It was Coachella for Generation X, and it was GREAT!
Not that I’d planned to go. But Kathy Valentine extended an invitation months ago and I’m not going to say no to her. But as the date approached I asked myself, did I really want to hang with the unwashed masses outside the Rose Bowl on a hot afternoon?
This is my post-Covid dilemma. This is my aged dilemma. What does it take me to get out of the house? There’s a Covid hangover no one talks about. The difference between then and now, before and after. Before I was on the go, in the mix. Then I was mandated into enforced stasis. Now it’s hard to get back in gear, inertia keeps me in place. But even worse, I now think about what I want to see. The same band I saw in their heyday, their comeback, their legacy tour and…at some point it is enough.
But if you’re a friend of mine, I’ll go anywhere. Because it’s about support, and hanging with friends.
And that’s why I went to Cruel World.
Now how early am I going to go?
Almost no one goes at the opening bell, because it’s a long day standing in the heat and the bill builds, the best bands are on last, so you need to pace yourself. As a matter of fact, at many festivals people start to leave before the headliner even takes the stage, they’re already worn out.
But not last night.
So I’m debating what time to arrive and I tell myself I can’t miss ‘Til Tuesday doing “Voices Carry.”
“Hush hush, keep it down now
Voices carry”
And I’m schlepping across the grounds, it’s not only a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll, it’s a long way from the parking lot to the Outsiders Stage. And I’m passing all kinds of ethnicities, L.A. is a rainbow of colors and they all listened to KROQ way back when. And as I approach the stage I can hear, but…
I can’t see a thing. I’m watching it on the hi-def screens. But the band is really good. I’m wondering how many original members are on stage. I try to look it up on my phone, but there’s no cell access. Oh, I’ve got plenty of bars, but the circuits are overloaded.
And I’m looking at the schedule and I know these festivals run on time and there are only a few minutes left and the band plays what appears to be their last song, but then, when it’s over, they launch into “Voices Carry.”
“Oh, he wants me
But only part of the time
He wants me
If he can keep me in line”
Every single person knows the words and is singing along. This was the eighties, this was MTV. If you made it then, everyone knew your name and song. Aimee Mann said the video caused people to recognize her in airports. And Aimee… It was an old song, but she was picking her bass like it was all happening today. And she was wearing jeans, the kind you don for a trip to the grocery store, she was letting the music speak for itself. AND IT DID!
As for OMD… I was going to check out a couple of numbers before I went backstage.
They looked the opposite of Aimee Mann. Like men. Sixtysomething men. But they’re singing these songs from their youth. And I never bought an Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark album, but I know every song and am bopping along…how can this be?
But I eventually walk across the mud-strewn field to the backstage area.
I didn’t mention that it was raining. A near impossibility at this time in Southern California. I was worried that this would impact attendance, but Paul Tollett said not a bit.
Now after catching up with Frank Riley I went back out front, because I had to catch Madness.
ONE STEP BEYOND!
They started with that.
And I’m looking around at the assembled multitude. It’s not the influencers of Coachella, there are a few people dressed up to show off, but most have the misshapen bodies of elders, many are wearing the rock t-shirts of yore, it’s a completely different generation, an ignored generation, but this is their music.
Sure, I saw a couple of people dragging along their twentysomething progeny, but this festival was not attended by a younger generation that had discovered this music online. And you didn’t see the septuagenarian baby boomers like me. No, it was late fifty and sixtysomethings. There for the music more than the hang.
And it was about the music. The food stalls were carb city. If you went to hang…didn’t seem like such a good hang to me.
I was there for the music. And I couldn’t get enough of it!
Of course Madness did “Our House.” But a few minutes before their set was over I trekked across the wasteland to the Sad Girls stage to see what was ultimately the highlight of the night, DEVO!
Not that I expected them to be such. But they brought a modern show to an antique world. There was no nostalgia involved other than the songs themselves. There was video. This was not a dash for cash, this was about reverse evolution, as the back of Mark Mothersbaugh’s jacket said.
Oh, they had the yellow nuke outfits, and the red flower pot hats, and even the shorts and knee socks.
But they also had the synths, a sound that dominated back then but is absent today. And the RIFFS!
Now I didn’t buy every Devo album. Certainly the first, with “Satisfaction,” but the album I play most, which I play a lot, is “New Traditionalists,” which was seen as somewhat of a comedown after “Freedom of Choice” and “Whip It.” And when the band started playing “Going Under”…
“Left home with a friend of mine
Gone two years and I don’t know why”
No one does that anymore, they can’t afford to move, and in the internet era you can’t leave your past behind.
