Mr. Tyler.

Two summers ago, I went to a reading that the poet Paul Muldoon was giving in a black box theater on the third floor of a nondescript building in Hell’s Kitchen. He read from a galley of his 2010 collection of poems, Maggot, and marked copy errors with a pen as he went along. John Ashbery joined him, reading handwritten translations of Rimbaud scrawled out on a yellow legal pad. There were mice scurrying around and about 20 people in the room, who were polite and subdued. A month later I interviewed Mr. Muldoon, who has been The New Yorker's poetry editor since 2007, over the course of two days, at Robert Frost’s farm in Ripton, Vt., where he summers. On the second night, we attended a bluegrass festival at the foot of a mountain, which attracted the kinds of backwoods crowds that drive to concerts in beat-up RVs and all-terrain vehicles. We must have heard four renditions of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” Mr. Muldoon heckled the bands by shouting, “Go electric!”

I was only vaguely taken aback, then, when I received an email from him in June that read: “I think we need to continue our tradition of going to cheesy shows. Aerosmith and Cheap Trick on July 24? P.”

I was aware of Mr. Muldoon’s penchant for what he calls “schlock rock.” After we’d parted ways in Vermont, he had driven to Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to attend a Bon Jovi concert. His poems are filled with as many allusions to pop culture as they are with memories of his native County Armagh in Northern Ireland. In “On,” for instance, a poem from Moy Sand and Gravel, his Pulitzer Prize-winning collection from 2003, he writes about sitting in a theater just before the curtain rises, a moment that makes a section from a Gaelic eulogy pop into the narrator’s head:

I make my way alone through the hand-to-hand fighting

to A3 and A5. Red velvet. Brass and oak.

The special effects will include strobe lighting

and artificial smoke.

 A glance to A5. Patrons are reminded, mar bheadh,

that the management accepts no responsibility in the case of theft.

Mr. Muldoon.

“Sleeve Notes,” probably his most famous poem, is explicitly about rock and roll, each stanza arranged like liner notes for a canonical classic rock album. Aerosmith does not figure in it, but Mr. Muldoon does address the sort of leveling that takes place at a stadium show, where the experience of seeing one band at its peak is not so different from seeing another one far past its prime:

U2: The Joshua Tree

“When I went to hear them in Giants Stadium

a year or two ago, the whiff

of kef

brought back the night we drove all night from Palm

Springs to Blythe. No Irish lad and his lass

were so happy as we who roared and soared through yucca-scented air. Dawn brought a sense of loss…”

ROLLING STONES:Voodoo Lounge

“Giants Stadium again …Again the scent of drugs.”

Aerosmith has sold tens of millions of records worldwide and has been making music for more than 40 years. I can’t say I’ve ever thought much of the band beyond believing “Love in an Elevator,” “Living on the Edge,” “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” and a variety of other “hits” were indefensibly stupid songs.

That said, the back-to-back albums Toys in the Attic (1975) and especially Rocks (1976) are underrated American rock albums, at least among those who were not yet born when they were released and have probably had no occasion to revisit them. Unlike a lot of what came before and after, neither album sounds like feathery versions of the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin. Released several years before Van Halen’s debut, and a solid decade before Guns N’ Roses, they nevertheless carry the black mark of having influenced a generation of terrible hair metal. By mere coincidence, those albums, along with their first album in 10 years, forthcoming this November, were produced by my editor’s father, Jack Douglas, who left Mr. Muldoon and me two backstage passes.

UNLIKE IN AEROSMITH’S younger days, the backstage experience now happens before the show rather than after it because they get tired. Around 7 p.m., we found ourselves in a narrow, white brick-walled, fluorescent-lighted hallway somewhere in the bowels of the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, N.J. We were introduced as “a reporter who works with Jack’s daughter” and “a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet,” a label the very humble Mr. Muldoon continuously blushed at. “It’s hard to explain to people that the Pulitzer doesn’t really matter,” he whispered to me. Mr. Muldoon is almost absurdly low key about his accomplishments—later in the night he told the guy sitting next to us that he does “a lot of things—I teach, I write some,” which seems to be roughly equivalent, at least in this scenario, to Steven Tyler saying, “I sing from time to time.”

