Your iconic summer

TRIBE CALLED QUEST | JOÃO GILBERTO | BUTTHOLE SURFERS | B-52’S
STEELY DAN | ALAN AND RICHARD BISHOP | GEORGE MICHAEL | “KIDD” JORDAN
WIRE | TEENAGE JESUS & THE JERKS | THE FEELIES | CHARLIE HADEN | YAZ
THE EX WITH GÉTATCHÈW MÈKURYA | RHYS CHATHAM | JUDAS PRIEST

“Hope I die before I get old.” Really? Even if you’re making good money? It’s probably been years since anyone not in advertising attached too much significance to that lyric; after all, the Who’s first farewell tour was in 1982.

So far, that band’s the one veteran group that hasn’t booked an area date this summer. In addition to the rush of exciting young acts filling local clubs and outdoor venues, the next few months will see a typically large number of aging names passing through town, working the nostalgia angle (hello, New Kids!) or perhaps touring behind a record that’s new only in the technical sense of the word. (And also typically, a whole lot of them are playing Jones Beach.)

But more than ever before, there’s another kind of iconic artist performing in NYC this season—the kind that still can and will blow bands half, or even a third, of their years off a stage. You can’t really call this a trend; after all, trends are youthful things that get marketed, generally to youthful people. But it’s definitely going on. Maybe it’s a by-product of the protracted death throes the music industry is going through: As the industry part collapses, music itself has never seemed more loose and unbothered by past separations of class and style; maybe the young-old distinction is just the last barrier to fall. Or it could have something to do with advances in medicine. Most likely it’s simply a matter of history: We’ve got more of it now than ever before, piling up and invading the present. So it stands to reason that among the growing ranks of more experienced musicians, there’d be a lot of them who can still bring it—and who always had something better to bring in the first place.

The icons on the following pages come from across the musical spectrum—mainstream and underground rock, pop and hip-hop as well as jazz (which, with a history that predates modern marketing, has always done right by its elders and never made a habit of shuffling them out of relevance). Some could be seen as old only in a pop-culture context. Some are making unexpected returns for one or two shows, or a single tour; others are well into extended second lives, adding new and nonembarrassing chapters to their legacies; some have never ceased honing their art, reaching higher magnitudes or finding fantastic places to go via unpredictable collaborations. At least one is appearing just because she’s a contrarian.

What all of these icons—and we could have added many more artists—have in common is that each has left an indelible mark on music history, and they each make use of their experience to put on a better show than their so-called acolytes can. Go ahead and skip this week’s models and hot new things—these are the artists you can’t miss this summer.

—Mike Wolf, Music editor