OPINION: REUNION CONCERT TO FEATURE MOSTLY YOUR NOSTALGIA

So, you went to see _________________ (band from your youth). The tickets cost _____________ (price-tag over $100) which was a lot more than you wanted to pay, but they were so important to you when you were not __________________ (thing you hate about yourself now). They played ________________ (hit #1), ____________ __________ (hit #2, two words) and a bunch of other songs that you don’t know.

It was ____________________ (adjective, choose between: fine, okay, decent, terrible).

Definitely not like you remember that band/singer/dj being when you were young, huh?

Is it that they can’t live up to the expectation of memory or that, like you, they’re just getting worse with age?

Why did you go, again? Stupid, wasn’t it? It was expensive! And the babysitter was an extra $75. Plus all those $12 Miller Lites and the $40 Ubers, both ways. You’re going to feel those Miller Lites in the morning about as heavily as your bank account will feel that massive wallop to your vacation fund. Bye-bye Cabo, hello TJ.

I’m not trying to be a Mr. Music Miser. I’ve been to my share of disappointing old fogies who keep on trying to relive their youth until the day that they keel over on stage. The Rolling Stones and The Who were two of the single worst shows I’ve ever seen. Mick Jagger can’t swagger like he used to and Roger Daltrey shouldn’t be allowed within 50 yards of a microphone anymore. The Cure at Coachella 2004 flat out sucked. Robert Smith does not have “It” anymore and in fact looks more like the character Pennywise from the movie It than the icon he was in the eighties.

It’s not just acts from my parents' generation either. I once won free tickets to see Candlebox and left after the first song. Queen, Journey, Sublime, Stone Temple Pilots, Blink-182 and now maybe even possibly (god forbid) Nirvana are touring without the artist that made them so special in the first place. Bands that haven’t played for ten, fifteen, twenty years are out there hitting the road to play those songs that were so special to you once upon a time. But are they still good? Have those years of getting rusty really helped? Or should maybe they have stayed gone? This is our fault. Our hard earned money funds the delusions that people have any interest in seeing The Police reunite, that anybody could give the remotest damn about Sting singing songs he wrote when he was 27.

Here’s an idea. Stop going to see bands you liked when you were twenty and start going to see new music. There are 100,000 new songs released every day, and at least ten new artists worth your time a week. These artists' shows are cheaper and they put in so much more work because unlike The Cure or Candlebox, they actually have to prove themselves. It’s bargain basement, but with a better selection than the chain stores. Let’s blow up new artists and stop throwing our money down the drain with Nostalgia.

We get it, you miss your youth. It didn’t go anywhere, you just stopped remembering what fun is.

Don’t have any idea where to start finding new music? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Head back to the We Are: The Guard homepage and click any of our links. I promise it will be more interesting than seeing Lynyrd Skynyrd without any of the original band members.

[image labeled for reuse with modification from wikimedia]

From deep within the murky depths of the Los Angeles River emerged a creature: 50% raver, 50% comedian, 10% Robotcop. Kurt Kroeber doesn’t own a dog, operates Soundbleed (the world’s only dance party comedy talk show rave), and is down to party with you. Come up some time and say “Hey dude!” But definitely make sure to casually drop the secret Illuminati password.