Im GenX..

So many hair metal shows in the mid to later 80's! Lol... It was more about partying than chicks for me seeing how I've been with my wife since we were 15! Lol... But man, it was definitely the time to be young, stupid and carefree... err, careless?!... Cinderella, Poison, Bon Jovi, Ratt, Motley Crue, etc, etc!

To this day, one of the very best stage shows I ever seen was Alice Cooper around 1984 or so. Crazy rocking magic horror show! My younger brother and I went together and it was sick! Alice came around a few years ago so my brother and I thought it would be a great idea to go for old times sake! We made it through about 3 songs of Ace Frehley's opening act before we headed out to the lobby for beers and never went back in until Alice came on. We lasted about 1.5 of his songs before just leaving altogether and going to the American Legion to finish off the night! Lol... I guess you could say that Ace was better, but not by much! Haha!
 
After swearing to never pay for satellite radio i tried a free trial and that was all she wrote. Listen to Hair Nation almost daily! Love the hair metal of the 80s.
First concert was Van Hagar 5150 tour. Would still be going to a lot of the prices hadn't gone plum stupid. I use to think $35-55 back in the day was high. Cant hardly get a hotdog for that price now.

Van Hagar, Metallica, megadeth, aero smith, moody blues, a bunch of county including Hank jr.
 
I'm a music guy. I like so many different genres it's stupid. Metal, Hard Rock, Classic Rock, Folk, Indie Folk, Jazz, Classical, Americana, Old country, Some new Country if it resembles country! Lol... You name it, I probably listen to it. Keep your Rap and don't make me listen to opera for more than a minute and we're good!

I see a lot of shows. I saw Metallica and Pantera just about a year ago. The boys are still crushing it. Now I got dragged to a David Lee Roth show by a couple friends against my better judgement not too long ago. It was pretty bad. No... It was Really bad! Certainly not the David Lee Roth I saw in the 80's with Steve Vai on guitar!
 
This is a great thread, we got tripping on acid and metal sluts. :ROFLMAO: . I'v been to a few good shows. Seen Ozzy before he died, that was epic, REO, Blue Oyster Cult, Rob Zombie, Korn, and a bunch of newer stuff. The last show was one huge smoke cloud, It was crazy. I looked at my wife and said there's a lot of smugglers in here LOL

Seen Molly Hatchet in the early 90's. It was basically a bunch of high schoolers in a old Gym with a stage. Didn't know who they were back then
 
“Wisdom is a gift you traded for youth.”

I hear these old songs and sometimes it feels like somebody found a back door into my brain. A few notes, a certain guitar riff, and suddenly I'm somewhere I haven't been in forty years. Same faces, same places, same feelings. People who are still alive, people who are gone, and people who are probably living an entirely different life now, carrying their own memories of a time when our paths crossed.

It's strange how much of being young is spent trying to get somewhere. Trying to belong, find your people, find a woman who sees something in you worth sticking around for, and collect enough experiences to figure out who the hell you are. Everything is happening for the first time, and you don't realize you're building memories while you're busy living them.

And the music is there for all of it.

Some songs were playing when life felt limitless. Others showed up when your heart got stomped on, when people disappointed you, or when reality started dismantling the plans you were so damn sure were going to work out. Sometimes a song put a name to a feeling you couldn't explain to another human being. You didn't know what the hell you were going through, but somebody out there had apparently been through it too.

Then the years start stacking up. People disappear. Relationships become stories. Places change or get torn down. Some memories get fuzzy around the edges, while others remain so vivid you can damn near smell the room you were standing in when that song played.

And here's the weird part. Even the songs attached to some of the worst times in your life can make you homesick for them.

Not because you want the heartbreak back, or because you want to repeat the mistakes. Maybe you just miss the version of yourself who hadn't learned how those stories ended. The people you hadn't lost yet. The possibilities that hadn't been ruled out. The feeling that there was still an entire universe of firsts waiting around the corner.

You can spend decades learning how the world works, only to hear an old song and find yourself right back in a moment you didn't even know you were going to miss.

