One of my very first concerts was the very first Farm-Aid. At 5 a.m.on a cold summer morning in 1985, I wound my way through the ticket-holder herders into a stadium in Champaign, Illinois, found a prime seat in the stands and waited and squirmed and waited and squirmed some more to see Willy Nelson, Neil Young and yummily young Jon Bon Jovi. I was ecstatic. And I was with my parents.
It wasn't my first concert with my parents. At that point, they'd already taken me to see Billy Joel (twice), John Cougar (also twice, pre-Mellencamp embracing) and the 90-minute disaster we recall as the Whitney Houston Experience. Even at thirteen, I remember thinking they were pretty cool to get me close enough to see my favorite musicians sweat, sing and put on a show. By the next year all those cool points had faded into rebellion and the declaration that my parents would never get Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, Erasure and Anything Box the way I did. And I was right. As long as we were listening to the same music (and oggling the same raspy-voiced long-haired gorgeousness that was/is John Cougar), then my parents and I were all good on the rock scene. Once the synthesizers and black lipstick kicked in, though, it was time for us to all move on.
Today, the music scene is (ahem) a bit different. This summer, I jammed out as much as my preschooler to The Imagination Movers and many of my favorite musicians have crossed-over to make alternakiddie albums. I'm still holding on to the old school notion, though, that at some point we will thrust our devil horns up at an Ani DiFranco show together or that he will be amped that I got us all tickets to see Pink and JT.
Are these memories and this hope my own desire to be seen as cool by my kid who will undoubtedly be way cooler than I ever was? Oh hell yes. What concerns me even more is the possibility that we won't ever get the chance to share lawn seats and $12 sodas together or debate whether or not buy a concert tee that costs more than the tickets. I'm holding on to the circle being unbroken, but the reality could very well be that my kid rolls his eyes and says the extra ticket to see Raffi is really for someone from playgroup, and that I'm on my own. Would that mean I've raised the little rocker right? And does that come with its own set of cool points? And finally, is going to a show with your kids awesome or embarrassing? And for whom?