Rick Nielsen, the guitarist from Cheap Trick, was wearing a black-and-white checkered bow tie and matching cap and handed us some guitar picks, which is his signature move at concerts; he throws handfuls of them out into the crowd. He also had sunglasses on, which, despite the hallway’s soft lighting, somehow felt necessary and appropriate. We were rushed to the catering room, where we ran into Darryl McDaniels—“D.M.C.” from Run D.M.C. He was so casual and friendly that we both felt comfortable right away.It felt oddly natural when he went right into talking very personally about how at age 35 he found out he was adopted. He had tracked down his birth mother—whom he praised for “getting me out into the world” (he said that with a forward thrust of both his hands)—but that his adoptive parents taught him everything he knows. He was wearing a t-shirt with Jim Morrison on it and looked much younger than a man approaching 50, and he seemed to register some level of disbelief that he was the same man responsible for “Tricky” and “My Adidas,” not to mention raising Aerosmith’s clout considerably by covering “Walk This Way,” a song he would join in on, onstage later in the night. When Mr. Muldoon’s Pulitzer was mentioned, Mr. McDaniels nodded solemnly and said, “Keep up the good work.” He grabbed Mr. Muldoon’s hand and told him “I need some of that poetic energy.”

Backstage.

Down the hallway toward the exit, Steven Tyler was standing near a doorway. He had on a sheer white blouse unbuttoned about halfway and low-waisted jeans that, when you followed the skinny length of his leg down to the floor, frayed out at the bottom revealing a pair of studded flip-flop sandals with socks underneath. The jewelry hanging from his neck jingled and clanged whenever he moved. This was his casual look.

When I was introduced (“This is a reporter who works with Jack’s daughter”), he said “Oh, cool!” with an enthusiasm that was either genuine or so perfectly rehearsed that I couldn’t tell the difference. He shook my hand and I noticed his nails were painted black. “Jack’s in Paris right now. You know, it was nice of our producer to tell us he was leaving the country while we’re in the middle of doing a record.” He smiled. For Steven Tyler, this meant that the bottom half of his face turned into a dark crescent shape.

“And this,” said the publicist who’d been introducing us, “is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.” I registered a slight grimace on Mr. Muldoon’s end.

“A poet, huh?” Mr. Tyler said, walking closer to him. “You’re kidding.”

As if on cue, the lead singer of Aerosmith began reciting the opening stanza of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky:”

“‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the—”

He pointed at Mr. Muldoon to finish the line.

“Well,” Mr. Muldoon exhaled, “it’s: ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe; all mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe, or something to that effect.”

Mr. Tyler told Mr. Muldoon that he wished he had become a poet because he would have remembered more. “I don’t remember anything, man,” he said. But, he countered, he would have gotten laid a lot less.

“Not so sure about that,” Mr. Muldoon said. The two exchanged a look of intense—albeit brief—disagreement.

Someone further down the hallway shouted, “Steven, I want to introduce you to my friend”—and the person paused here for effect—“John Varvatos.”

“Excuse me,” Mr. Tyler said cordially and disappeared down the hall.

A ROCK CONCERT at a stadium is by its very nature populist, in the kind of accidental way that a poetry reading—even if its participants are two of the greatest living poets—is exclusive. All sports stadiums look more or less the same and there’s always the inevitable smell of a lit joint and cheap beer. What happens onstage is different each time, but the experience of watching does not change much. Everyone knows when to stand up and when to sit down, when to pull out a Zippo or a cell phone to wave in the air slowly to the rhythm of a ballad, when to stomp one’s feet for the encore, when to leave just early enough to beat the traffic.

Mr. Muldoon and I watched about five songs of Cheap Trick before retreating to get food from a lady who coughed wetly into her hand before serving us.

“So why Aerosmith?” I asked before biting into my room-temperature hot dog.

“I go to concerts instead of watching television,” Mr. Muldoon said. “I’ve always found stadium concerts to be fascinating.”

We heard the opening chords of “I Want You to Want Me” and ran to an entrance to listen, sang the words of the chorus along with everyone else, stamped our feet in unison with the crowd and then went back to talking. Next year, Mr. Muldoon will publish a book called Word on the Street, a collection of rock lyrics that will also be available as recordings made by Wayside Shrines, a band Mr. Muldoon helped put together. He’s no stranger to the form, having penned the lyrics for “My Ride’s Here” with his friend Warren Zevon. The song is like a structurally restrained version of one of Mr. Muldoon’s poems:

The Houston sky was changeless

We galloped through bluebonnets

I was wrestling with an angel

You were working on a sonnet

You said, “I believe the seraphim

Will gather up my pinto

And carry us away, Jim

Across the San Jacinto

My ride’s here.”

