What keeps all these musical legends performing into old age?

The touring octogenarian is no rarity these days, musical icons from the 1960s (and earlier) are still going remarkably strong, writes David Lister

From the 1960s to the 2020s, these icons just keep going (The Independent)

Bob Dylan comes to the UK in October, the first time in five years, and the first time as an octogenarian. The 81-year-old is playing a series of nine gigs in Britain, starting at the London Palladium and finishing in Glasgow. The never-ending tour – as his globe-trotting is famously called – really does seem to be never-ending. Only death or seriously ill health look like stopping it.

And he’s not alone. Fellow octogenarian Sir Paul McCartney headlined Glastonbury in June and his set of nearly three hours was the longest of the Festival. It wasn’t much commented on that at the very same time that McCartney was delivering “Hey Jude” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” at Glastonbury, The Rolling Stones were playing to a similarly massive crowd in London’s Hyde Park, where they first played 53 years ago. The 1960s were back with a vengeance that night.

When I last encountered Paul McCartney (80) I put it to him that he must be rubbing his eyes that he and the others are still going strong on stage. “I do rub my eyes,” he answered. “We all do. I didn’t foresee it. In The Beatles we always said 10 years. But it kept on and kept on and it kept being good and we seemed to be the people who could do it. Now there is a great young generation of people who can also do it, but it tends to be that the people packing them in are the people who have the material, have hits and – I think that’s important – songs that people know. I think they have stagecraft, they have an ability with an audience.”