“I know a place where dreams get crushed Hopes are smashed but that ain’t much”
Alienation. Not the disillusionment of today. Before you felt like you didn’t fit in, and the music made you feel connected, whole. Today’s “musicians” keep telling you how much better they are than you and you dance mindlessly because you see no future.
“I’m going under
I’m going under”
But this is dance music. The kind you hear and your body starts moving. It’s involuntary. The sound penetrates and you start to jump. It’s got nothing to do with the crowd around you, you’re jerkin’ back and forth in sync with the band on stage.
Speaking of jumping beans…
“She sings from somewhere you can’t see
She sits in the top of the greatest tree She sends out an aroma of undefined love It drips on down in a mist from above”
This was not pornography, but it was imbued with a sexual hunger, a truth absent from the images readily available online today. She’s definitely THE GIRL U WANT!
The band is not going through the motions. 75 year old Mark Mothersbaugh is moving as if he’s still in his twenties and this is the most important era of his life, delivering this sound and message. And it occurs to me that this music is anything but dated. Young people would cotton to Devo if they were exposed to it. On TV it was sometimes hokey, an inside joke. But make no mistake, live Devo ROCKS! And you get pulled in instantly. It’s totally FRESH!
As for Nick Cave… Never been a fan. But in Toronto a friend was testifying about his show, so I had to go.
So I ambled across the field once again…
HOLY SH*T!
This is another act youngsters would be entranced by if they just saw it.
It’s eerie. The sun had gone down, the screens were projecting black and white and Cave was revealing the underside of life in that baritone of his… I almost couldn’t tear myself away to see the Go-Go’s. It was positively riveting, not something you can get anywhere else but at a live show. No video, no movie, no TV show competes. You could feel the energy coming off Cave, you could not ignore it, it confronted you and made you pay attention. To stories about the less than successful, about the underbelly of life. If more people just saw Nick Cave live he’d be a SUPERSTAR!
As for the Go-Go’s… They rocked, HARD! This is not the girl band you saw in videos, nor the poppy melodies of the records. These were girls competing with the boys. You got the vibe of the era. When everybody wanted to start a band. Almost no one does today, because there’s not enough money in it, there are easier ways to make bread, and even if you’re a big star, everybody doesn’t know your name like they did in the MTV era.
And the music is now made by different people. More the lower classes than the middle. The music is made by committee and is just one part of the persona. Whereas with the Go-Go’s you could see that they thought they could do what they boys did, AND THEY DID!
I walked across the field to catch New Order, but…
It’s kind of how I feel about Kraftwerk. When you squeeze out key members such that the band is now controlled by one…it’s just not the same.
And sure, I wanted to hear “Blue Monday,” but I’m not the biggest New Order fan.
So I punted.
But almost no one else did. They were staying to the end. Which confounded and impressed me. You were really going to stand out there until eleven o’clock, in the fading mist atop the drying ground? Angelenos are legendary for leaving early. But not this crowd.
And I’m thinking how our parents wouldn’t have stood in a field all day to hear music at this age, no way.
And I’m thinking how the music means more to these people than today’s tunes mean to today’s young ‘uns.
Oh, don’t argue with me. Music is forever, but right now music is not hot. Music was hot from the mid-sixties until the end of the seventies, when it imploded. And then along came MTV to rescue it. MTV was hotter than any social media site. And we were all glued to it and watching the same videos. They were the lingua franca. We watched the acts test the limits. And sure, they were getting rich, but the tunes were infectious, and one step beyond what had come before.
And it meant so much to these people there in Pasadena. To the point that they braved the weather to attend. I mean my windshield wipers were going full bore on the way there, and when I lowered my window to ask the cop where to park, I was afraid of getting wet.
But this is just how much the music means to us.
And still does.
We’re living separate lives. Many have raised children who are already out of the house. They’re doing jobs they may not want to. Their lives may not have worked out the way they planned. But they’ve still got this MUSIC! The acts on stage are their heroes, they committed to the road less traveled and got to the destination, they won! Therefore they and their music are an inspiration to listeners.
Sure, there was an element of nostalgia. But if you were there watching Devo or Nick Cave, that’s not the word you would use. They were alive and kicking even more than today’s acts. They could wipe the stage with them.
That was the power of rock.
And for one day yesterday its acolytes congregated between the trees to celebrate yesterday and today. You left there smiling, you had HOPE!
That’s the power of music.
When you think you’re down in the dumps and can’t get up.
It lifts you up.
We were new traditionalists.
And proud to be so!
It was a peek at what once was, yet stunningly is still here.
It’s the power of music.
It’s the power of life.
All I can say is WOW!
