Are Rock Concerts Just Lowest Common Denominator Fare?
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I took three 12-year-olds to the Nickelback concert yesterday outside of Sacramento.
What I didn’t realize was that I would have to endure three hours filled with enough profanity to make another 200 Martin Scorsese and Quintin Tarantino screenplays. Maybe more.
Maybe I am getting old. Or maybe I have just high standards as to what good music is SUPPOSED to be. I was little impressed by the band SAVING ABEL. No one even seemed to be aware that they were playing. Like the Uncle giving the speech at the family reunion while everyone keeps talking?
They were followed by the raunchier and more in-your-face HINDER.
Man they were VILE. Just VILE. Sorry to Hinder fans, but why not just turn on a chainsaw and curse all the way through it. It would be the same thing. And cheaper than buying albums and going to concerts.
Then came the silliest and most revolting group of the bunch–Papa Roach. Or Papa Raunch, more like. It saddened me to think that many in the huge outdoor crowd had come to see these creatures primarily. They were BEYOND AWFUL.
“Smoke that motherblanking blank!!” they screamed, referencing the thick stench of dope in the air. “Get up! Get out of your motherblanking seats, Sacramento!”
Everything was mother-this, mother-that. Words you would save only for your worst enemies, and maybe not even for them.
Ugliness being screamed AT the audience.
Do people like that? I had passes, thank God. But most people paid top dollars for this? To have a bunch of filthy, sweaty creatures scream profanities at them?!?!
It was three hours into this torture (this really WAS torture, compared to waterboarding and cigar smoke) when the headliners came out–Nickelback.
I didn’t realize that their mouths were just as filthy. But unlike the other groups before them, at least these guys can rock the house down. They played hit after hit after hit. BIG songs. This is a BIG group. They don’t need to pretend like the cockroach has to. They are among today’s BIG music acts.
So whether they have talent or not, rock groups have to resort to addressing me and the crowd as if we have an IQ of 30.
Why is that?!?!
Why would they talk DOWN to me like I am an idiot? Why would they assume I am 14-years-old and into being verbally assaulted??
I didn’t like how lowest common denominator it all felt.
On top of the profanity was the repugnant treatment of women. They were their to be groupies and objects of desire. They were there to be referenced as dumb meat. Nice, huh? It broke my heart to see a little girl, maybe 7, watching and listening and processing it all just a few feet from us. Her mother looked like a burnt out flower child. There were many 50-year-old women there, spinning around like they were 15 again.
And the drug references were offensive to me, as much if not more than the language.
There were kids as young as 5 or 6 at this concert. Not counting the about-six months pregnant woman who was there making sure her unborn baby was deafened before it ever came out of the womb.
The constant references to the thick stench of marijuana in the air made me ill. Was it all a big joke? A big game?
“That’s some good California WEEEEEEEEED!” the bands chanted like morons.
This crowd was made up of the future leaders of America? Highly doubtful. Most looked like leaners and leaches. The more the bands joked about how good the dope smelled, the more the idiots in the crowd puffed away. Anyone who has to guzzle $12 margaritas instead of waiting for a better one at $4.00 has alcohol issues, in my opinion. But why spend that much when you can just get high?
I came home smelling like U.C. Berkeley.
The saddest and most depressing moment came at the end. When it was all over. Believe it or not.
We sat on the lawn–that huge stretch of field known as the “cheap seats” in the concert world.
I kid you not. The ENTIRE FIELD was COVERED with CRAP. Beer cups. Margarita shakers. Hamburger sleeves. Unidentifiable objects. EVERYWHERE.
Not one of those slobs was seen walking away with their garbage. It was AWFUL. It was literally the worst mess I have ever seen. Even the streets following Mardi Gras were cleaner than this. I have seen acts of God that were less daunting to clean up.
I could NOT believe my eyes. These were the same idiots who were singing along to Nickelback’s Feel Good Opus, “If Everyone Cared”–a song about caring enough to make a difference in the world.
Enough of a difference to pick up after your sloppy self? Apparently not.
I loved Nickelback, faults and all. The three opening bands should be playing County Fairs in my opinion.
The language, the drugs, and the FILTH left behind was beyond anything I could ever imagine.
Nickelback are great ROCKERS. But I wouldn’t want them raising my kids or teaching them about life, drugs, sex, or anything else for that matter.
Too bad kids idolize rock stars like this. And as the song “Rock Star” demonstrates, so many want to be just like them.
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