On Seeing Television

I saw Television this afternoon in Central Park with the Apples in Stereo and some opening band that I missed. I'm not really a Television fan, but like with Dino Jr., another canonized rock band that I have no real connection to but saw in concert a few week agos, I thought that if I had the opportunity to see Television live at some point in my life, I should definitely take it, just so I can be like, "Yeah, I've seen Television." Kind of like when I saw Bob Dylan a few years back, although he's still releasing new stuff fairly regularly, so that's more like seeing a different era Bob Dylan, rather than watching Dino Jr. play "Freak Scene" for what I'm sure was the millionth time in their career. Anyway, the show was good, although I stood in the rain for an hour watching Apples in Stereo, which, to paraphrase a hip, aging hip dad standing to the left of me, up until the moment it happened I would never have believed it. The highlight was definitely when Television played "Marquee Moon," both because it's the only song the entire crowd (myself included) seemed to know, and because they jammed on it fifteen minutes past when the show was supposed to finish, which the crowd absolutely loved. The Summerstage head guy was on the stage and he absolutely flipped the fuck out at the band. Every time he thought the jam was coming to an end and it didn't, he jumped up and down and made this pissy face and then yelled at the band with a kind of "cut the music, cut the music," gesticulation. He was also radioing what I believe were the sound guys in the back, I'm guessing asking them to cut them off. But seriously, there would have been a ton of hot, drunk, tired and pissed people if that had happened, so I'm glad they let them finish up.

But I guess the bigger question I have when I see Television, or Dino Jr., is what motivates these guys to keep playing at this age. Money, of course, since their name alone gets them big prices at the door, but it can't only be that. When Tom Verlaine sings it's so clear that these lyrics (not that Television was especially lyric-heavy) are a relic to him ("Now Little Johnny Jewel/Oh, he's so cool") but they just go through the motions and rock out. It's kind of neat to watch to watch a guy play songs from an album 20 years old just because there's still people who have an urge to hear them live. I don't know, just a few random ruminations.