“Is my future all in the past?” — “Tell Me Straight” by the Rolling Stones (2023)

The still-rocking Rolling Stones aside, should there be a required or suggested retirement age for concerts by over-the-hill music stars whose best days as live performers are years behind them?

The question is, admittedly, preposterous. Music is timeless. No one should have to retire unless their vocation poses a serious threat to others, or to themselves.

But what if a veteran rock star’s reluctance to retire from the stage poses a threat to their artistic legacy? Not their recorded legacy, but as once-­dynamic live entertainers who could ignite and inspire on a nightly basis?

As a lifelong music fan who cherishes attending concerts, these are questions I find myself pondering with increasing frequency. And there are multiple factors and distinctions to consider, including the love of performing at any age versus the risk of self-parody as one’s abilities audibly and visibly decline.

This holds especially true after wincing through multiple performances over the past decade or more by such painfully diminished singers as Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Mike Love of the Beach Boys, Todd Rundgren and Elvis Costello, to cite just four discordant examples.

When, just a few months ago, I asked Anderson if there should be a mandatory retirement age for politicians and musicians, he offered an immediate response:

“For politicians, yes,” he said. “For musicians, no.” He then excused himself to do another interview.

Living in the past?

For many casual concert­goers, the memory of what an artist sounded like in their heyday may supersede what they sound like now. Warm nostalgia may trump present-day reality. That disconnect can decrease in direct proportion to one’s desire to embrace the soundtrack of their younger days, when musicians and their fans shared a sense of boundless vitality, unlimited possibilities and feeling indestructible.

These colliding issues may be impossible to resolve, but they merit discussion.

Why would an artist who loves performing and lives for the roar of a crowd want to stop, even if they are a shadow of their former selves? Or does that question answer itself?

Why is it expected that jazz and blues artists grow better with age, while musicians who play rock — a genre created by young people for young people that is defined in part by its physicality — often face an uphill battle of steadily decreasing returns?

“I’m a big believer that it’s better to leave early than stay too late,” said Kiss singer and guitarist Paul Stanley. “We’re such big fans of the band that we don’t want to see it continue at any other level except prime. … It’s out of respect for Kiss, and our fans, that we have to stop.”

Stanley, now 71, shared those thoughts in a 2001 Union-Tribune interview during Kiss’ farewell tour. By 2003, the band was back on the road with a revamped lineup and has since done more than a dozen other tours. Its current “End of the Road” farewell trek, which the band vows will be its last, concluded Dec. 2.

Who, then, is ultimately qualified to determine when the time has come to no longer perform?

The artist, who has every right to change their mind and soldier on — even if their instincts to stop touring were correct in the first place? Concert promoters? Audiences?

And what about graying performers who might have happily retired years ago, but still tour out of financial necessity? The musicians who — to cite the name of Huey Lewis & The News’ 1982 hit — are still workin’ for a living?

Involuntary retirements

The aforementioned Lewis, the lead singer in The News, has not been able to tour since 2018 because of an inner-ear disorder called Meniere’s disease.

For Slayer bassist and singer Tom Araya, whose band concluded its farewell tour in 2019, retirement was prompted by neck surgery that prevented him from continuing to engage in headbanging while he performed.

“It just gets harder and harder to come back out on the road; 35 years is a long time,” Araya, then 55, told the online magazine Loudwire in a 2016 interview.

Audiences are often more forgiving, and understandably so.

Concerts, at their best, are a joyous communal event where performers and listeners bond over music that has become a shared fabric of their lives. The fraying of that fabric can sometimes make for a poignant evening, one that signifies the passing of time, the ties that still inextricably bind artist and listener, and the spark that a treasured piece of music can still trigger.

Alas, that fraying is sometimes so pronounced that the music becomes less poignant than jarring.

What happens when the fingers of a guitarist or keyboardist are no longer limber? When drummers struggle to maintain tempos or execute fills? When singers can no longer bound across the stage, stay on pitch or hit notes that once came easily (even after bringing the keys of a song down a half step or more)?

Sadly, the music begins to pale. So does the emotional resonance that can make a concert transcendent for artists and audiences alike.

No denial of aging

Like many fans, I want my musical heroes to endure. I want them to sustain their greatness, if not somehow defy the passing of time — at least sonically speaking — on stage and on record. Their continued vitality as performers is a victory for them and for their multigenerational fans.

Unlike some of my fellow baby boomers, I am not in denial about aging. I know that with very few exceptions — take a bow, Mick Jagger! — it is unrealistic to expect an aging rock star to perform with the same youthful energy and athleticism as they did decades ago. I know we often see part of ourselves in the performers we watch, and that their mortality makes us ponder our own.

That Jagger can still sing and dance up a storm, at 80, is a triumph for him and should provide a vicarious thrill for anyone who attends a concert by the Rolling Stones this year. The 61-year-old band’s 2024 tour is being sponsored by AARP, which until 1999 was known as the American Association of Retired Persons.

The bottom line, ultimately, is not age onstage. It’s skill, tenacity, pacing and cultivation of greater emotional depth and finesse when the passing of time limits options once taken for granted. Adaptation, not retirement, should be the key.

Except, perhaps, in the case of Kiss, which concluded its latest farewell tour in December by debuting its Kiss digital avatars. This not-so-fast-to-retire band envisions the avatars will enable the virtual Kiss to “perform” in three cities on three continents in one night.

“We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of before,” Kiss bassist Gene Simmons said in an online interview with Kiss singer-guitarist Paul Stanley.

“What we’ve accomplished,” Stanley added, “has been amazing, but it’s not enough. The band deserves to live on because the band is bigger than we are.”