It's Time To Rock'N'Roll.

When I was younger, I used to get around a bit. I don't mean that I was going to bed with every similarly-aged female I met. What I mean is that I used to travel around a fair bit, especially around Britain.

In those days, the late 1960s and early 1970s, there used to be a band playing in just about every town just about every night. It may have been just in a pub or some sleazy down-the-back around-the-side club, but there were bands playing all over the place.

So, I was lucky enough to see many of the people that went on to make big names for themselves when they were still "jobbing" musicians. There were plenty of people playing them who are not playing anymore, and the combinations were quite interesting, to say the least.

I didn't think about it at the time, being much too busy enjoying myself, but that era really was a pioneering time. Not only were the musicians trying to sort themselves out with their music, but they were also trying to find other people who liked playing that sort of music as well.

You'd see a band one night and a particular song would come right at the start of the show, and it would run for ages. A few nights later, you'd see the same band and the same song would be played in the middle of the show, and would only go for a few minutes.

On top of that, the technology that is used by everyday rock bands today just wasn't even thought about then. We still have the light and sound desks at each and every concert, but back then it was all done manually. Quite frequently, the effectiveness of the light show was directly related to the level of drugs in the guy who was running it (and you can take that any way you want!).

And quite often too, the sound equipment would suddenly develop a problem. Whether it was the fault of the musician or of the equipment itself didn't really seem to matter as some poor roadie scurried around trying to fix it while the band, and especially the particular musician, got angrier and angrier.

I was reminded of all this after recently seeing three "top" bands in fairly large arenas. The band was still on stage, the lighting guys still had a prime position in the auditorium, and the sound guys had a desk full of knobs.

But that's about where the similarities stopped.

The whole thing was programmed from start to finish. All the crew, and the band, knew exactly what song would follow what song. The various settings for the vast array of lights were, literally, programmed into a computer which did all the work - the guys were only there "just in case".

In a way, it wasn't designed to entertain, but to have maximum effect. there was no inspiration, it was just following a script. And there was no improvisation, it was just rote. To make matters even worse for me, there were some quite obvious times when the band used tapes - presumably cued by the sound guys as I couldn't see any of the band do anything remotely special.

Frankly, I came away from all those concerts not feeling as though I'd just been to something special. I felt that the band felt that "it was just another show". Go to one show and you've seen all the shows.

I have this belief that we all know that a band can perform in a studio. By the time the band themselves, the engineers and the producer all finish, it may sound completely different to the raw sound. To me, it's when the band gets up on stage that really counts. Can they produce the goods then? Does the crowd get going - even if there isn't the fifteen-guitar multi-tracking that there was in the studio?

I don't think I'll be going to another concert for a while.

On the other hand, I will be going watching another F1 GP soon, even if it is only on TV.

Over the last few years, we've all whinged that F1 is boring; that every race is the same old routine. Well, sorry folks, but I've been checking the records, and I can't find any two races that were the same - there has always been some major (not just minor) difference between any race and any other race.

Just think about Jerez ... oops, sorry ... Hereff last year. Who would have thought that Michael Schumacher would do what he did? And who would have thought what the result of that particular incident would be?

That, for me, is one of the beauties of F1: we don't KNOW (we can guess all we like) what is going to happen next. It may well turn out to be a "boring" race ... but it MAY turn out to be the best race you've seen for years.

I'll still buy the occasional "live" recording of a band ... every once in a while ... after I've listened to it to see if it's impressive on its own merits, without all the lights and the rest. But you can bet I'll watch every GP without fail.

I suppose it must be near the beginning of yet another season. As each season comes to its end, I'm not sick and tired of F1, but something like that, and my thoughts about F1 tend towards the negative. Yet, a few months later, with the start of the next season, I'm ready and raring to go again, full of positive thoughts about F1.

In many ways, 1998 is seen as a "new birth" for F1. I hope that the season lives up to the expectations that many people seem to have about it. Whatever happens, let's enjoy it.

But that's just me.