Have you ever wanted to go to a concert - but felt you were "too old"?

For some reason I was really self conscience going to an Ozzfest around 98 or 99.I don`t know why I was around those days.I went to plenty more way sillier acts in the following years and enjoyed them.

 

I planned on seeing Purson as they were going to be playing about an hour away from me, but I saw an interview with the singer where she said she didn't like seeing middle aged guys in the audience. So, being a middle aged guy, I didn't go.

 

That's pretty lame of her! Why discourage anyone from liking your music?

Musicians should appreciate their fans, whether they fit a certain demographic or not...

 

Nirvana. Didn't go. My loss.

A little too old for that scene at the time.

 

Haven't had this problem, largely because I stopped going to concerts about the time when it got cheaper to buy the band's entire back catalog than buy a ticket to their show.

 

I hadn't heard of Purson, so I looked them up.

How in GOD'S NAME can you gank your band's whole aesthetic from the late 60s/early 70s then whip around and complain about middle aged people going to your shows? It's like forming a Grateful Dead cover band then complaining about hippies.

 

Life is too short to worry about what anyone else thinks

 

The only time I felt odd was at a Lady Gaga concert. It was a hot day so I wore my yellow tank top and my purple yoga pants. Maybe the hair on my back gave me away.

 

Never. Except when I was a young adult, I felt I would have been very out of place at a kiss concert.

Far as I know Hanson was comprised of young fellows who were adept musicians.

I was of the impression that "boy bands" were not bands at all, but karaoke singers who didn't play anything and only sang to generic backing.

 

Very nice honest response. I agree. But you have to remember the greatest fear in America is growing old and "looking old." You have to go embarass yourself in the mosh pit at age 40 to show how young you are. You have to listen to Green Day because if you didn't you'd be too old. You have to wear baseball caps and have a tattoo or else you might commit the sin of not looking young. You have to buy Eminem records in your late 50s to prove youre still youthful. I live in California and the whole clinging to the youth culture is almost embarrassing. When I was a child, I spoke as a child. When I moved to California, I still spoke as a child, dude. I'm staying with a 19 year old and a 21 year old at the moment. They're both dumb as a bucket of rocks and watch a lot of cartoons.

 

only for moshing

 

There's got to be a politically correct way to say this, but I can't think of one, so I'll just say it. I'd be a lot more embarrassed going to see some dinosaur band struggling to still get it up, than I would be to see a young band in their prime.

 

Must seem kind of ironic to you that the rock guys, or as you call them "dinosaurs" who can't get it up, all seem to be married to some of the hottest young women on the planet.
Sad that you find rock embarrassing, some of those guys can still put on a hell of a show.

 

It's a hell of a lot cheaper, too.

I've never understood people who say they no longer go to gigs because it's too expensive. Sure it is, if you're buying tickets for CSN, or whoever. But there are a ton of great acts out there that you can see for the price of a large pizza.

 

Nope, but I have gone to some concerts and felt, as a person of a color, really out of place. (Herbert Grönemeyer, Bruce Springsteen, Thees Uhlmann).

 

Interestingly enough, the French New Wave was heavily influenced by films that were considered pulp trash at the time.

It's this exact attitude that made punk necessary, and no matter what you might think of it, it kept rock 'n' roll from turning into one huge pile of Topographic Oceans.

We're talking about tastes in entertainment, and that doesn't (nor should it) require age limits. If you want to talk about film history with other film geeks (Rohmer??!?!) that's one thing. But this:

...ain't that. And if you're going to bring matters of taste and apply age limits to it (which that statement clearly does) then you're ignoring pretty much everything about the majority of popular music.

By that logic, people now in their early 60s were emotionally stunted if they still listened to The Monkees in the 70s. Yes, we can look back and tell how well those tunes were crafted, but we've got the luxury of hindsight. Cheap Trick was silly to my friends when I was in my early 20s. I get (good natured) flak from my friends even now for my love of Van Halen (NOTE: Van Halen broke up, permanently, in 1984. Anyone who says otherwise is a filthy liar.)

You're working off of a standard that assumes that academia and theory set standards with which we can judge someone's maturity by their taste in music. For me, The Carpenters are far too maudlin, cheesy, and sentimental, but even a non-fan like myself recognizes that there's undeniable genius in there. I'm going to take a wild stab and say that you're far less familiar with Green Day than I am with The Carpenters, and if you somehow DO know about their stuff, I seriously doubt you're going to be sympathetic to any quality in what they do.

What I saw with Green Day was a solid rock 'n' roll band. If you want to bring in standards that can be agreed upon by the educated, then I'm your man: I did the whole nine yards in the 90s with grunge, roadying, driving 100 miles to play for seven people and a case of beer. I've seen hundreds of sweaty, dirty, scary rock 'n ' roll bands, I know what it takes for them to hit their targets, and I can tell when everybody on stage locks in and sets each other on fire. I couldn't name three songs by them without checking on the internet, but I know what I saw. Those three live in each other's pockets. They're a great rock unit.

