I Want My Grave To Read:

As I get older (and aging so amazingly I might add) I sometimes get disheartened when I attend concerts. Ever since I really got into the independent music scene and began going to smaller concerts, I, along with many like-minded fans, would get arrive at the show for “Doors Open” to watch every band on the evening’s bill. In a time before MySpace where now you can click on a band’s site to hear new music or discover groups, you would have to get there early enough to discover the smaller up and coming acts.

I’ve come to notice music fans presently, especially the younger generations (who most of the time have no appreciation for the music which influenced the newer bands), arrive late to the show, just in the nick of time to catch the headliner. They don’t show any respect to the other bands on the bill.

Nothing instilled a stronger hatred towards my younger compatriots more than at Taste of Chaos earlier this year. While Pierce the Veil was on stage, the lead singer Vic Fuentes, kept telling all of the band’s many teenage minions to make sure to stick around to watch Thursday. He dedicated his band’s success to Thursday’s influence and contribution to music. What happens however before Thursday (the tour’s headliner) took the stage? Half of the crowd leaves. These ignorant little bastards took a sold-out show at the Palladium in Hollywood and left the grandfathers of post-hardcore feeling as it they were of no importance. (I’m assuming since the drummer Tucker Rule was in the crowd with me watching the earlier acts.) It really upset me.

However, last night gave me a glimmer of hope. A trip to the House of Blues on Sunset Blvd. brought me back to the good old days, watching an ocean of kids/fans/music fanatics standing in line for “Doors Open”, anxiously awaiting to bust thru the door. The House of Blues was practically a full house from the drop of the first note that was pounded into the crowd’s skulls.

From the opening breakdown served up by Architects (UK), stretching into the Andrew W.K.-esque antics the lead singer of Oh, Sleeper mirrored, followed by the immediate Wall Of Death mind fuck which is Bring Me The Horizon, and ending with the quadruple cranium crush bestowed on us by Every Time I Die, the crowd, ranging from teenage scenesters to myself and my fellow seasoned veterans, kept the energy alive for a solid four and a half hours. Pure metal at it’s finest.

Needless to say, this eye-opening experience renews my faith in the younger generation of concertgoers. It was a good night.

Rather be forgotten, than remembered for giving in…