Aerosmith started right on time. The lights went down and a spotlight hit the stage. Mr. Tyler and Joe Perry, the lead guitarist, who has a conspicuously perfect silver streak in his hair, rose on a platform from a hole in the floor, back to back, Mr. Perry clutching a guitar, Mr. Tyler holding a microphone stand like it was a guitar. Earlier, backstage, I’d asked Mr. Tyler if he was excited to be on tour again and he’d said, “The two hours before a concert, I’m the most excited. I get to do my hair, try on outfits, put on some makeup.” He’d changed into white bell bottoms, a sequined shirt and a long, white, glittering coat with a voluminous collar. He made approximations of the fluid motions you’d recognize from the band’s music videos, but his movements were slower and choppy. They played “Love in an Elevator” and he walked to each of his bandmates, bumping them in the hip with his ass, catching the band’s second guitarist, Brad Whitford, off guard and causing him to stumble slightly. They both laughed. Two young women and a keyboard player, half-obscured by amplifiers, sang along with Mr. Tyler, whose 64-year-old voice doesn’t quite hit the high notes like it used to. There were two large fans at the base of the stage positioned just so and at any given moment at least one band member’s hair was wind-blown.

“I bet you’re wondering what we’ve been doing the last 10 years,” Mr. Tyler said between songs. “Were we busy getting fucked up?” A pause. “Or were we busy making another record? I think the latter is true!” The air around where Mr. Muldoon and I stood smelled like beer and pot. The stadium was cheering.

mmiller@observer.com

Meanwhile, Mr. Tyler was dropping by Glamour magazine’s Women of the Year awards at Carnegie Hall to cheer on poet Maya Angelou, who was being presented a lifetime achievement award by president Bill Clinton. Mr. Tyler, who seemed a bit loopy and tired, said that he’s been “having way too much fun” and then something about a sobriety check. His girlfriend, Erin Brady, was by his side, draped in a massive fur coat, though the singer, wearing an embroidered floral jacket, told reporters he was also there to support animal-friendly designer Stella McCartney, daughter of Paul.

“Stella is fabulous. I go in and buy purses all the time. You know how androgynous I am,” Mr. Tyler said. And then, imitating himself: “Stella! Thirty percent rock discount!”

A reporter asked him how Mr. Tyler gets ready for nights out. “I ask sweet Jesus to please make me not stutter and then I give her a kiss,” he said, leaning over and smooching Ms. Brady, “and then I ask Marco where we’re going and make sure my makeup looks all right and from there we just”—and here he began singing—“follow-the-yellow-brick-road! Ha-ha-ha.” (“Marco” was presumably record producer Mark Hunter, who was part of Mr. Tyler’s entourage that evening.)

Next up were released-from-captivity journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were being presented an award by actress Catherine Zeta-Jones.

“I’m excited to just say hello to him again tonight,” said Ms. Ling. “President Clinton has called a couple of times to check in on us and we’ve had dinner with him and Chelsea.” Oooh, fancy!

Actress Andie MacDowell arrived with 20-year-old daughter Rainey Qualley, an aspiring actress dressed in a curve-enhancing Herve Leger dress. “I tell her to accept herself and to be confident,” Ms. MacDowell said when asked what sort of womanly advice she has passed on to Ms. Qualley. Then Ms. MacDowell told her beautiful daughter that she had lipstick on her teeth. Ms. Qualley used her finger to wipe it off.

Real Housewives of New York member Alex McCord arrived with husband Simon van Kempen, and was noticeably displeased when told that while she was welcome to pose for photos, the red-carpet interviews were restricted to honorees and their presenters.

Next came Precious actress Gabourey Sidibe, who told reporters that she would like to star in something lighter than her current critically acclaimed film. “I think I’m funny and my mom thinks I’m funny, so yes, we think I should do a comedy,” she said, laughing. Supermodel Iman, there to present an award to Rihanna, saw Ms. Sidibe and squealed. “I never met you before and now I see you twice in one week!” said Iman. “I love your dress,” the young actress replied, admiring Iman’s feathered Jason Wu mini.

