I get that. But now I’m a parent in his 40s who can’t get to many gigs, I’m glad there’s not much music I care about now cos I’d be missing all the shows anyway, haha. Every generation of youngsters thinks their music is the best. The excitement of being young and seeing/experiencing music as it happens can’t be matched.
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So which gig was the most essential of your youth?
For me it was probably The Clash at Logan Campbell Centre in Auckland in the very early 80s. Though a case could be made for The Spelling Mistakes at Auckland University a couple of years earlier.
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I’m not sure this is quite true.
LMW is seeing Ed Sheeran tonight. Somehow one of the biggest acts in the world right now.
And, you know, she’s happy about going.
But she knows it’s not the same as seeing Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna in their prime.
She’s a big fan of P!atD. And she loved that gig.
Would she swap it to go to Queen thirty years ago?
Yes, she would.
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Sure, I didn’t mean every kid, but on the whole I’d think so. Of course, purely supposition.
That’s really cool about your kid, well done to you! I hope my kids wanna hear Weezer or Superchunk or something instead of whatever will be the in thing in the 2020s and 30s.
Eh, she’s more into musical theatre than pop and more into pop than rock.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I just think she recognises that some artists were special in a way that Ed Sheeran kind of isn’t.
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Could be a good thread!
I’d say seeing The Meanies in the alley off the side of Augogo Records in ‘92. It showed me that music could be played anywhere, by regular dudes you could think were cool but still just walk up and talk to. It introduced me to the world of punk and going to local gigs.
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An unbelievably underrated album. Absolute gem.
The other one that I haven’t seen mentioned is: Ben Folds Five - The Unauthorised Biography of Reinhold Messner. Seriously interesting and complex album. They also put on the best live show I have ever seen before or since in 2000 at the Palais, which culminated in Folds playing two pianos at once and then destroying them both.
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there must be a great gigs thread.
The one that I never saw, and I don’t know if I’m remembering this correctly, it still hurts, but finding out AFTER a ‘secret’ gig.
Sonic Youth, Mudhoney and Helmet at the Prince of Wales is the one that I’d have loved to have seen. (Saw them all the next day anyways, but POW V’s BDO…)
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I’ve always kinda suspected that everyone believes the best music EVER is the stuff that came out when they were 17-21 because that’s the stuff that carved its initials in their soul when they were young and angry and impressionable.
Having said that, i’m firmly convinced that the best music ever came out in the early-mid 90s, and I’m sure it’s totally coincidental that i was 17-21 at the time… 
It was the variety and the experimentation, and the adventurousness, and the anger. A time where the weird came out of the closet and if there wasn’t a variety of music going around that worked for you, that connected with you, then you weren’t trying. I could switch on Triple J and listen to RATM and Tori Amos and Garbage and the Whitlams and the Prodigy and Bush and Ben Harper and the Superjesus and Alanis Morrisette and the Sneakerpimps and Jebediah and the Waifs and Ash and and the Offspring (back when they were good) and the Smashing Pumpkins and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and the Tea Party and Sidewinder and Cake and Tool and Faithless and the Chemical Brothers and Mercury Rev and Placebo and Grinspoon and Massive Attack all back to back, all wildly different and all brilliant in their own way.
It’s really hard to know, in an unbiased way, whether it was music that changed, or whether it was me. I still have Triple j on my #1 slot on my car stereo, but it all sounds so samey and I dunno, uninspiring now. Alternating crap hiphop wannabes doing their crap brag tracks about ■■■■■■■ and ■■■■■■ and how awesome they are with bland indie-ish guitar pop. It’s not like there hasn’t been ANY good music since the turn of the century - Dresden Dolls, Florence and the Machine, Jezebels, Audreys, Goldfrapp, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, White Stripes, Moloko, Smoke City, Mountain Goats - hell, I even really liked Riptide a couple of years back. But there’s so much more cruft between the good stuff now, and so much less to choose from. It really seems like music has … diminished. Maybe it’s just cos there’s so few live venues now that it’s impossible for a band to get a start, maybe everyone’s focussing on musical genres that sound ok through a rubbish cheap mobile phone headphone set with no bass, or maybe i’m just getting old and clinging to the past.
But yeah, downhill from the 90s is a given. just not 100% sure yet whether it’s music or me on the slope…
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sounds like lmw is a ‘le wrong generation’ type.
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Lots of great albums, I like to add a couple;
1991 Metallica- Metallica.
1993 - Spiderbait - Shashavaglava
1994 Green Day -Dookie
1995 TISM - Machiavelli and the Four Seasons
1999 Blink 182 - Enema of the State
Been relistening to RatCat - Tingles it’s still very good.
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In pop and rock, sure.
I think she’d tell you it’s a golden age for Broadway which, again, is really her bag.
That would be a great thread.