Rock and Roll

So over the summer I went to a concert up in Charleston, SC. I went to see Boz Scaggs. Now Boz Scaggs was never what you would call rock and roll, he's more like jazzy light pop sort of stuff. And now that he is in his advanced years, his music style is even more apparent. Which was good, because just about everyone in the audience was old. I don't mean old like me...I mean OLD! Now old doesn't usually equate to bad or undesirable, but related to "rock" concerts, it does. Here's how: The venue was all wrong. It was all plush and clean...there were cushioned seats that still had the padding intact and the place didn't smell like stale beer, cigarettes, pot or come to think of it, it didn't smell like anything yucky. I am not particularly fond of yucky smells, but they do have a place in a concert hall. In this arena, I felt I could not stand on the seats, drink beer, smoke or do anything I associate with typical rock concert behavior. I sat down in my seat for most of the performance, rising to my feet in enthusiastic and irrepressible bursts of rebellion sporadically throughout the show. At these times, I was corrected by my elders in the seats behind me with "Down in front!" and some outright mean sounding "You. You sit down...now!" Catering to the comfort of the audience, specifically old people, is a Bad thing for a concert. So then there was the concessions. Concerts used to maybe sell beer and a few junky type snack foods, but most of us would go to a concert with full flasks and refills at the ready in the pockets of a jacket for the liquid libation (which is all we ever seemed to need in those days). At this show, the concessions sold not only beer, but wine as well, and, they sold more than ONE TYPE of each! I could have also purchased a mixed drink or, get this, one of those 'frou-frou' drinks like a daiquiri, complete with little PAPER UMBRELLA! I mean, what the heck were the promoters thinking? Most concerts I have been to would never have given out the little umbrellas because they are on a stick, which when hurtled across a concert arena would likely start a toothpick war, and cause at least one very drunk person to stick someone or be stuck badly enough to have to be removed from the show. So again, undesirable catering to old people. I think the final downer of the night was the man a few seats down who scolded me with, and I am quoting here, "I didn't spend a hundred bucks a seat to hear YOU go 'woooooooo' and whistle all night, now shut the hell up and listen to the guy on stage." Verbally spanked at a concert by a man old enough to be my...well, my PEER! Sheesh.