Taking A Stand: Bon Jovi concert turned back clock
Rock concerts aren’t what they once were, back in the days of peace, love and rock n’ roll, when everything was groovy.
The realization hit home Friday evening as the wife and I were attending the Bon Jovi concert in Nashville. The tickets were a 38th birthday present from my wife and I welcomed the chance to regain a little of my younger days in a rock n’ roll setting. However, a trip down memory lane really only hammered home the age thing.
In the old days, back when I was going to AC-DC, Journey and Van Halen concerts, you had a bunch of rowdy rockers, wearing their black concert shirts, sporting long hair, driving their Camaro Z-28s to the concerts. These were the people momma warned me about.
Well, the first thing that hit me Friday was the fact the parking lot was not full of Trans Ams, but instead we parked aside models like Lexus, BMW and several mini-vans. As I walked toward the arena, instead of seeing wild rebels screaming and yelling and bucking the system, I saw well-dressed adults being careful not to jay walk across the street.
Forget about blue hair and body tattoos, what I saw when I got inside was gray hair and ladies sporting the latest fashions from the Halston collection. These weren’t the wild rockers for the early 1980s, these had to be their parents, arriving for some parent-teacher meeting somewhere in the arena.
So, we scale atop the arena to our seats in the nosebleed section, careful not to slip on the slick floor in the darkness. The whole time I’m hoping one of these senior citizens doesn’t slip on the stairs, lest they fall and break a hip. However, I was in for a surprise when the lights went down and Bon Jovi was introduced. By the way, Jon Bon Jovi is an entire year older than me.
What was once a yuppie crowd, full of dignified Mercedes drivers, reverted to their high school years as the music began. I mean it was like being at Monsters of Rock back in 1989 again. There were people dancing in the aisles, screaming and hollering and I think I even smelled some illegal narcotics being lit up in the crowd. No doubt it was a bank vice president sitting nearby, smoking the stash of the “righteous weed” he’d kept under the console in his Cadillac for the past decade.
Over to my right, some girl kept yelling, at the top of her lungs, “Jon, I want to have your baby.” It was funny the first 10 times, but after that it became annoying so finally I got up my courage and turned to my wife and told her to shut up. Come on, the guy is old enough to be her father.
So anyway, this manic display from the crowd went on throughout what was an enjoyable concert. Heck, it made me tired just watching the display by the crowd seeing I’m a lazy concert-goer who usually keeps to my seat since I resemble a wounded goose when I try to dance.
However, the end gave way to a spectacle that would make a good “Twilight Zone” episode. As the lights went up, I began looking around the arena. Like before I saw a bunch of 30 and 40 somethings, gray around the edges, well-dressed and dignified looking, begin walking orderly toward the exits, politely pausing to allow others to file out in organized style.
Now wait a minute. How could this be the same crowd that raised Cain for two hours in the dark? Were they magically replaced by the ghosts of 1983 when the lights went down, only to turn back into pumpkins a la Cinderella when the lights came back on?
The lesson learned here I suppose is you’re only as old as the lighting in the room, since everyone is 19 and has dark hair when the lights go down.
(Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)