I had the advantage of living in Southern California, granting access to the most popular music venues on any concert tour in Greater L.A. and right around home. So at the tender age of 14, I attended my first concert. But in reality, I'd been attending a live show every week since I was born. We went to church, and our Folk Masses had the most energetic, cheerful and uplifting folk band (in fact there was a musical family who contributed many members). So I [mis]spent the next 30 years chasing that dragon at secular concerts and nightclubs.
I attended shows for the sheer love of music, the technical prowess on display, the emotional charge they gave. I found a lot of arena concerts to be annoying, because they were painfully loud, poorly mixed, and the crowd was full of knobs who smoked pot, chattered rudely, and just got in the way of a good time.
Conversely, I loved dancing at nightclubs and just hanging out all night in the music. There were people in the scene where you could just sit down, and have an adult intellectual conversation. So many kind and wonderful people to meet and form a clique with. The intimate concerts in small venues were very different and sometimes, transcendently beautiful. I will never regret some of those nights, just people-watching, rubbing elbows with beautiful women, and not really getting into a lot of trouble.
I've reverted to church and the weekly concerts now. When you're 50, the live-show crowd really isn't that into it anymore. Our bands are either playing massive arenas or at casinos! The ticket prices are exorbitant! I've tried to recapture the small-venue feel, but the new bands, and the obscure bands, I'm not in their Target Demographic, and I don't want to be the creepy old guy among a GenZ crowd with nothing to talk about.
It's weird, because sometimes if I peek back into the goth/industrial club scene, it seems to still be thriving, and my old chums have aged like me but they are still into it, because they can't let go. It wasn't a phase for them; it is a permanent identity and a lifestyle. I can't begrudge them that, but I feel like I outgrew it all.
I attended shows for the sheer love of music, the technical prowess on display, the emotional charge they gave. I found a lot of arena concerts to be annoying, because they were painfully loud, poorly mixed, and the crowd was full of knobs who smoked pot, chattered rudely, and just got in the way of a good time.
Conversely, I loved dancing at nightclubs and just hanging out all night in the music. There were people in the scene where you could just sit down, and have an adult intellectual conversation. So many kind and wonderful people to meet and form a clique with. The intimate concerts in small venues were very different and sometimes, transcendently beautiful. I will never regret some of those nights, just people-watching, rubbing elbows with beautiful women, and not really getting into a lot of trouble.
I've reverted to church and the weekly concerts now. When you're 50, the live-show crowd really isn't that into it anymore. Our bands are either playing massive arenas or at casinos! The ticket prices are exorbitant! I've tried to recapture the small-venue feel, but the new bands, and the obscure bands, I'm not in their Target Demographic, and I don't want to be the creepy old guy among a GenZ crowd with nothing to talk about.
It's weird, because sometimes if I peek back into the goth/industrial club scene, it seems to still be thriving, and my old chums have aged like me but they are still into it, because they can't let go. It wasn't a phase for them; it is a permanent identity and a lifestyle. I can't begrudge them that, but I feel like I outgrew it all.