“Sorry. Iman,” she told reporters after the interruption, rolling her eyes and breaking into a childish giggle.

If you were looking for other similarities between these two bands, you could say that both are formidable live groups whose first records involved little more than recording what they had been playing onstage, but that both now avail themselves of hit doctors, which makes them immediately suspect in the eyes of the hip-oisie . You could also say that both bands' new records are very deliberate, machine-shined affairs.

Other than that, you would be right to conclude there's not much else in common between the Dave Matthews Band and Aerosmith. The former appeals to lots of people because their music reminds them of dancing to Paul Simon's Graceland in 1986; the latter, because their music recalls that first experience with a beer bong and the drunken hook-up that resulted.

The Dave Matthews Band, while a post-frat party band nonpareil, has an earnest, responsible patina: They're a virtuosic, multicultural outfit led by their namesake, a pudgy chap who would not embarrass his date in front of her mom and dad. Aerosmith, meanwhile, is composed of ravaged fiftysomething rock dudes who refuse to go away and continue to make the same kind of leering rock candy that was last in vogue in 1989. Front man Steven Tyler, a guy who's never been mistaken for a Beau Brummel type, now resembles a decomposed Gloria Steinem with collagen-enhanced lips.

So is it some physics-defying miracle that the old rock dudes in question sound better than the band that, just by virtue of their youth and their world-pop sound, would seem better equipped to succeed in this new world without borders? No. It's just that Aerosmith are intuitively more comfortable with the business of songcraft than the Dave Matthews Band.

Everyday finds the D.M.B. under the aegis of Glen Ballard, the producer-therapist who transformed Alanis Morrisette into 1995's preeminent harridan. Out are the improvisational "turn on the mikes, we're fiddling around with this groove and lyrical catch phrase we came up with at the club last night" tendencies that marked their previous records. In is a concerted effort to make a more song-based record.

But that proves to be an ill-advised strategy, given that Mr. Matthews & Co. are essentially ceding some of their originality (which is, admittedly, considerable) in an effort to sound more conventional. For instance, when Mr. Matthews puts down his instrument of choice, the acoustic guitar, to noodle around with an electric version, the results sound as if his hands were first encased in concrete. On "I Did It," his efforts to sound lascivious are sabotaged by his clunky chording.

I should mention at this time that I've long found Mr. Matthews' voice one of the more irritating of our age. So when he

uses it to baldly evoke Peter Gabriel on "The Space Between," and then to make idiotically pious pronouncements of the why-can't-we-all-just-get-along variety on "Mother Father," it's all I can do not to take my Louisville Slugger to the CD player.

Occasionally, the D.M.B. stumbles in the right direction on Everyday : "Dreams of Our Fathers," "Fool to Think" and "So Right" all establish a nice tension between an anxious verse and a spacious chorus. But Mr. Matthews' uneasy relationship with involved melodies–along with the sense that his band is champing at the bit when it's constricted by the more conventional framework of shorter songs–makes the album frustrating.

That's not the case with Aerosmith's latest. This is a band that knows exactly what its strengths are, and with Just Push Play , Aerosmith has eluded the joke status that is the curse of any band that manages to last as long as they have. Every record the Boston-based rock codgers have put out since 1989 has further entrenched them as the greatest power-ballad practitioners in history (c'mon, you know "What It Takes," "Cryin'" and the Diane Warren-penned "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" are blue-chip, heart-on-sleeve masterpieces). Just Push Play finds the band rediscovering their cojones .

Where the riff-based tunes of the band's last album, 1997's Nine Lives, were uniformly pitiful, Play boasts at least five worthy tunes that only occasionally detour into problematic Beatles-esque interludes. The title cut revisits the "Walk This Way" hook in its outro, which is suitable since the tune boasts Aerosmith's best groove since that classic. "Light Inside" seethes so feverishly that it's hard to believe a group of ancients could have anything to do with the song. And listening to the riff for "Under My Skin" is like getting whacked in the gut with the broad side of a shovel.

But it's in two other tunes that Aerosmith reaches the peak of its abilities. "Luv Lies" uses pre-choruses and glistening key changes to convey a stately ache. The single "Jaded" is as faultlessly structured as the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way," and as potent and eloquent a lament as you are likely to hear this year. It's the best up-tempo Aerosmith song in years–and proof that, when it comes to this group of geezers, it ain't over 'til it's over.