There's something almost cruel about that. Your brain preserves these little time capsules, but it doesn't give you the key until the door has been permanently welded shut.

Maybe that's the price of wisdom. You finally understand what some of those moments meant, but the understanding arrives long after the moment itself is gone. You learn what mattered by watching it become something you can't get back.

And maybe youth isn't necessarily better. Maybe it just has more unknown territory. More roads you haven't traveled, more people you haven't met, more versions of yourself you haven't become. When you're young, you think the story is about what's coming next. When you're older, you start recognizing how much of the story was happening while you were busy looking ahead.

“Wisdom is a gift you traded for youth.”

I don't know who came up with that line, but there's a hell of a paradox hiding in it. You spend the first half of your life trying to figure everything out, then spend the second half hearing songs that remind you of a person you can still remember being, but can never quite be again.

Maybe that's what those old songs really are. Not just music, but little ghosts. They don't bring the past back. They just remind you that, for a little while, you were there.

And if you're lucky, you get to hear one more before your own song ends...

 
I'm 61. Never married but had a great time with many beautiful young ladies in my 20s and 30s. I was fit,handsome and apparently had charisma they liked.
Now I'm a bit overweight, getting kinda lazy and just want to be left alone.
there are still several women ,some younger,some older that still wanna hook up but my gas tank is dried up and I have ZERO interest.
Never thought that would happen but....:(
Other then never making alot of $$, I can look back and reminisce and honestly say, I've had a great life.
The outdoors lifestyle has been my drug for 50years. Knew it from a young age. No women was EVER gonna stop my desire and i let go some truely gorgeous ones if they tried.

I'll die broke but happy. A lifetime of hunting,fishing,trapping memories can't be taken away.(y)
 
I saw ac dc with Aerosmith in Illinois that year. Hardly knew any of their songs. Crazy how this little guy running around could make so much noise. Oh to see that one again.
 
I'm 61. Never married but had a great time with many beautiful young ladies in my 20s and 30s. I was fit,handsome and apparently had charisma they liked.
Now I'm a bit overweight, getting kinda lazy and just want to be left alone.
there are still several women ,some younger,some older that still wanna hook up but my gas tank is dried up and I have ZERO interest.
Never thought that would happen but....:(
Other then never making alot of $$, I can look back and reminisce and honestly say, I've had a great life.
The outdoors lifestyle has been my drug for 50years. Knew it from a young age. No women was EVER gonna stop my desire and i let go some truely gorgeous ones if they tried.

I'll die broke but happy. A lifetime of hunting,fishing,trapping memories can't be taken away.(y)
I appreciate where you're going with your post, and if it all worked out as you planned, and you're happy, I'm happy for you! Seriously!

Myself... I'm 57. I met my wife at 15 and have shared 42 plus years at this point with my soul mate. We were kids that made some decisions that may be construed as major mistakes by, at the time, adult mistakes. We were pregnant at 17 and parents before 18. As it turned out, it was probably the absolute best thing that could happen to both of us. Not because we were some broken young kids that were looking for something. We were both from loving families that brought us up right and instilled values, responsibility, faith and love into our upbringings. We messed up. No doubt about that! But we ALWAYS had a support system. We struggled, fought, struggled some more. We held onto our faith and stayed strong in our convictions that it would all work out. It did! We have raised our two beautiful girls and my wife's nephew that we adopted at age 11. We have put them all through college and they all have successful careers. We have two beautiful grandkids from our oldest daughter and our boy (nephew) has blessed us with an adorable set of twin girls that are amazingly keeping us wondering if we're 57 or really much older! Lol...

Through all of this, my amazing wife has put up with my addiction of the outdoors, the hunting, the fishing, the obsession that will not subside. Money? Holy shit!... It's a struggle! We hurt like most these days... Gotta take care of the bills before play time for sure! Hunting , fishing, trapping... Hell... Just about everything that has ever been important to me, has been important to my wife! And this works both ways. I love and respect things important to her. In the end, I don't think we're much different, borkon? Just different perspectives on how we got there.

