No Rock And Roll Fun

PLANE TRUTH: One of the great truths of the Rock Age is that, really, it would have been shit without air travel. Can you imagine the Beatles turning up by boat in the States? Or how many international touring acts would be fagged to go to Europe if they had to spend three weeks chugging across the Atlantic before turning up at Southampton? Okay, without air transport Phil Collins would only have been able to do one set at Live Aid, but no leap forward is without complications. And think further: No I'm Mandy, Fly Me. No Daniel by Elton John. No Leaving on a Jet Plane, no Jet Plane Flying High Above Me. Steve Miller would never have sung about Jet airliners, and it would have been a scheduling nightmare to be A Star In New York and A Star In LA. Primal Scream wouldn't have had to worry that landing at Luton wasn't rock and roll enough for them, and Cats UK would have been spared the need to make a novelty hit about the same place, ooo-eee-ooow. Rock needs planes and airports.

So, you'd think, a big bash to celebrate one hundred years since the first ever flight would be knee deep in musicians wanting to acknowledge what the overcoming of gravity had done for them, wouldn't you? But instead, the line-up can scrape up the Beach Boys the Temptations, Aaron Tippin and Lee Greenwood. Oh, and Michelle Branch. It's all a little, well, BOAC, isn't it?