Tommy came out in '69.
Who Are You,(which is my fav Who song) the album came out over 40 years ago. When will the dinosaurs stop the madness. The Stones, Yes, Eagles, The Who ect. Still touring. Granted these are all bands I love, but none have made albums I've bought since the early 80's.
Grace Sick on aging rock stars:
"I left rock and roll professionally at about 49. That’s too long as far as I’m concerned. Some people can do it; it depends on what you were. If you were pretty and young and wore short skirts and were busy trying to be sexy and all that (bleep) at 25, it worked. If you’re 50, it doesn’t work quite as well"
and:
"Anyone who's 71 years old would look ridiculous singing rock"
In the spirit of trying to see both sides, (and not that I don't think your point also has validity); it just occurred to me that all those bands have only ever done 2 things in their lives, record and perform.
Should they take a mandatory retirement at some specified age, especially if there's still demand for their performances?
After all, a money grab won't work if nobody wants to buy tickets.
Why should they be different than any of their predecessors like the big bands from the '30's and '40's that were still selling tickets to shows in the '70's?
I say more power to 'em even if I agree that the bulk of new material from most of those "dinosaur" bands doesn't grab me like the stuff they did when I (and they) were just getting started.
I think "Who Are You" is a great tune and performance but it's more of a cerebral appreciation, it don't grab me by the gut and force me to move like every single minute of
Live at Leeds does.
Which I've replaced twice, but I never held "Who Are You" the song in high enough esteem to actually
have to own it and buy the album because of it.
It's only on the "If money was no object..." list.
Take a tip from the Fab 4 they said F-U touring and never toured and The Beatles again, even when cash was thrown in their face.
To be fair a large part of that was due to the fact that they knew their new material with sophisticated arrangements and even electronic effects as on
Rubber Soul and
Revolver could never be performed live.
Take a look at the set list for their next-to-last
tour show ever, Budokan on July 2nd '66:
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-beatles/1966/nippon-budokan-tokyo-japan-53d67f59.html
There is nothing on there from
Revolver which was about to be released (August '66), and
Pepper's material was already glinting Paul and John's minds, so to speak.
A secondary but equally important consideration was their frustration with the capacity of the state of the art amplification of the day, most of the time they could barely hear themselves over the audience especially in the stadium venues and could tell the performances were suffering because of it too.
They did of course miss the feeling of camaraderie they had when performing live and gave the "Rooftop concert" in January '69, and then in fact some of the neighboring businesses actually registered noise complaints(!).
A far cry from the unadulterated adulation of original Beatlemania.
Then of course the subsequent internal animosities delayed a reunion until it was too late, especially since none of 'em really "needed" the money..but Paul, for example, never abandoned the role of the working musician:
Always had a formal band either recording or performing.
"It's what they do".