–Rob Kemp

Los Super Seven: Bueno Disco Social Club

Two years ago, Los Super Seven won a Grammy (for Best Mexican-American Music Performance, but a Grammy all the same). The band's debut album–a magnificent, roiling mixture of Tejano standards, squeezebox numbers and country tunes–was one of the best discs of 1998, on a par with Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and Willie Nelson's Teatro . The album even sold well compared to the sales of core members David Hidalgo's and Cesar Rosas' other band, Los Lobos.

This time around, Messrs. Hidalgo and Rosas give the distinct impression that they want to do better than fine. Spurred, perhaps, by the breakout success of The Buena Vista Social Club , Los Super Seven's second album, Canto (Columbia/Legacy), moves away from the Mexican and country-tinged arrangements of their eponymous debut and into a more full-throated, and varied, celebration of Latin music. As a result, Messrs. Hidalgo and Rosas have changed the lineup of their side project. Tex-Mex rocker Joe Ely and crooner Freddie Fender are out; Mavericks lead singer Raul Malo, Peruvian chanteuse Susana Baca and Brazilian star Caetano Veloso are in, along with some other returning members.

The languid brushed percussion of the opening track telegraphs Canto 's bold intentions from the get-go. Before any more instruments join in, Mr. Malo, who possesses a sulfurously rich voice, murmurs one word and carries it for seven beats: "Siboney." Yanquis will be excused for not recognizing the significance contained in this word. The transcendent singer Xiomara Alfaro, a Cuban Ella Fitzgerald, all but trademarked Ernesta Lecuona's "Siboney" 40 years ago; her rendition of this torch classic has the same weight and resonance as Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" or Frank Sinatra's "My Way." But Los Super Seven own the song here, with Mr. Malo's deliciously pained vocals murmuring above that lonely percussion, a plodding bass line and mournful piano chords.

Like "Siboney," eight more of the 12 songs on Canto are Latino classics with either Cuban, Colombian or Brazilian pedigrees. (Messrs. Hidalgo and Rosas are the authors of the album's three originals, and Mr. Hidalgo's "Teresa," Canto 's only English-language song, has already been released as a single.) But Los Super Seven manage to put their own stamp on each of the songs, usually by avoiding the ramped-up, hyperkinetic pace of much Latin music.

Canto takes its time, and as a result it's an excellent album for newcomers to Latin music (especially those who somehow missed the whole Buena Vista craze.) After all, it's easier to be introduced to jazz through Miles Davis' Kind of Blue than Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come . But just as Kind of Blue is one of the best jazz albums ever made, Canto will go down as a durable document of Latin, and American, music.

–Seth Mnookin

Tortoise: Stuck in the Middle

Back in the late 90's, Tortoise, the jazzy, ambient, Chicago-based rock band with no singer, found cult fame by taking the "rock" out of alternative rock and replacing it with something a whole lot comfier. They didn't scream and yell. Hell, they had a vibraphone player. You could put a Tortoise album on at a party and hear yourself talk over the music.

Thanks to Tortoise, a whole generation of somewhat disaffected, college-educated white adults in their 20's could participate in the alternative-music scene without having to buy into the anger and alienation that dominated the rock 'n' roll of that moment. The Tortoise sound, a skillfully rendered blend of jazzy drums, live and looped guitar riffs, synthesizer bleeps and bloops and the occasional angular vibraphone line, was very subdued and extremely cool.

So cool, in fact, that literally hundreds of bands during the late 90's tried to copy the Tortoise sound, which entails veering away from traditional song structure, emphasizing improvisation and borrowing from obscure European electronic-music movements of the 70's.

Tortoise's fourth album, Standards (Thrill Jockey), finds the band still making the well-crafted background music they put out on their first three albums. The CD falls somewhere between the beat-driven Millions Now Living Will Never Die and the jazzier TNT . The beats are a tad more funky and the licks are more angular. Which is to say, nothing much has changed. Current fans will not be disappointed by the interesting sounds and general moodiness that producer and drummer John McEntire and guitarist Jeff Parker come up with. But they also won't be challenged.

