Doug PollardThe zombies are coming
April 27th 2009 07:18
St Alice Cooper-Zombie Inc
Simon and Garfunkel. The Who. Alice Cooper. Liza Minelli. Mamma Mia, all my Christmasses have come at once!
Except it’s Ebeneeezer Scrooges Christmas, as the ghosts of Talent Past disturb my rest, topping up their pension funds, rattling their collecting tins around the country.
Old entertainers do not die – they tour Australia. The place is an elephants graveyard of acts large and small, gasping out their last number before retiring into the California sunset.
I do not think this is A Good Thing. A long career in which your art develops and grows is fine, but banging around the outback when half of you are dead, and the remains pensionable, singing, “Hope I Die Before I get Old” is beyond irony. No, I definitely “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
Simon and Garfunkel? Please. Their stuff was already nostalgic when it was new.
Why do these zombies all come here? Do they look at the map and think, “Hey, here’s somewhere we haven’t toured!! These guys have been begging us for forty years. They’ll be gagging for it! They never saw us when we were good, so they won’t know we’re crap now. Yeah! Let’s go! Pack the Viagra and the oxygen bottles.”
I’m not impressed. After all, I’ve been dreaming of a date with Sean Connery for forty years – but the Connery of Doctor No, not the Connery of “Doctor, help, I think he’s having a cardiac arrest!”
I saw Marlene Dietrich at the Wimbledon Theatre – yes, that Wimbledon – in 1973. She was trussed into a glittering white high-necked sequinned gown that clamped her tits into solidity and aimed them like gun turrets. She was swathed in chiffon and fur. She could barely move - except from time to time she would seductively extend a leg through a slit in her gown.
Since then I’ve been unable to watch her movies: the memory of this croaking 72 year old mummy vamping the coach parties lies over them like a curse. I don’t want any more of my memories sullied.
I last saw Liza Minelli perform in Boston in 1984 – and she was great. “What amazing energy,” I said to the acidulated old theatre queen next to me.
“Shoulda seen her when she was doing coke!” he replied, with a naughty giggle.
Now she’s coming to Oz. She’s 63, and the years have taken a well-publicised toll on her health, her private life, and her looks. Do I really want to shell out the bucks to find out if she can still cut it? Or do I prefer to remember her as she was?
Alice Cooper – only two years younger than Minelli – tempts me not at all. His act, turning adolescent transgression into commercial product, is beyond camp. A screaming gender-bending rebel in makeup and tights on stage, offstage this born-again Christian and Sarah Palin fan can be found tending his restaurant and his golf handicap.
He’s not getting my dollars. In fact, none of them are. With all their money, you have to wonder why they don’t stay home and reminisce like normal people. All this resurrection is a sad mistake.
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