So there I am, at the Isleta Amphitheater in Albuquerque with the other younger brother, taking in bands from our youth. Collective Soul and Live were two huge names in music in the mid nineties. One of my first CDs was Collective Soul’s Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid. I remember begging my mom in the middle of the music aisle at WalMart, pretty-pleasing as hard as my awkward, chubby teen heart could. We compromised, the deal being that she would buy it and listen to it first and only give it to me if she approved. She ended up keeping it and bought me my own copy. 

Live’s enigmatic album, Throwing Copper, came out around the same time. Their singles I Alone and All Over You were mainstays on the local rock station and the video for Lighting Crashes was breaking hearts all over cable music television. Collective Soul’s modern take on southern rock  made grungy music radio palatable while simultaneously not sucking. A true feat. Shine, The World I Know, and December graced just about every mix tape I made.

So I’m sitting there, watching these two great bands with my little brother, when it occurs to me. This isn’t my concert. What I mean is… this concert isn’t for me. We, my brother and I, were kids just entering adolescence when these bands became popular. I remember the bands and the songs, and although I really enjoyed them, the music belongs to someone else… well… many someone elses. It belongs to Gen X.

Not to age myself but I’m considered a Xennial, which means I’m optimistic yet cynical, independent though clingy, but most importantly, cold and distant but somehow also needy. Long story short, I’m a freaking mess. Too young to have the badass Gen X experience but too old to annoy the world with my Millennial-ism.

My brother and I were sitting at a safe distance from the floor, behind an obviously Gen X couple who we exchanged a joke or two with. We weren’t formally introduced, so we’ll call them Jeremy and Heather. Jeremy was wearing the quintessential Gen X male uniform of an unbuttoned flannel, a severely faded tshirt of a band that nobody’s ever heard of, tattered jeans, and sensible shoes. Heather was rocking the mom jeans and a smart blouse. She sold out… or showed up straight from work… we’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.

Something magical happened after Our Lady Peace, a band that became popular as I entered early adulthood (who just happened to slay their set). Live took the stage and not-so-immediately launched into their own set. Jeremy and Heather sprang to their feet, at a reasonable pace of course, and the transformation happened. They no longer were Jeremy with the retirement anxiety and male pattern baldness or Heather with the sexless marriage and menopause. They were Remy, the Real World San Francisco finalist who just barely got beat out by either Puck or Pedro and Hattie the roller derby Jammer who briefly dated Weird Al Yankovich. (I’m making a lot of assumptions here, but you get the idea, they used to be really cool.)

And as Live launched into All Over You, that slick scamp Remy put his arm around his girl Hattie’s waist and they mouthed every single lyric to that goddamn classic of a song. Both reminiscing their courtship with the soundtrack of their make out sessions in the back of Remy’s Ford Tempo with the automatic seatbelts. (Still making a bunch of assumptions)

This is the magic of nostalgia when paired with great music. It has the power to turn back time to when life was simpler. When making out in the back of a sensible family sedan without getting caught was the most pressing agenda item of the day.  When reality television was relatively new and actually good, balancing drama with real social commentary. When music became relatable, like a soundtrack for the ins and outs of young adulthood. For a couple of hours, the world melted away and our Gen X spouses (again, assumptions, that Remy is quite the scamp) reverted back to being boyfriend/girlfriend. Their romance renewed by the sounds of their courtship, Remy falling again for Hattie’s dry wit and that look that sends his heart into another time zone. Hattie drawn into her man’s warm embrace and the intoxicating scent of CK One, still with the ability to make her smile with nothing more than a glance in her direction. 

In the adult world of midlife crises, spreadsheets, chronic back pain, and the economy, it’s easy to lose ourselves to the same bullshit that we used to roll our eyes to when our parents would launch into a “your-generation-has-it-so-easy” type lecture. Life gets complicated. There’s career and marriage. Divorce and unemployment. The bills add up and the ends become a bitch to meet. Fun fades and responsibility becomes the priority. It’s college then career, followed by retirement and eventually death. But every once in a while, if just for a couple of hours, we’re given an opportunity to relive what makes music so great and we’re suddenly young again.

My story is different than Remy and Hattie’s. My music is the anger and angst of Deftones and Nine Inch Nails. Throw in a little Beck for levity or The Strokes for something different and I’m transported  back to my formative years, when fun and discovering new music was the priority. One of my and Missus Mayhem’s first dates was a Beck concert. It was a very special night and the first memory I have of being in love with her. I remember her being nervous because she wasn’t familiar with Beck, but once he started his set, the missis left her seat and the dancing commenced. That’s when I knew. Her sun-eyed smile with Girl. Her adorable confusion with Where It’s At. Her chuckle when I tried explaining Debra to her. Pure. Magic. To this day, when Beck pops up on a playlist somewhere, we share a smile and relive that special night, if only for a few minutes. That’s the power of music, I get to fall in love with my wife again. 

Don’t get me wrong, sharing Deftones and Nine Inch Nails with the Minor Mayhems is awesome. Reminiscing when I first heard Deftones… Bored from their debut record Adrenaline in biology class followed by Root before Mr. Lacy started with his bullshit. Or Nine Inch Nails’ Downward Spiral after smuggling my neighbor Rene’s CD into my room via an overly complicated bootleg scheme. I still smile like an idiot when I revisit that masterpiece. 

I’m taking the Miniest of Mayhems to see The Strokes in a few weeks and preparing him has been a treat. I get to tell him about when I discovered Is This It, I was in the Army training to become a medic. All the Minor Mayhems, somehow, enjoy the nostalgia. It may be the excitement I have when I relive those special moments or the stories of their old man’s classic mess-arounds. Either way, we get to share a moment. For me, it’s the memories. For the boys, it’s the stories. It’s magic that I get to pass down to the most important people in my life. And one day, they’ll do the same with their eventual spouses and kids. Instead of Live or Beck, it might be Carseat Headrest, Mac DeMarco, Fleshwater, or Babe Haven. Greylin James Rue could be in the running, she and her band are actually quite good. You should check them out. 

Nostalgia is important, and that’s why I think music is so engrained into our experience. It connects us to the past, both good and bad. Beck is the soundtrack of me and Missus Mayhem falling in love. Deftones and Nine Inch Nails remind me of the not so good times and how far I’ve come in my mental health journey. The Strokes’ Is This It marks the first consequential adult decision of my life. And if I learned anything from Hattie and that scampy son-of-a-bitch Remy, it’s that the magic will always be there. If only for just a few minutes or a couple of hours at a time.

-M