I was 16 when I attended my first rock concert, the B-52s at Dartmouth College. In retrospect, this seems really cool, as the B-52s are a cool band. (Check out “Funplex, their first new CD in 16 years, where they sound as fresh as ever.) But I wasn’t really that into the B-52s at the time. (I liked “Love Shack,” but, in that peculiarly adolescent combination of ignorance and dismissive arrogance, I thought they were sort of lame and soft.) The main reason I went to the concert was because I had heard that the Violent Femmes, my favorite band in high school, was the opening act. To my everlasting sadness, that turned out to be a baseless rumor, and now I can’t even remember who the opener was. And I couldn’t even stay for the whole concert, because I had to go to bed early so I could get up the next morning and take the PSATs.
One of last weekend’s small delights was accompanying a friend and her 7-year-old son to the boy’s first rock concert, the They Might Be Giants family show on Saturday at the Egg in Albany. I had seen They Might Be Giants a couple times, at Five Points Music Hall, since closed, in Birmingham, Ala., and at the Tulip Festival in Washington Park. They’re a good live band, which might come as a surprise to people who think of them as two nerdy guys who like to play the accordion and sing about James K. Polk and nuclear fission. I’m most familiar with their older work, and “Minimum Wage,” which features the sound of a cracking whip and the pained cry of a stricken worker, remains one of my favorite songs. (It always makes me think of my first job, at Colonial Deli Mart in Lebanon, N.H., where, yes, I earned minimum wage.) I was interested to see how a They Might Be Giants family show would differ from one of the band’s grown-up shows. As one of my friends put it, TMBG’s music is kind of like kids music for adults. But in recent years the band has released several children’s albums, with songs like “NO!” and “I Am Not Your Broom.”
What distinguishes a family show from an adult show, I learned, is the preponderance of young children. There were kids everywhere, and I kept worrying that I would step on one by accident. But the music was great, and the kids seemed to get into it. There were jokes for children, but also jokes for adults, and I was delighted to hear some of the band’s older songs: “Particle Man,” “Istanbul (Not Constantinople).” As for my 7-year-old friend, he really enjoyed the concert, and sang along with the songs he knew. “It was really rocking,” he reported. What more could you want from your first concert? At least he didn’t have to take a standardized test the next morning.
What was your first rock concert? Let me know.
