Last week I had the good fortune to have been given two free tickets to go and see
The Cure play at Rod Laver Arena here in Melbourne. I had some idea that they were touring, but had no intention of actually
buying a ticket - I mean I haven't listened to The Cure since I was a marginalised teenager, and so under other circumstances this concert would have come and gone without much notice from moi. When free tickets arrived via courier however, my interest levels rose a notch.
The concert was on a Sunday night which isn't the most convenient time, and it was bloody freezing, but
Brad and myself braved the cold. I imagine
Robert Smith would do the same for us. I was probably equally as excited to see The Cure as I was to see
the crowd that pays to see The Cure. Tickets were $120, so I figured there wasn't going to be too many young kids there, but I was keen to see whether this current emo culture had embraced what you could probably label (mistakenly) the first emo band.
To begin with, I was slightly disappointed. There wasn't a nose ring or black fringe to be seen - just people like me - late twenty somethings, early thirty somethings, the occasional teenagers, some grunge left-overs. The smell of weed. I was anticipating a somewhat sooky set from a band that was my sooking soundtrack of choice, in a giant arena made from metal and concrete - clearly not designed with sound in mind. On top of this, we had seated tickets. I am a general admission kind of guy - I like to stand and watch in a crowd, dance if I want, nod my head if I want. I hate sitting at concerts.
We shuffled in and made our way to the seats, which happened to be in pretty much the best spot there was - just back a few rows and kind of off to the side of stage. I was also happy that there were PA speakers facing us, so perhaps we would get the sound before it had bounced off the walls and roof. In an unplanned but well timed move, we waited maybe 5 minutes before the house lights dimmed and the band came on.
To be honest, I would have been happy to hear a couple of songs from my youth - instead we got a 3 hour set of amazing music. The sound was spot on, the band was tight and seemed to be feeling a great vibe. The crowd was probably as you would expect - random dancing framed by people with their hands in their pockets bobbing up and down. The lights and video were top notch - effective and creative without overkill. less than half of the songs actually used a backdrop and those that did mostly used a still image rather than video. It worked amazingly well. The band looked as if they had been frozen in 1990 and transported to the year 2007 (except that Smith is now somewhat umm..
plump). Black clothes, boots, crazy hair.
As they played, all kinds of memories came flooding back - skating, doc martins, other bands like the clash and the dead kennedys and ministry and skinny puppy and nirvana (not your mtv unplugged rubbish, but Bleach and Nevermind - I was 15 when the latter was released). Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Pavement, Soundgarden, The Pixies - so many great bands from my youth - it got me wondering about new bands these days, and led me to the eventual realisation that perhaps music was better when I was younger and the admission that I have indeed become my father.
Well that's not entirely true - for one, my dad likes Neil Diamond and Queen. I haven't quite gotten there yet.
I don't mean that the music from my youth was the best music ever, I mean that the music from my youth
and all the music before that dating all the way back to the 50's was better than the shit they call music these days.
This is of course a sweeping generalisation and has more holes than swiss cheese, but I bet you understand what I mean. I bet I dont even need to explain myself. I bet you are sitting there, holding your Wolfmother cd in one hand and your Supergrass cd in the other, nodding slowly in agreement. I bet you want to smash that Wolfmother cd right now. Go on - do it.
Don't get me wrong - I LOVE new music, and there have been some good bands appear in the last few years, but do you think any of them will be around in 20 years time, with a back catalog full of great music? Granted, being around for 20 years does not automatically suggest that your band is great (take U2 for example), but it seems a band is really only worth one or two albums these days. Why is that?
So now you're probably sitting there thinking "well gee.. defining good music is really a subjective thing and loads of teenagers would disagree with you and tell you about My Chemical Romance.." - to you I say this: you are wrong. Defining good and bad music is not subjective. Your
taste in music is subjective, but whether you like Matchbox 20 or not, you need to understand that they are rubbish. You should accept it, and move on. I like shit bands. Everyone does - there's no shame in it. Just understand that they are shit, and move on.
Yeah, I know I just sound old. I
am old. Seeing The Cure though, reminded me of what music did for me as a kid. It reminded me of what a concert experience can be, and reminded me of why I love music, and what I'm searching for in new bands. They really were amazing.
So I have been listening to The Cure pretty much constantly since last Sunday. It's not as sooky as I remember, and I'm amazed at how similar some of it sounds to New Order, but that can't possibly be a bad thing.
On sunday, I drove up to my parents place (as is almost a weekly occurrence) to have dinner. It was kind of my brother's birthday (well it was actually the week before but he was in Sydney). I drove to their house, then my dad drove us to a pub in the country for dinner. The town has a somewhat uninspiring name: New Gisborne. It's your typical one pub, one train station type of town - sleepy and farmy. The sun was setting as we were driving there, of which I have photos. I'll post them as soon as I find the cable thingy for the camera. We bought a bottle of local chardonnay, and shared it while sitting on a table in front of an open fire in the practically deserted restaurant part of the pub.
