Monday, April 02, 2007

Anberlin

Sunday night Paul and I went to the Anberlin concert at Rocketown.
If you are wanting a musical review...best to wait for Paul's review of the concert. I thought the music was good. How is that for insightful?!

I wanted to discuss my thoughts during the concert.
My number one thought of the evening was "I am officially old!"
We were at least twice the age of everyone at the concert.
It was a very fun culture event for me. I enjoyed observing the teenage concert-going population of today. A bit scary, but interesting none the less.
The room was filled with funky hair, skimpy clothing, and lots of facial piercings. I was a bit surprised at all the young kids with lip, eye brow and other various piercings. Not to mention the big African like dangling ear lobes (why do people do that???)

It was fun to watch and try to imagine our children in their teen years. What type of kid will they be? Will they be the kid dressed in black, weird hair, eye makeup, God forbid facial piercings and draped with chains or will they be the preppy dressed stuck up kid with the attitude? Or the little out of place nerdy looking kid that wants to be cool, but not quite sure how? The girl with the pants half down her rear trying not to be obvious that she is trying to show off her flat little belly and thong panties?

I am not sure which I prefer...probably the nerdy kid.

The other thing that made an impression on me was the concert life these days. Gone are the days of waving your lighter in the air to the tunes. Now, you must have a cell phone with a good text messaging plan, because you are supposed to spend the entire concert text messaging your buddy next to you and taking pictures of the band. Instead of waving your lighter, you wave your cell phone about.

I have been thinking so much about all of this today. I have been trying to decide what kind of parent I want to be to my teenagers. Will I be cool? Will I let them wear frightful clothing and pierce strange body parts? Will I allow them to go to concerts by themselves on a school night? Will I trust them to do anything outside of my sight? Will I give them a cell phone and pay outrageous prices so they can text message all their friends?
I just don't know. I am glad I have another 8-10 years before I have to make those decisions.
Unfortunately for my kids, I will be 8-10 years older then and will probably be even less cool.
Hopefully, Paul will stay cool for all of us!