An Irishman's Diary

Rock music has been more or less respectable for decades, I know, but 2006 could be the year it finally went genteel. From the so-called Garden Party, which takes place this weekend in the "beautiful 18th-century walled garden" of Meath's Ballinlough Castle, to the now-annual "boutique" festival at Stradbally Hall in September, Ireland's rock 'n' roll summer stretches out before us like an impeccably laundered picnic blanket. If you own a castle or a big house these days, it's social death not to have your own rock concert.

I'm just old enough to remember a time when popular music was about rebellion, something you achieved by attending festivals in nondescript fields where muck, bad toilet facilities and food poisoning were considered prerequisites to having a good time. The acoustics might be atrocious and, from where you were standing, the stage might be only a rumour. But it didn't matter, because you and the band playing up there were united in an unspecified revolt against authority (even if only one of you had had to pay in).

Now we're just a small step away from a situation where rock concerts take their rightful place in what champagne producers and social diarists call "the season". Events like the Dublin Horse Show, Royal Ascot, and the Wexford Opera Festival may have to move over on the calendar to make room.

How did this happen? Well, I believe the phenomenon arises partly from the increased longevity of rock stars - a development that, in itself, all reasonable people will welcome. Back in the 60s and 70s, rock stars had notoriously low life-expectancy, due to a combination of bad diet, the wrong kind of exercise, and a prevailing philosophy that placed undue importance on the need to provide your funeral undertaker with a good-looking corpse.

In these more enlightened times, even hell-raising musicians look after themselves. Pension plans and the need to avoid excitement now loom larger in the average rocker's priorities. Many of the more successful performers have taken the precaution of buying castles and country estates so they'll have something to fall back on in their old age. It was only logical that they'd start performing in them as well, eventually.

But was rock music ever as revolutionary as it was letting on to be? The National Review magazine, house organ of US conservatives, suggests not. In its latest issue, it attempts to out several generations of self-styled rebels by naming the "top 50 conservative rock songs of all time". And perhaps the most surprising thing about the list is that its top three all date from the pre-respectability 1960s: Won't Get Fooled Again by The Who (described as "counter-revolutionary" by NR); Taxman by the Beatles; and the Rolling Stones' Sympathy for the Devil (which is apparently a sideways attack on the devil's "moral relativism").

From slightly more recent times, U2's Gloria makes it in at no. 6, mainly for having a chorus in Latin. The Sex Pistols are there at no. 8 with Bodies ("a searing anti-abortion anthem"). And fans of the greatest rock 'n' roll band ever will be horrified to learn that even The Clash get two entries, for Rock the Casbah and I Fought the Law.

The list does scrape the barrel in places - for example way down at Number 50, where Tammy Wynette sneaks in with Stand by your Man. It's not the song's conservative credentials that are in doubt, so much as that it stretches any definition of "rock music": the compilers might as well have thrown in something by Wagner while they were at it. They cover their sleight of hand by saying of Stand by your Man: "Hillary trashed it. Isn't that enough?" But at the rate Senator Clinton is reinventing herself for a 2008 presidential bid, she may soon join Tammy in a duet cover version.

Critics will say that the very attempt to dredge up 50 conservative songs from half a century of music only highlights the lefty monopoly of popular culture. But coming back to Ireland's summer festivals, I'm not so sure. It's true that castles and big houses do not automatically confer a political outlook on those who own them, never mind those who visit. After all, the most famous establishment structure in contemporary Ireland is a tent in Galway.

Also, it has to be said that events like the Electric Picnic are still kind-of edgy and out there. This year's experience will again include a "Body and Soul Village" where various alternative treatments will be offered to people with alternative conditions. Despite Ireland's current infatuation with therapies of all kinds, I gather that Indian Head Massage is still not quite mainstream. And for those of you who say you want a revolution, this year's Stradbally event will also pioneer - wait for it - "female urinals".

If I understand the press release correctly, it's the users that will be female, not the actual urinals. At any rate the organisers promise to eliminate queues by enabling women "to pee while standing upright".

But with such exceptions, the overall trend is towards gentility. And for some of us, even as we join the crowd, it just seems wrong. We used to be the barbarians at the gate. Now we're inside, sipping tea on the lawn.