Age, an Interesting Comparison
by Tyler Woods on Dec. 05, 2009, under Life
A young Clapton
Last night I decided to go 92.9 The Mountain radio station’s CD release party at La Encantada (I call it la-spend-a-lot-a). Free music and five bucks for the CD, why not? They had a band called Parachute playing; I figured it could be some cheap fun. As I stood there in the freezing cold with fake snow falling on me in a crowd of people who, like me, were cold and restless, I got to thinking….
I am almost 52 years old. What am I doing in this crowd with tons of valley girls and plastic boys wearing the latest fashions and texting each other despite the fact they were standing right next to one other? It seems like the younger generation has lost their ability to use their voice. Sure there were older people like myself there and sometimes we would catch each other’s eyes and smile.
An aged Clapton
When the band Parachute was finally introduced, most people were cold and tired and had been standing for way over an hour waiting. We had endured fake snow, cold, crowding, and a barrage of announcements, but we all were ready to listen to the music. I squinted as they took the stage. They sure did look young. After their first song, I had to giggle as they talked about being each other’s BFFs in high school (best friends forever) and, for a moment, I thought I saw peach fuzz on the lead singer’s face.
I looked at my spouse and said they look very young probably 22 or 23. This got me thinking, why did they seem so young? It did not make sense to me after all, Eric Clapton was 17 when he first toured with bands and made it big in the music field. He must have become God by the time he was 19.
Steve Winwood was only 17 when he joined the Spencer Davis Group. That was fairly young as well. At the age of 15, Paul McCartney met John Lennon and joined The Quarrymen. At the young age of 14 Jimmy Page appeared on TV’s Search for Stars talent show, and Van Morrison was 17 when he started to tour and record.
So why did the boys in Parachute look so young to me? Could it be back then Clapton donned a beard and long hair? Was it possible that in the 50s and 60s men’s hormones were different and they grew thick beards rather than peach fuzz? Did too many energy drinks and video games affect men’s ability to look older?
I got frightened. Could be a possible that all the chemicals and preservatives that people ingest have side effects and preserves them? Then it dawned on me, when I was watching people like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Steve Winwood, and my other idols, I was a kid. They might have been 17, 18, or 19 years old, but I was a young girl and they looked older to me.
An Aging Jimmy Page
They were giants in their music. There was so much talent in many of these people that they had musical wisdom. They did not talk about BBFs and video games. No the idols of yesteryear focused on sex, drugs, and rock and roll. After all, once upon a time, wasn’t that what music was all about?
I left the concert early. I suspect it was my age. My feet were hurting from standing so long in the cold, and I wanted to beat the traffic. As a young kid, who cared about traffic, but as an aging adult, in an over-priced mall, in the middle of holiday shopping, I CARED!
I left with some knowledge that money could not buy. I had a better understanding about age. That the young kids of today stay young. They do not have a hard life. They can live on texting and energy drinks, and BBFs and video games. The youth of today are not like the youth of yesterday. Today’s young people one simply plugs them in.
For some of the teens that were there, I have no doubt the young men from Parachute looked older and wiser and did not appear young at all. To them, they are musical giants. My musical giants, Clapton, Bono, Page, Morrison, are, for the most part, now greyer than me. They have all earned their grey hair! I still think they rock better than any of the newer musical talents, but perhaps maybe my ears have aged too, who knows.
