The more things change...

The more they stay the same! Or, something like that.

Last night I went to the REM concert here in Raleigh. This is the 5th time I've seen REM; sadly, I never got to see them in a venue smaller than Cameron (on the campus of that school 12 miles north of Chapel Hill); I was in the mountains when they were playing Page Auditorium or smaller, and I always seemed to go to The Cradle either the night before or after they would make a surprise visit.

But, I've seen them a ton. And, while the shows are always different, there's very definitely a pattern; I think mainly what the pattern is is that I am part of some huge REM demographic group that all (more or less) go through the same life-stages at the same time!

So, in the 80's when I saw them, the crowds were pretty much all college kids. We were cool, we wore black, there was a haze of cigarette (or other) smoke in the auditoriums, and the concert was merely the first of the night's activities, followed by parties, or bar trips, or something.

Then there were the 90s, when we took Adrianne to see them (her first "real" concert). She was pretty much the only kid there, there were still tons of college kids, some illicit substance use, and an awful lot of people who knew "The One I Love" and not much else.

Five-ish years ago, after a many-year hiatus from concerts in general, we took Adrianne to an REM show again. This time it was for her 21st birthday; the show was actuall the night before, but by the time we got back to Chapel Hill it was after midnight, so we bought her her first legal drink. We were worried that we'd feel out of place at a concert, until we got there and saw all the mini-vans in the parking lot!!! At that show there were still lots of college folks, but TONS of people in their 30s who had very obviously left the kids with a sitter (as we had) and gone out to pretend they were still in college!

And then came last night.

Peter wanted to go to the show 5 years ago, but I had some issues with taking a 5 year old to a concert. He's 10 now, though, and I figured what better way to introduce him to the world of concert going than REM? Beats the heck out of the Jonas Brothers!!!! But, again, I wondered if I was going out on a limb...We went with my friend David and his kids, so I knew there would be at least one other 10 year old there, but I wondered if I was pushing it just a bit.

Um, nope. Once again, every other REM fan in the triangle apparently thinks exactly as I do!

I swannee, I think there were more teeny-boppers (whoops, I mean Tweens) there last night than there would've been at a Jonas Brothers show! It was great, though -- they were all there with there folks, and it was obvious that in most cases the music was something that they shared with their parents.

The band seemed to love it, too -- at one point they asked how many people in the crowd were seeing their first REM show (yeah, I was the ONLY one in my group who didn't raise their hand), and then followed it up with asking how many of them were born after 1981 (when Chronic Town was recorded). A large number of the crowd fell into that category, and while you could tell that the band LOVED the number of long-time fans who were there, they were equally excited about the number of "young'uns" that were fans, too.

And, yeah, it was a great show -- they were joined onstage for the encore by Don Dixon and Mitch Easter; Dixon produced their first couple of albums and they were recorded at Easter's studio. Dixon and Easter are both large influences in the alternative world, too, so it was WAY cool to see them onstage!

But, yeah, my days of a concert just being the first part of the evening are over...I got to bed at 1am, which is not that bad in the grand scheme of things, but MAN am I dragging today!