And your assertions would throw all that away. And if that's not prejudice, I have no idea what would be.

This is what I mean when I say that things are a matter of taste, and always will be. Saying The Seventh Seal is a better film than Dumb and Dumber is a non-statement. Not because one's a better film then the other, because you're comparing two drastically different value systems, which is something that requires an inherent prejudice. It's not a coincidence that you compared dead serious works with lighter fare: it assumes that serious cinema has an inherent superiority to slapstick comedy. What I remember of Dumb and Dumber was actually very well put together, but you'll only see that if you're aware of how difficult it is to make comedy...especially brainless comedy...work. As the man says, dying is easy, comedy is hard.

(As an aside, I don't like Dumb and Dumber any more than The Carpenters.)

You're assuming that Bergman's goals are inherently superior. That's not how it works. I'd say that John Carpenter's Halloween is a better film that Bergman's Hour of the Wolf, and I could back it up with the sort of academia that you're alluding to. Hour of the Wolf's symbolism is clunky and far too self conscious, whereas Halloween is pieced together like a Swiss watch that hits every cue flawlessly. But it would be a silly discussion that had virtually nothing to do with cinema being a living, breathing thing. The two films aren't even on the same planet, and one planet isn't inherently superior to the other.

I'm 46, I'm seeing The Supersuckers in six weeks, The Monkees in June, The Flesh Lights in a couple of weeks, and Slayer and Lady Gaga when the opportunities present themselves. All shall be glorious.

 

I've never felt too old, but concert personnel have made comments to my wife and I because of our age >"You're too old to be here!"

 

What a pretentious post. I can be just as pretentious and make my point.

Despite growing older (and more "mature"), and despite growing up the son of a respected professor of Japanese literature, and despite classical music training, and despite a fairly good educational background, I still find a lot to enjoy on the Beatles' Please Please Me (even though "she was just seventeen"), the Ramones Rocket to Russia (because the kids are going to the disco-tech-a-go-go) and Green Day's Dookie.

And the early Beatles, Ramones and Green Day, of course, don't "suck". Billie Joe Armstrong was a tremendous melodist from day one, as evidenced by his having written the wonderful ballad "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" before Dookie. That song has become a regular number at graduations and proms over the last couple of decades. And, he has matured as a songwriter. Perhaps the person who posted this doesn't know the Green Day has won a Grammys for Rock Album, Record of the Year and for Best Musical Show Album, or that they are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

While I was studying at a prestigious Ivy League school in Cambridge, I met a lot of students who, despite being in their early twenties, spent all their time listening to classical music, reading philosophy and watching arthouse films - they would look down on pop music, sports, pulp fiction and Hollywood movies. I always wondered what happened to those guys.

 

I went to a Dion DiMucci concert a few years ago. In my late 50's, I dare say that I was one of the *youngest* people in the audience. There were folks with wheelchairs, walkers, and canes. Dion, however, seemed ageless. He put on a great show, with lots of energy and charisma. His singing voice is as strong as ever, and he is seriously underrated as a guitarist. Of course, he played to the crowd with his do-wop hits from the 1950's, but, he also did a solo acoustic blues set that blew me away.

 

Well, if that's your opinion, maybe you weren't that good of a classical music student after all. And don't put The Beatles in the middle of it. I'm talking about Green Day here.

 

Really?

Well...I'm betting that you're no Grace Slick either Honey...

 

Word...

 

Getting back to the original topic - I attend many shows by younger artists. If you don't want to feel embarrassed, I say go to alternative music shows, or try to see younger acts at a festival. I'll see Chvrches and Bon Iver in small live houses this month - alternative acts tend to have a wide age group in attendance.

Many of the younger acts I have seen have been at Festivals (like Fuji Rock, Summer Sonic, Hyde Park) and those types of crowds have all ages, so it's very comfortable. Similarly, the Singapore F-1 race always has free concerts for race goers - I've seen Maroon 5, Rihanna and Katy Perry there. I didn't like Katy Perry, but thought Rihanna and Maroon 5 were great. Lots of regular race fans just hanging out, so not embarrassing at all. Just don't go to the front of the stage and cheer with the grade school girls!

 

I actually think that younger people feel its pretty cool when an older person likes a younger act. It's a lot different now than when I was a kid seeing concerts in the 60s, old was over 30, and of course you couldn't trust anyone older than 30. Remember the movie, Wild in the Streets? If you had short hair you were most likely a narc. Much better attitude now.

 

Over here you get all ages, was at Arcade Fire last year teens up to 50s and was talking to a woman who was there with her mum who she said was 63, she was loving it. Wouldn't consider Greenday young anyway, Armstrong is 43 hardly Bieber!