all-ages gigs

Damn all-ages gigs. Make me feel old. It's not often I feel old either - if anything it has always been quite the opposite.

I was at a gig last night (it was meant to be on Thursday night at the Arena but got moved) to see Underoath play at the Tivoli (probably my favourite venue in Brisbane), and found myself completely surrounded by kids who looked like they were 12. It was an earlyish gig to what I was used to - doors at 6pm, support act at 7pm and main act at 8pm, so it was over by 9:15pm (ie. bed time for the little ones). Nothing alcoholic was served at all either. I think the fact that it is currently school holiday time contributed to that a bit too. It was strange though, not something I was used to. Surely wasn't the kind of thing I got up to when I was in high school anyway - admittedly I was always more interested in attending live sport more than live music when I was growing up.

Must say though, I can't exactly say I'm a huge fan of Underoath - have a couple of their albums and like one of their songs in particular (which happened to be one of their encore songs, so there was a bit of a wait through a lot of unfamiliar songs), but besides that I mainly went because I heard about the gig when tickets went on sale, and one of my mates is a big fan of them (I had bailed on him on a gig last year, to which he ended going to on his own) so I figured I'd go along, and managed to drag another mate along for the ride. Being used to going to gigs where I actually know the songs and the words and can sing (or scream) along at the top of my lungs, I did feel a little out of place when everyone else would be joining in while I'm standing there thinking "I kinda know this song, I recognise it, but there's no way I know the lyrics..."

...but hey, it's not like you need to know the words or the song to bang your head, jump up and down against other sweaty bodies, and pump your fists in the air. Good exercise too.