50 Years of Rock Excess

The other shows making up C4’s Rock Night give a pretty good idea of what to expect from this centrepiece documentary. At 11.10pm, Queens of the Stone Age play the Roundhouse, while Queen’s epochal 1986 Wembley gig rounds out the evening at 12.05am. So, indelible riffage, absurd pomp, rampant posturing, snarling attitude and a whole lot of drugs.

No one could expect the history of the genre to be captured within an hour; indications are that this will posit the high watermark of rock excess in the 1970s against the apparently slicker, technology driven beast it has now become. It also seems likely to lean more heavily on anecdotes than musicology. But, be honest, which would you rather watch?