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Jenna Park's avatar

I wasn't so into punk either in high school or college. My spouse was more into that scene. Our musical tastes overlap with very few bands or artists outside jazz, classical, and maybe hip hop.

When do we become oldsters that don't go to concerts anymore? Am I there now? I think the last concert I went to was pre-covid, probably The Cure. There was a period, about ten or so years ago, where I used to go to concerts by myself. Depending on the band, I was clearly the oldest in the room.

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Jonathan Kissam's avatar

The struggle is real, especially given how early I go to bed now! I just want, you know, Robert Smith to come play a nice intimate show at a bar around the corner from me and start at 6pm and not be too loud.

Though I gotta admit, at this show I was definitely *not* the oldest. There was a guy rocking out in the front row in an X t-shirt who also looked like he might have been on temporary release from a nursing home.

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Jenna Park's avatar

😂 I'm not surprised given the show. Any "nostalgia" band from the 80s/90s always has middle-aged people like us and older rocking out while doing stretches in-between songs hahahah.

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John Coakley's avatar

I had a similar experience with punk rock in high school; I saw the simplicity that I didn't quite get as a kind of purity - a purity that only kids cooler than me could appreciate.

I saw Bob Mould here in SF last month and he was great. His rhythm section is in the band that backs Michael Shannon as an REM tribute band, and that's pretty amazing too.

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Jonathan Kissam's avatar

Oh, wow, I didn't realize that. The band was incredibly tight, and I really enjoyed the show even though they didn't play any songs from Workbook, which is the album that turned me on to Bob Mould in the first place. (Of course, I *would* most love the slow, moody, quasi-acoustic album...)

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Jared Cardon's avatar

J. Robbins is the man. Burning Airlines album “Identikit” is a seminal work of post-hardcore politicking that came out during the first GW Bush term. Weirdly, I saw Burning Airlines touring for that album the night of Sept. 11, 2001. I’ll never forget it.

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