Nostalgia?

This post probably isn't going where you think it's going.

I was chatting with a friend of mine today and he called the rock shows that I go to "nostalgia concerts." (It should be mentioned he was born in 1976.) So I thought about that label, because clearly for me, going to an 80s rock concert is not motivated by nostalgia, since I was never alive in the 80s, unless you're using the conservative definition of "life." Which I'm not. But I get the idea that for people who are somewhere between 15 and 25 years older than me, that may be exactly what such an event is. There are definitely guys in their late 30s, early 40s (or older) at these shows who want to relive their teens and 20s, and they bring their kids who are now like eight or twelve, and the whole family paints their faces with KISS make-up. Or they bring their girlfriends and get really drunk but pay very little attention to the music, and occasionally stare at me, because my presence is inexplicable to them. This is understandable since the demographic at these shows is usually 35-50 (and 5-12), and also heavily male-leaning, but there was a guy a row in front of me in Hartford who turned around every half hour or so not in a lecherous way, but with a look of confusion and/or amusement on his face. Out of the tens of thousands of people at the concert, I saw less than a dozen who were within ten years of my age by the look of it.

So maybe for those people it is about wanting to relive "the good old days" (although I've heard they weren't so good). But for me, this is about going to hear the music I like and see the bands I like now. I'm trying to think of bands/artists formed in the last 10-15 years I'd pay money to see live (which is a much more specific thing than "contemporary artists I vaguely like).

I've been thinking for a couple minutes now and the only thing that came to mind was maybe Maroon 5, maybe, and I guess technically I did sort of see them live at Ravinia last summer, but we couldn't actually see them. And that was before "Moves Like Jagger" came out, so really it doesn't count.

Maybe Pink, since she's still around, I imagine it'd be interesting, although I don't really know her music anymore.

Anyway you get where I'm going with this. I'd rather see Elton John, Led Zeppelin (please get back together (they won't)), Bruce Springsteen (I know, I know, I missed it), the Rolling Stones (God I hope they do that show they have rumored to be planning in Brooklyn), et cetera.

The point, really, I think, is that I don't believe the bands are doing this out of nostalgia for earlier decades. I can't imagine Mötley wants to go back to the 80's. They probably couldn't survive them a second time. This is still about making new music. KISS's new album, Monster, came out last week. While the review I read said the songs probably won't make it past the tour supporting the album, I think the single is as good as any of their stuff from the 70s, and they've got to keep making new music.

I keep thinking about what it must be like to still be constantly performing songs written thirty or more years ago. In some interview I read, Nikki Sixx mentioned that when they brought Vince Neil in to sing for the first time, he sang "Live Wire," and they knew that he was it. And he said they've played that song at every single gig ever since. That's 31 years of playing that song (give or take some years in the 90s when they were all fighting or in rehab). I've tried really hard, but it's rather difficult at age 22 to imagine what it's like to keep performing something for a longer time than I've been alive. But maybe I've in some ways talked myself out of my own point because they're playing those songs from thirty years ago because that's what the fans want to hear. KISS was extremely prolific for a decade so their catalogue is extensive and I don't know it as well, but I know Mötley has nine studio albums, and I know they only play material at their shows off of the (five) releases from the 80s and their most recent album from 2008. There are three albums (1994's Mötley Crüe, 1997's Generation Swine, and 2000's New Tattoo) that are completely ignored. Their eponymous album was never that popular because it's the one that doesn't feature Vince Neil on vocals, and Generation Swine is just not very good, but the only explanation for New Tattoo being overlooked is that it lands in the middle ground between the classics and their newest material. I think Saints of Los Angeles (2008) is as good as 1989's Dr. Feelgood, but it will be interesting to see when their new album comes out in 2013 if they will continue to tour with material from Saints.

This analysis is a much longer breakdown of a pretty brief topic of conversation, but that evolved into a discussion of Harry Potter and the generational need for something that teaches us that it won't be easy but if we fight for what we believe in, things will be okay. For my friend, as representative of gen X, that was Star Wars. Clearly for 90s babies (I abhor the label "millennials") it was Harry Potter. And now I wonder if I will be the equivalent of those middle-aged guys at Crüe concerts, reliving my childhood at conventions or comic con (I probably won't go to comic con). And I wonder if there will be those two or three random kids who are 20 years younger than me, and if I'll be totally baffled by their presence.

As I've said before (though maybe not on this blog), Harry Potter will never be for another generation what it was for mine, because they won't have to wait. I was ten when Goblet of Fire came out, but thirteen by the time Order of the Phoenix was released (since JK Rowling went off and got married and had a baby, like that was more important, in those three years). Yeah try telling a ten-year-old now that they have to wait three years to read the next book in a series. No way. Not now that it exists. There will be no waiting, no speculation, no midnight release parties, no early-days-of-the-internet community bonding. The anticipation, the theorizing, the community built up around those things, cannot be recreated, and that makes me feel awfully lucky to have been a part of it. There's a really wonderful book called Harry, A History I read a few summers ago that catalogues this experience and I guess for kids to read that will kind of be what they get to understand, the way I read band autobiographies to vicariously live through the pages into the 80s.

I can watch youtube videos of concerts, and read books by Nikki Sixx and Gene Simmons and get some idea of the 80s, but I can't live it. So it's not nostalgia. Audiences now aren't like they were in the 80s, tickets are expensive and the people with the most money (or the fanciest friends!) sit in the front instead of the people who care the most fighting to the front like in the days of general admission. (At the Rock and Roll hall of fame I saw a ticket for a KISS show in 1975 that cost $6 for general admission at the door.) So what this "scene" was in the 80s and was for that audience in the 80s isn't what it is for me in the 21st century. Just like Harry Potter won't be for kids now (because it's been fifteen years almost already) what it was for me in 1998. But that doesn't mean that either thing is any less amazing, or won't continue to serve a purpose.

Maybe this is a weird parallel to draw. It's probably one no one else would put together, but it makes perfect sense to me. Cultural phenomenons evolve. Their place in society changes. And that's kind of weird, and realizing I'm getting to the point where things that are quintessential to my childhood are becoming something people would call "nostalgic" is kind of freaky, but it's okay. I said my childhood ended when the last movie came out ("It all ends 7.15.11") and I was only sort of but not really joking. So I guess now I like Harry Potter as an adult?

We end with Harry Potter, so maybe this did go where you were thinking. Whatever I'm gonna live with Anna and if we get an apartment like the ones I've been looking at it will have a fireplace that probably doesn't work that we will turn into a Harry Potter puppet castle. And I will play the metal version of the theme song all the time. So, just, you know, know what to expect when you come over.