I Hope It Never Gets Old

Thoughts from a hardcore show + a very un-hardcore record of the week

Carson leaned into my ear to yell over the band that was playing, “I’m gonna go up and sing with them.” It was the last night of the tour, and that sort of thing is customary for a last show on a long run. Whether it be through pranks or joining each other on stage, you’ve gotta express some love and camaraderie before you part ways, making the long drive back to your respective home states. 

“You okay?” He asked just before running off. 

I was fine, though I probably looked like a deer in headlights. I was taking it all in. I hadn’t been inside of Chain Reaction in 15 years. The last time I visited the dark little club that lives in the shadow of Disneyland, the doorman marked my hands with X’s, which always felt funny to me as I was deemed old enough to travel the country in a van and play shows in bars, but I wasn’t allowed to sit at them. So yeah, it had been a while.

Nothing had changed. A few more coats of black paint. Band stickers plastered on top of band stickers - the ones I toured with peeking out from behind the newer generation. The opening band could have played alongside my old band at a VFW hall in 2001. The bass player was even wearing a t-shirt that I owned 20 years ago. They moved the same as we did. The riffs were the same. The drummer hit harder than he needed to, just like ours did. Even the singer’s banter felt familiar. None of this is a criticism, only an acknowledgement of a phenomenon.

It felt like I’d visited my childhood home and discovered my parents had left my bedroom fully intact. Posters still on the walls, my guitar propped up in the corner, the landline phone on my desk. And I wanted to feel something so badly. I wanted that warm blanket of nostalgia that everyone seems to cling to nowadays. Instead, I stood there feeling like I was locked outside of it all, peering in.

The Daoboys absolutely ripping at Chain Reaction

I thought about everything I didn’t think about back then. I never thought about the long drives, or how the money was garbage. I never cared that finding a clean bathroom was a daily quest. I never thought about anything other than the 30 to 40 minutes that I’d be on stage. That was enough. That was everything to me. These kids on the stage had that. To stand in that church of emotion and no longer feel the flame is a lonely feeling. To know it’s more complicated now — that I need and want more from life and creative endeavors than the simple catharsis I lived off of.

In the moment, I let it confuse me. I made it about the band on stage and questioned why they didn’t want more. I couldn’t understand how they could play this music that felt so close to what I was doing 20 years ago and how that could possibly be enough. How could they live in this time capsule?

I watched their whole set with these questions circulating. Then I watched my friend Carson and his band, The Callous Daoboys, tear the place apart. And when it was all over, I climbed into my 1998 Jeep Cherokee, a vehicle I’ve dumped far too much money into because I can’t stand the bulbous, styleless shapes of modern SUVs, and pulled the joystick out toward me to fire up the headlights. I put my dad’s Notre Dame hat on - a hat that regularly lands me in awkward conversations where I have to admit I don’t know anything about college sports and that I wear it purely for sentimental reasons. I drove home steeped in my own brand of nostalgia and found myself thinking about those kids that opened the show and thought to myself, good for them. I hope it never gets old. 

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THE RECORD CLUB

Last week’s selection was Squeeze - Cool for Cats (1979)

You can find my ramblings on last week’s record in the comment section below.

This week’s selection is…

Week #13
Sabrina Carpenter - Short n' Sweet (2024)