Another nail has been hammered into the coffin of rock'n'roll rebellion. For the princely sum of £9,095, wealthy music fans can jam with Gary Brooker of Procol Harum, Jack Bruce of Cream and unspecified members of Black Sabbath and Bad Company at a miniature summer camp for middle-aged men. "They are not here to throw TVs out of the window," says David Fishof, the New York businessman who set up Rock'n'Roll Fantasy Camp, although he might consider offering that as an optional extra. From chewing the fat with their heroes at a Mayfair Hotel to recording at Abbey Road and playing Beatles covers at The Cavern Club in Liverpool, participants in the six-day scheme get a glimpse of what might have been had they not given up youthful dreams of rock glory for more financially solvent careers.
Clearly this is irredeemably naff, a shortcut to the sights, sounds and smells of the rock'n'roll life without the boredom and hard graft that it involves. And yet it is also rather tempting. It is highly unlikely that any of the participants will give up their careers as, say, hedge fund managers after taking the course, which means that they will be doing it for the sheer love (and delusion) of it. And if a 48-year-old man with a "Clapton is God" T-shirt and a paunch wants to indulge a brief fantasy of playing at Knebworth, what's the problem? Surely refining your bass runs with the help of Bruce does no more harm to the world than a week's grouse shooting in Scotland or a group-bonding session at a Prague brothel.
The Rock'n'Roll Fantasy Camp could prove unexpectedly good value, too. Apparently the spouses of participants of the American course often foot the bill. As anyone who has listened to someone murder Black Sabbath's Paranoid on his (and, less often, her) Stratocaster for months on end knows, £9,000 isn't too much to pay for a week's peace and the chance of said person coming back actually capable of playing the bleedin' thing. Then there are the psychological benefits to consider. Thousands of us have been tortured by childhood memories of chatting up a girl around a campfire or a beach, only to have some long-haired idiot come along and woo her away with his note-perfect rendition of Hotel California by the Eagles. Being left with the prospect of yet another evening spent playing scrabble with the school's assistant librarian (and his mother) hurt then and it still hurts now. If Rock'n'Roll Fantasy Camp can help alleviate that long-embedded pain, then screw rebellion - what is there to lose?
