On Friday night my fiance and went to see Guns N’ Roses “Not in this lifetime” tour. I’d bought her the tickets last year as an anniversary present since she’s a huge gunners fan. After many months impatiently waiting, the night finally came – and it was awesome. Seeing the band (mostly) back together, and performing most of the songs that our generation grew up on, was incredible. Neither my fiance or I had seen them live when we were younger so it was a first for us both.
We don’t get out to concerts usually. The cost of tickets here in Aus is quite high, support acts are often rubbish, and of course there is simply always better things to spend the money on when you have kids. Thank god I had an anniversary as an excuse to lash out on the tickets for her 🙂
There were actually a lot of kids at the concert, which as a parent had me both thinking “man these kids are cool!” and “wow, this is so inappropriate”. If you’re a gunners fan you know there is a shitload of swearing in their songs. We were near this one kid, who’s parents (like me) were seated the whole time and just enjoying the music, and he was up and head banging away. Coolest. kid. ever.
Seeing that, it got me thinking about how I always wanted at least one of my kids to be into metal like I am, but they all love the top 40 pop crap 😦 Thinking about this, I realised I probably gave them a disservice growing up by not exposing them to my music at an earlier age. Metal is very full on. Yes, the bulk of metal doesn’t involve swearing, but musically – there is a LOT going on and it’s an assault to the senses if you aren’t used to it. For a long time I would just let them listen to their mothers music / the radio, and would save my music for when I was alone. Thinking about that now I think I was wrong.
I think parents should expose their kids to much more musically, to broaden their experiences and open them up to what they might like, prior to our preconceived preferences start to pull at the kids. Yes, kids have minds of their own but there is no denying we as parents play a heavy influence on that.
One thing I’ve tried to give the kids is a tolerance for other peoples music tastes. As one of the only metal kids in high school, I was extremely ostracized for my music tastes. This carries on through life. People will happily listen to pop / hip hop songs about getting drunk on the weekend, partying, and having sex or forgiving a boyfriend for cheating on you, but put on a metal song about the atrocities of war, battling depression, political climates, or any other topical song – and people ask you to “turn that shit/noise off”. There is no tolerance for metal.
My eldest likes a lot of the guitar work in metal, and does now enjoy the song “Sweet Child O’ Mine” which makes him my sweet child, and the boys love “Victory Lap” by “All that Remains” so there is hope yet 🙂 Maybe his tastes will head that way like mine did at his age, or maybe not. If he can at least let people enjoy the music they love, I have to be happy with knowing he’s a good guy.
DOA Dad 