For me, there will always be something missing in Tortoise's music–namely, a point. Their best moment came as the backing band for the brilliant, quirky Brazilian songwriter Tom Zé during his 1999 world tour. In that capacity, the band was absolutely sublime as Mr. Zé sang his flipped-out songs and Tortoise provided a beautiful ambient backdrop. You can check out Mr. Zé on Postmodern Platos (Luaka Bop), a highly influential collection of remixes of Mr. Zé's work by a crack group of producers, including Mr. McEntire.

The most fulfilling tracks on Standards are "Eros" and "Blackjack," which capture instrumentally the fervor that Mr. Zé evokes lyrically. They have strong, well-developed harmonic ideas and moments of real exhilaration when the layers of drum, bass, guitar, synthesizer and vibraphone coalesce.

The less successful songs on Standards include "Monica," which prompts the same kind of weariness that that name does in today's culture. The song rambles on without purpose or direction, although I imagine that if I were to bring this complaint to the band and its admirers, they'd tell me that I was missing the point; that Tortoise intends to subvert traditional song structure and emphasize the interaction of the band through improvisation.

To be sure, Tortoise's main members–Mr. McEntire, Mr. Parker and bassist Douglas McCombs–are capable musicians, but aside from some cool sounds, the songs don't really have enough going on in them, improvisation- or composition-wise, to keep the listener's interest. The big payoff of the vaunted "freejam," where every musician in the band goes nuts at the same time–whether it's Ornette Coleman or the Grateful Dead–almost always accrues to the performers rather than the listeners.

The result, I think, is that Standards tends to succeed not as a collection of songs but as a collection of sounds. There are moments of real originality, such as the crescendo of guitar distortion, vibraphones, drum-and-bass bass lines and jazzy drumming in the middle of the final track, "Speakeasy." On the other hand, virtually every song on the album is missing any sense of development or resolution, which means there is very little at stake for the listener. The beginnings and endings of the songs on Standards are not a function of their internal logic, because there is none. Rather, it's simply a matter of when the producer decides to press stop.

Through this aimlessness–songs without hooks or words, melodies without harmonic direction, improvisation without lyrical urgency–Tortoise reproduces in musical terms a shell-shocked, withdrawn attitude toward the world. Put on Standards and you're quickly transported to a dimly lit lounge, packed with poker-faced hipsters smoking cigarettes and not talking. It's a glum scene and a glum album, but Tortoise pursues this laid-back moment with real vigor and some musicianship. In doing so, they turn what is essentially a retreat from the demands of Western music into a small virtue.

–William Berlind

Take Bob Mould. At the tender age of 38, he released his fifth solo album, The Last Dog and Pony Show (Rykodisc), last spring and announced that it would be his final electric go-around. "I can't do what the Rolling Stones do. I can't do what Aerosmith does," he lamented. "Each time out, I feel a little less sprightly. I just can't keep up an aggressive performance. Not only that, I start to wonder if I should. Who wants to be a 50-year-old guy acting like he was in a punk band?"

Lou Reed, a decade farther down the road than Mr. Mould, has taken up the acoustic guitar. Maybe temporarily. Maybe forever. Day and night, he raves about a new toy called a Feedbucker, featured on his last album, Perfect Night (Reprise). This thing stops the pickups in an acoustic from producing feedback. "A terrible sound," Lou mutters with a scowl. "Just a terrible sound."

'Scuse me? The guitarist who ground up and spit out "Sister Ray" is worried about a little feedback? Just as pathetic, after cult guitarist Chris Whitley recorded the decade's two most magnificent albums of electric wailing (Din of Ecstasy and Terra Incognita both on Sony's Work label), he now gripes about amps and fuzz boxes–and he's still in his 30's! The not-so-over-the-hill Robyn Hitchcock–revered for his neo-psychedelic songwriting, not his guitar work–confesses that when he turned 40 a few years back he thought, "Oh God. I have to stop playing electric guitar. I'm too old." Now Mr. Hitchcock has been reduced to noodling only occasionally. "Rather like I smoke cigarettes," he said. "I don't believe in Marlboros or the electric guitar. They're just something I occasionally do."

