Billy Idol – Sheryl Kirby

How to Go to Concerts When You’re Middle-Aged

Let’s face it, middle-aged folks don’t go to many concerts. We’re busy doing other stuff. Or we can’t afford it. Bands we like, that are still around with some semblance of the original line-up, are pretty rare. Mostly we take a pass more often than not. Bands also tend to go on stage well past our bedtime.

I am mostly fortunate to not fall into those parameters (except maybe for the late set times and early bed times, those kill me) and probably go to more concerts than the average 50-year-old. I’m lucky enough to live in a major city, and have a household income that allows for such extravagances. I spent part of my twenties and thirties as a concert promoter and ran a small record label for a few years, so those connections still come up occasionally to lure me out to see bands, in addition to checking out bands from my youth that I missed back in the day because I grew up in a city that few bands bothered to travel to.

The concert-going experience has changed a great deal, though, and it’s important to keep that in mind if your most favouritest band from when you were twenty reforms and comes to town. Especially if every concert you’ve seen in the last decade has involved children dressed as angels or shepherds. It’s not 1987 anymore, people.

Some tips for your middle-aged GenX concert experience…

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Billy By Numbers – or – How the Future Fascist State Will Control Us With Free Concert Tickets

1 sweaty t-shirt thrown to a fan in the front row
3 songs from the new album
2 Generation X tracks (one obscure) for the old punks in the house
4 costume changes
1 in-joke (in this case about Gordon Lightfoot and Massey Hall)
12 frisbees tossed into the crowd
2 of the biggest hits saved for the encore
1 rocker chick sitting backstage who looked like she had been time-warped from LA’s Sunset Strip circa 1987
20+ the number of times the name of the city of the current concert was said to the crowd

First off, don’t get me wrong, I dig Billy Idol. Idol was the first concert I ever attended, in 1984, and the imagery in his “White Wedding” video, full of Bat Cavers in black vinyl and religious iconography, was the impetus for me to become part of the punk/goth scene and thus, the person I am today.

But let’s not for a minute forget that Idol is a “rock star”. That concert I went to in the 80s – filled a 10,000 seat arena. More than he mastered singing and playing music, he mastered his persona. He is a celebrity. And undoubtedly revels in the power that comes with that.

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Old Punk Rockers Never Die

Okay, well, technically they do, eventually.

Last night, Greg and I attended a photo exhibit called Toronto Calling, of photos of concerts that took place in the early 80s in Toronto featuring bands like the Clash and the Ramones. We didn’t actually stick around to see the photos, though, as the gallery space was packed solid with old punk rockers, so much so that we couldn’t get in to see the photos.

The era in question took place before my time in Toronto, with most of the gigs featured taking place between 1979 -1981. I arrived in Toronto in late ’87, so this was not my scene per se, although I was listening to all of these bands back home in Halifax, a no-man’s land when it came to international tours. Hats off to Billy Idol for not forgetting about us in 1984.

But the remarkable thing was that here was a group of people in their late 40s – early 50s… and there was a still a solid punk vibe going on. Piercings, tattoos, oddly-coloured hair. These folks were still flying the freak flag.

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