Saint Dirty Face

A Gen X Love Letter to Live Music

Dear younger generations: I’m sorry.

Not because we screwed up the housing market.

That argument belongs somewhere else.

I’m apologizing because when it comes to live music—

Gen X cheated.

😂🤘

We got to see the bands that now appear on your vintage T-shirts.

And they weren’t holograms.

They weren’t reunion tours featuring one original member, somebody’s cousin and a drummer they found behind a Guitar Center.

They were the fucking band.

We saw Metallica when Metallica was dangerous.

Guns N’ Roses when nobody knew whether Axl was going to finish the show, start a riot, or both.

Mötley Crüe when the backstage stories probably violated several international treaties.

Van Halen.

AC/DC.

Ozzy.

Aerosmith.

Def Leppard.

Bon Jovi.

Journey.

Iron Maiden.

Judas Priest.

The Cure.

Depeche Mode.

U2.

Pearl Jam.

Soundgarden.

Alice in Chains.

Nirvana.

Tool.

Nine Inch Nails.

Pantera.

And dozens more.

Some of us caught the legends who came before us, too.

Pink Floyd.

The Rolling Stones.

Paul McCartney.

Eric Clapton.

I never got to see Led Zeppelin.

That’s one I would’ve given damn near anything to experience.

But I did get to see Page & Plant together on tour, while Jimmy Page and Robert Plant could still walk onto a stage and remind you exactly where all those younger bands got some of their DNA.

It wasn’t Zeppelin.

But brother—

it was close enough to make the hair on your arms stand up.

And we didn’t experience these shows through somebody else’s vertical video with half the screen covered in comments.

We were there.

You bought the ticket.

Usually from an actual human being.

Then you somehow found your friends without GPS.

You walked into an arena carrying absolutely no device capable of contacting civilization.

Your parents had no idea where you were beyond:

“At the concert.”

That was considered sufficient information.

😂

Then the lights went down.

That moment.

Anybody who grew up going to concerts knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Twenty thousand people screaming.

The stage completely dark.

Then one guitar cuts through the room.

And every hair on your arms stands up because you know what’s coming.

There wasn’t a screen between you and it.

Your phone wasn’t above your head.

Because your phone was attached to the fucking kitchen wall.

You watched the show with your eyes.

You remembered it with your brain.

Mostly.

There are portions of the 1980s and ’90s still undergoing forensic reconstruction.

😂

And then came the next morning.

The concert shirt.

You didn’t carefully preserve the damn thing as collectible merchandise.

You wore it to school.

Immediately.

Preferably while your ears were still ringing.

And everybody walking through those hallways knew exactly who had been at the show the night before.

That shirt wasn’t fashion.

It was a receipt.

A medal.

A giant cotton middle finger to everybody whose parents wouldn’t let them go.

😂🤘

You’d see another kid wearing the same shirt from across the hallway and there didn’t even need to be a conversation.

Just the nod.

You were there too.

That was enough.

We stood in lines.

We got shoved against barricades.

We bought questionable merchandise in parking lots.

Our ears rang for two days afterward.

We held cigarette lighters in the air before somebody decided phone flashlights were safer and considerably less likely to set the guy in front of you on fire.

And somewhere along the way, without realizing it—

we were watching music history happen in real time.

That’s the part that hits differently now.

Some of those voices are gone.

Some of those bands don’t exist anymore.

Some will never stand together onstage again.

And that ticket stub sitting forgotten in somebody’s drawer isn’t just an old piece of paper anymore.

It’s proof.

The faded shirt isn’t just an old shirt.

It’s proof.

We were there.

That’s one thing about getting older nobody tells you.

Eventually the things you thought were just normal Friday nights become stories younger people wish they could’ve experienced.

And I’m not saying everything was better back then.

It wasn’t.

We had plenty of bullshit.

And concert bathrooms in the ’80s should probably qualify as Superfund sites.

But music?

Brother…

we caught one hell of a show.

We saw legends before we knew they were legends.

We watched bands become enormous.

We watched some implode.

We watched others somehow survive everything thrown at them.

And we walked out afterward half-deaf, sweaty, broke and completely fucking alive.

Thirty or forty years later, you can hear the opening notes of one of those songs and suddenly you’re not fifty-something anymore.

You’re seventeen.

The lights just went down.

Your friends are beside you.

Your ears haven’t started ringing yet.

And tomorrow morning—

you’re wearing the shirt to school.

Because before social media gave everybody a way to announce where they’d been…

we wore the evidence.

And if your ears are still ringing all these years later?

Apparently you bought the good seats.

WE DIDN’T WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY.

WE WERE IN THE FUCKING FOOTAGE.

WE WERE THERE.

SAINT DIRTY FACE™
Imperfect on Purpose. Faithful with Fangs.