I'll die broke but happy. A lifetime of hunting, fishing, trapping memories can't be taken away. It was never a concern for me.
 
Last edited:
I grew up with a different influence in music, my father played trumpet part time in an orchestra, my uncle played violin in the Chicago symphony(he invented the first successful pheasant call and became an outdoor author), my grandfather and great uncles sang in a touring german coral group(they also went on fishing outings together, chasing northern pike for boiled northern dinners). The closest I came to going to a pop music concert was to Melanie pre-woodstock. I did see Andre Sigovia in concert (100 yrs of Classical Guitar) and Carlos Montoya (Flamenco Review). Rock music was never really in my wheel house. I'm more of a music to sooth the soul not pump up the BP. Spending money to hear what I could hear on the radio was kind of a waste, never had a stereo system. I do like listening to classical music, and surprisingly Delta Blues. I do like old time country but not as a steady diet.
 
“Wisdom is a gift you traded for youth.”

I hear these old songs and sometimes it feels like somebody found a back door into my brain. A few notes, a certain guitar riff, and suddenly I'm somewhere I haven't been in forty years. Same faces, same places, same feelings. People who are still alive, people who are gone, and people who are probably living an entirely different life now, carrying their own memories of a time when our paths crossed.

It's strange how much of being young is spent trying to get somewhere. Trying to belong, find your people, find a woman who sees something in you worth sticking around for, and collect enough experiences to figure out who the hell you are. Everything is happening for the first time, and you don't realize you're building memories while you're busy living them.

And the music is there for all of it.

Some songs were playing when life felt limitless. Others showed up when your heart got stomped on, when people disappointed you, or when reality started dismantling the plans you were so damn sure were going to work out. Sometimes a song put a name to a feeling you couldn't explain to another human being. You didn't know what the hell you were going through, but somebody out there had apparently been through it too.

Then the years start stacking up. People disappear. Relationships become stories. Places change or get torn down. Some memories get fuzzy around the edges, while others remain so vivid you can damn near smell the room you were standing in when that song played.

And here's the weird part. Even the songs attached to some of the worst times in your life can make you homesick for them.

Not because you want the heartbreak back, or because you want to repeat the mistakes. Maybe you just miss the version of yourself who hadn't learned how those stories ended. The people you hadn't lost yet. The possibilities that hadn't been ruled out. The feeling that there was still an entire universe of firsts waiting around the corner.

You can spend decades learning how the world works, only to hear an old song and find yourself right back in a moment you didn't even know you were going to miss.

There's something almost cruel about that. Your brain preserves these little time capsules, but it doesn't give you the key until the door has been permanently welded shut.

Maybe that's the price of wisdom. You finally understand what some of those moments meant, but the understanding arrives long after the moment itself is gone. You learn what mattered by watching it become something you can't get back.

And maybe youth isn't necessarily better. Maybe it just has more unknown territory. More roads you haven't traveled, more people you haven't met, more versions of yourself you haven't become. When you're young, you think the story is about what's coming next. When you're older, you start recognizing how much of the story was happening while you were busy looking ahead.

“Wisdom is a gift you traded for youth.”

I don't know who came up with that line, but there's a hell of a paradox hiding in it. You spend the first half of your life trying to figure everything out, then spend the second half hearing songs that remind you of a person you can still remember being, but can never quite be again.

Maybe that's what those old songs really are. Not just music, but little ghosts. They don't bring the past back. They just remind you that, for a little while, you were there.

And if you're lucky, you get to hear one more before your own song ends...


This pretty much explains my life, I'm 44 and my memory is insane. i remember so many things from when I was a kid an throughout my whole life. I remember very acute things, I mention them to people and they don't remember at all. Manny songs are attached to people places and events, good and bad, but the show must go on.
 
“Wisdom is a gift you traded for youth.”

This reminds me of a saying that a good friend of mine used to say.

“Youth is wasted on the young”

He passed away before he turned 60. He was a heller his entire life. When he was diagnosed with Mesothelioma and knew what was coming, I believe he was referring to himself as much as anyone.
 
Back
Top