It’s 50 years since the big rock gig was born as the Beatles played New York’s Shea stadium to the sound of screaming and a rickety old sound system. Kate Mossman’s Stadium Rock at 50 (Radio 4) looks at how times have a-changed since then. There are tales of legendary gigs from Little Richard and chums bringing rock’n’roll (plus pigeons) to Wembley and Queen owning the place. Although Mossman admits she was only five when Freddie took to the hallowed stage in 1986, she knows her stuff.
Turbulent supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young discovered the earning power of stadium rock as they took it on tour across America, with Joni Mitchell and the Band as support acts. Over in the UK, Peter Frampton recalls the adrenaline rush of playing to a big crowd, fuelled by splitting his satin pants as he fell off the stage, mooning 40,000 people and then “doing a Grohl” and playing on.
What a joy it is to hark back to a time when a concert was a “rock’n’roll communion” without the person in front blocking your view by holding their smartphone aloft. There was none of that at Live Aid, where the sunny weather and appreciative crowd matched the mid-1980s dream of a line-up. “It reminded people that big concerts should be emotional, almost spiritual events which lift you beyond normal life for a few hours,” says Mossman. And that ecstatic experience is something Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran or One Direction still offer today.
Lauren Laverne hosted Late Night Woman’s Hour: Secrets and Lies (Radio 4) in a more hushed tone than she uses on Radio 6. In it, boxing promoter Kellie (formerly Frank) Maloney described being a woman only in dreams and suffering with depression because of her secret. “I did live my life on the stage,” she says, sadly.
Lies are a different thing altogether, as undercover newspaper reporter Helen Croydon proves. She went to swingers’ clubs and mingled with women looking for sperm donors in the hope of finding a good story.
Big, small and essential lies are covered and Laverne’s ability to take a back seat and let her guests tell their stories without interruption is ideal for a late-night ramble.