But not every old guitarist has put his Stratocaster in mothballs. Three seminal rock groups known for their noisy strummers–Aerosmith (Joe Perry, 48), Black Sabbath (Tony Iommi, 50) and the Rolling Stones (Keith Richards, 55)–have recently released live albums. It's a little late to question whether they should still be up on stage at all. But can these old farts still play? Before my evaluations, let me clarify our common experience and prejudices. In high school, jocks listened to Aerosmith while the kids who took shop dug Black Sabbath. Right? As for the Stones, they were radio fodder with hits like "Angie" or "Some Girls" or "Start Me Up." We only recognized their holiness after we spun our older sisters' copies of Let It Bleed and Exile on Main Street.

This ranking may sound elitist, but it's more or less accurate. Let me emphasize that the Stones' historic superiority doesn't mean that Joe Perry or Tony Iommi can't suddenly play like some old master samurai wild with wisdom. Allow that this conceit is, at the very least, possible before spinning Aerosmith's Little South of Sanity (Geffen) and Black Sabbath's Reunion (Epic). That way, each record will just disappoint you, rather then confirm limited expectations.

Aerosmith remains the rock of choice for mall rats. The only reason over-the-hill Joe Perry, along with over-the-same-hill second guitarist Brad Whitford, can't be faulted for noodling clichés is that it was the pair's limited musical ideas that became clichés to begin with. As for Black Sabbath's new album, Mr. Iommi had the chance to put those Sonic Youth kids in their place by adding guitar shrieks and caterwauls to such classic Sabbath odes to psychosis like "Iron Man." But No. Instead, he goose-steps predictably through the power chords. If a note even begins to burble with feedback, he pulls back. I bet he even cringes. (What, produce noise? Be tasteless?) For all his group's black mass bellowing, they remain musical cowards. As for the audience, after frontman Ozzy Osbourne leads the masses through several sing-alongs, you think, "Nuremberg rally. Nuremberg rally."

Thank God, then, for Keith Richards and the Stones. Even after two decades of disposable studio albums (when was the last time you played Steel Wheels or Emotional Rescue ?), Mr. Richards is still capable of reviving the Stones' mythic status when playing live. The latest live album, No Security (Virgin), recorded on stages around the world, is a delight. Mr. Richards sounds relaxed. Lazy, even. But not like some old duffer. He's just a poisonous snake sunning himself on a rock. Ron Wood contributes greasy-geezer second fiddle. Together, the two make 90's songs that sound juiceless on record, such as "Flip the Switch," become as eternally energized as "Tumbling Dice."

The stage presence of these old goats–Messrs. Perry, Whitford and Iommi included–is a different story. On video, each senior citizen displays depressing equality. Each leads with his chin, Mr. Perry and Mr. Whitford then moving like they're wagging big penises while Mr. Iommi grinds his pelvis into his guitar. Keith and Ron pace the stage in a crouch looking like their guitars are guilty of child abuse. Where was Bob Mould to give these older guys the hook?

To be fair, arena rock demands kabuki-like exaggeration. From a seat in the 300th-row mezzanine, no one wants to see an old guitarist hunched immobile, doing something irrelevant like concentrating on his playing. That would be as exciting as going to the park to watch some gray gummer contemplate a move in checkers.

But then the video of the Stones' Bridges to Babylon tour gives us a sparkling image of our era's first perfectly aged rocker. (Bluesmen and women have been aging perfectly for years, of course.) Before this man makes his appearance, you have to sit through the opening shots of Mr. Richards creeping on stage in seedy shades and a fake leopard-skin overcoat, chugging into the opening chords of "Satisfaction" too slow. Got that? Keith Richards drags the tempo. Drags his ass.

Then, Charlie Watts appears.

Look at him. That silver hair. That dignified enthusiasm. There isn't a rocker alive who has aged as cool. The drummer looked like a troll when he was a kid, but his age has rolled that former ugliness into beauty. No old guy has looked this sturdy since Nelson Rockefeller. If you recall, Nelson died in the saddle–he didn't need any damn Viagra. Mr. Watts hits the high-hat as if he doesn't, either. Not that I'm encouraging the drummer to kick. No, first he should take up the guitar. Charlie Watts could show Keith Richards how an older gent chugs his guitar on stage with majesty. He could also inspire Lou Reed to cast down that pussy Feedbucker and hoist up an honest electric guitar, plugged in and watted up to heaven. Mr. Watt might even be powerful enough to inspire the aged to strip to their skivvies and chug across the rug hoisting their air guitars.

On second thought, stick to the drums, Charlie.