?), but he's losing it.

(If it sounds like I'm being ageist here, I should point out I'm on the wrong side of 40. As my father regularly and gleefully reminds me, I'm over the hill and gathering speed - ha ha ha, good one, dad.)

Rock stars are supposed to die a spectacular death, preferably in a plane crash or by choking on their own vomit. Nobody put it more succinctly than The Who in My Generation: 'Hope I die before I get old'. Presumably, that's how a young Pete Townshend actually felt. However, it didn't stop a shrinking, bespectacled, 65-year-old Roger Daltrey singing that very line in Sydney a few weeks ago, with no hint of irony.

Hey, how about: Hope I get old before I die?

Townshend, to his credit, and ever one to swim against the tide (he must be the only performer at Woodstock who thought it sucked), updated the lyrics of My Generation to dispel all notions of belonging to the greatest generation, in the greatest time in history blah blah blah. He riffed on a theme of, 'My generation … f---ed it up', before yelling, 'It's over to YOU now'.

Thanks, Pete.

At least he's honest, which is more than I can say for Simon and Garfunkel. They've billed their upcoming tour as 'Old Friends', which is interesting seeing as they haven't talked to each other for a couple of decades. The tension was obvious even at the big tour announcement in New York. Pressed on whether they had put their troubles behind them, the best they could come up with was a clipped, 'We're fine, thank you'.

So I guess they mean 'old friends' in the same way that Peter Costello and John Howard are old friends.

The bridge over troubled water smells suspiciously like money to me. Simon put it this way: “We were both the beneficiaries of the '60s and also contributors to it. And that's something I think the people will get a lot of pleasure from seeing,” he said.

Right. The people will get a lot of pleasure from seeing how stupidly rich you've become.

Maybe they will. I have to say, though, that some of those songs are going to sound a bit dated. Feelin' Groovy, anyone? Maybe, in the spirit of Pete Towshend, they should try for a new version more in tune with the times: 'Hello streetlight, cracked and broken/ I've come to watch your junkies smokin'/ Ain't you got no ice for me/ dootin doo doo, feelin' random.'

I don't know. I'm just trying to help.

So what DO the fans want? Maybe it's enough just to experience the frission of being in a stadium with a bona fide music legend. Maybe it's worth 200 bucks to be able to tell people you were within two kilometres of Mick Jagger.

It must be worth something, because people go and hear crappy shows for those bragging rights. And let's face it, some of these shows are pretty bad. Singers struggle to hit the high notes and forget the words - or, like Lucinda Williams in Canberra a few days ago, read them straight off a music stand between every line. Endings fall apart. Guitarists miss cues and play bum notes.

But I've noticed something about nostalgia gigs: there's an emperors-got-new-clothes phenomenon at work.

For example. The last time Bob Dylan came to play Canberra, in 2003, I decided it was time I shared the same hemisphere with arguably the greatest songwriter of the last 50 years. I can't remember what I paid, but it wasn't spare change - maybe $120.

What did I get for my hard-earned money? I got a supremely grumpy Bob Dylan, who didn't even pick up a guitar until, like, the last two songs. He played piano instead. Piano! Acknowledge or talk to the crowd – what, are you crazy?

Singing-wise, I went to the show with realistic expectations. Counting on a soaring vocal performance from an ageing Bob Dylan is like expecting an incendiary rock gig from John Farnham. You're going to be bitterly disappointed.

But even with the bar set way down low, I was shocked. Dylan sounded like a dying frog gargling on gravel, stuck on one note, in the wrong key. 'Melody' was non-existent, and it wasn't until half way through a song, when I'd finally make out a line, that I'd think, 'Oh yeah, that's It Ain't Me, Babe'. It was like a segment of Spics and Specs: guess the song.

So it was absolute shite. But here's the thing: I checked out a few blogs afterwards and people RAVED about the show.

One blogger wrote, 'His keyboard playing is just stunning … and his harmonica playing fantastic [!]. As for his voice - it's strong and full of variety - as good as I've heard and just such a treat'.

Say what?! Were we at the same concert? I'm sorry pal, the emperor was starkers and you know it.

I guess if you've forked out $100 plus for a show, you're disinclined to say, 'Jeez, I pissed that away, didn't I?’ It's why I think people are deliberately vague when they talk about these shows. 'Oh yeah, I saw The Stones, man. They played a lot of songs. A lot! All the hits.'

It doesn't matter that they were sloppy, the sound was blown away by the cross wind and you were far enough away to be almost in a different state. It's apparently enough that you were technically at the same concert.

The baby boomer fans themselves are an embarrassment. They've either completely surrendered to middle age, spouting grey hair from their ears and noses, wearing comfortable clothes and being led around by large bellies – or, like Glenn A Baker, they squeeze into jeans, wear psychedelic shirts and put on ridiculous hats in a vain attempt to look young.

Many of them haven't been to a concert for years, possibly decades, with the result that they have forgotten that concerts are supposed to be a bit, I don't know, exciting. I saw couples around me at The Who concert who, for all their animation, could have been at home watching The Bill. They were catatonic.

Maybe they were actually THINKING about The Bill ('I wonder if Reg got out of that hold-up situation?'). Hey, I know I was – it was a Tuesday night.

So who still does a good show? The Who were surprisingly good, even if, as Townshend said recently, they're really like a Who tribute show now. They're a GREAT tribute band.

Leonard Cohen was by all accounts wonderful on his Australian tour - and he's 74 years old. A friend of mine described it 'life-changingly good - the most most most gracious, exceptional performance I've ever seen, by such a long way'. And this woman has taste, so I believe her.

Mind you, it wasn't exactly rock'n'roll, was it?

I'm sure part of the deal with Cohen was just a catch-up thing, where everybody has finally realised he wrote great songs (thanks, Jeff Buckley), and wanted to let him know before he carks it. It's weird, because he couldn't get arrested in the Seventies. In fact, he was considered kind of a joke.

Jeff Beck in Sydney was just plain lazy, figuring that stroking the guitar occasionally was enough (and it was – he got a standing ovation).

Who do you reckon still pulls their weight?

To wrap up, here's a verse from a song by Randy Newman on this subject, called I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It):

I have nothing left to say

But I'm gonna say it anyway

Thirty years upon the stage

And I hear the people say

Why won't he go away?

If the baby boomer artists are dead, and they don't know it, I reckon someone’s got to tell them. It might as well be me.