Last night I took my very talented guitar playing son to his first real rock concert. It was Greenday. We both had a great time as the band was excellent.
During one of the songs with the lights dimmed low on stage and tempo slowed, I looked around at the audience. There were a lot of cigarette lighters held high, but what intrigued me was the wave of LCD's that were out there. It took me a moment or two to catch on, but then it dawned on me how much and yet how little things had changed...
Here was a punk band that had revitalized a style of music from the early '80's and put a new exterior coating on it. The music was born from political angst care of the Bush administration. The style had elements of grunge, rock and even some blues all wrapped up in an envelope of punk. The lyrics had an updated spin and still catered to emotions from young to middle aged.
What was different though was the technology. Twenty years ago when I was still doing the concert scene, we all had our lighters to show our quieter emotions. Now it's all about cell phones, which it seemed, we all had - except for my son who left his at home.
In many ways so much has changed and yet in others so little. Our country still is embroiled in a war that is being fed to us as a fight for democracy. Adolescence is still a very trying period where they think they can change the world because of their virtue. While we don't have an oil embargo, because of a couple of hurricanes we may once again have gas lines. From a new school perspective we have the ability to communicate instantaneously to anyone in any corner of the world. We have the ability to learn about other cultures at DSL speeds. The world as we know it has become much smaller. We can forecast life altering storms and make every attempt to get out of harms way.
Yes our world has changed in amazing ways, but has it made us better people?
During one of the songs with the lights dimmed low on stage and tempo slowed, I looked around at the audience. There were a lot of cigarette lighters held high, but what intrigued me was the wave of LCD's that were out there. It took me a moment or two to catch on, but then it dawned on me how much and yet how little things had changed...
Here was a punk band that had revitalized a style of music from the early '80's and put a new exterior coating on it. The music was born from political angst care of the Bush administration. The style had elements of grunge, rock and even some blues all wrapped up in an envelope of punk. The lyrics had an updated spin and still catered to emotions from young to middle aged.
What was different though was the technology. Twenty years ago when I was still doing the concert scene, we all had our lighters to show our quieter emotions. Now it's all about cell phones, which it seemed, we all had - except for my son who left his at home.
In many ways so much has changed and yet in others so little. Our country still is embroiled in a war that is being fed to us as a fight for democracy. Adolescence is still a very trying period where they think they can change the world because of their virtue. While we don't have an oil embargo, because of a couple of hurricanes we may once again have gas lines. From a new school perspective we have the ability to communicate instantaneously to anyone in any corner of the world. We have the ability to learn about other cultures at DSL speeds. The world as we know it has become much smaller. We can forecast life altering storms and make every attempt to get out of harms way.
Yes our world has changed in amazing ways, but has it made us better people?
