I've always loved the notion that concerts can be testing grounds for utopia. “Kids these days," I'm sure they were thinking, even though I'm forty. What made the situation more awkward was that a few other dancing boomers around me kept giving me the stink-eye.
“Why did you bring him along?” one woman said to me about the red-faced man who had grabbed me. Instead, the boomers sat there, straining to turn their lips into something like a smile, and the Gen-Xers loudly mocked them. There would be an awkward punch-and-grab-athon and somebody would break a sun-spotted arm or punch right through a brittle sternum. Those words, despite my earplugs and Fleetwood Mac’s cranked-up volume, I could hear.įor a moment, I thought the two generations would brawl. The red-faced boomer and his wife looked at each other with razor blades in their eyes and started cursing. Then they started griping at the Gen-Xers standing next to them - perhaps because they were blocking the big screen. So despite the man’s rude tone, I obliged. Still, I inferred that he and his squad of boomers, whose binoculars made them look more like bird-watchers than rock fans, needed to sit to be comfortable, and from that position, perhaps they could only see my love handles. I try to avoid standing in a crowd at an open-floor venue like the Ogden or Fillmore. No "please" or "thank you." Just the command. The musicians took turns acting like the center of the show, which served them all well, and broke out hits like “Little Lies” and a tear-jerky rendition of “Landslide.” They played “Black Magic Woman” and a cover of “Free Fallin’.” The show crescendoed with “Don’t Stop" and wrapped with “All Over Again,” a melancholy duet between Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks. Still, despite five decades of operatic drama, with members sleeping with each other, marrying, divorcing, flaming out, returning and whatnot (a confusing saga that rivals the Trump White House in its indecipherable tangle of who’s in, who’s out and who’s suing or screwing whom) - the group managed to deliver a solid performance Thursday night. But last night made clear that fans of the band are just as unpredictable as Fleetwood Mac itself. Millennials, Gen-Xers and baby boomers had all bought tickets to see a band that has given the world brilliantly crafted, durable soft-rock soundtracks for breakups, hopes and sorrows.
Then two teens and their mom cut in line, ignoring the glares of everyone around them by staring at their phones like zombies.
0 kommentar(er)
