So where are they now?

In 1973 the American film maker, D.A.Pennebaker, made a movie about the concert at the Hammersmith Odeon in London which was part of David Bowie's farewell tour (which turned out merely to be the end of his performing as Ziggy Stardust, but I digress).

I remember one thing in particular about that movie. Some teenage girls (15, 16, 17) throwing themselves on stage only to be thrown off again by the bouncers who seemed to be there purely for that purpose.

Those girls will now be mature women in the mid, late 50s. Maybe they went on to be respectable married women with families of their own, suburban housewives who are pillars of the community. I wonder if any of them ever look back on that night at the Hammersmith Odeon, or can even remember it. And what they think about it and why they did what they did?

And then there were the groupies. I remember Rod Stewart being asked once how many women he had slept with, to which he answered "thousands!".

An exaggeration? Maybe not.

Another city, another tour stop, another set of groupies, another girl back at the hotel.

There must a large number of women in their 50s now who had pretty ordinary lives otherwise eventually who spent one night of their lives in a hotel room having sex with the likes of Rod Stewart or Mick Jagger, or, or , or ....   You wonder what they must think looking back. You wonder whether they look back on that one night as anything memorable, was it enjoyable, was it interesting, was it worthwhile, was it any good, why did they bother?

"Memories may be beautiful and yet" - lyrics from the Barbra Streisand song "The way we were" (written by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, quoted without permission - sorry, but it fits my context).  How beautiful are memories like that? I had my share of one-night stands (nothing like the number that these pop icons had), and it tends to be sad rather than memorable; she might have been the girl of your dreams, and she is gone - already.

The night might have enjoyable, but where does it lead? If you're the pop icon to another city and another set of groupies, but as for the girl involved? 30, 40 years later just a happy, sad, confused, proud, bitter, fascinating, depressing memory? What and where?