Nostalgia Tripping

 

Lately I've been binge-watching concert footage from the 1970s, regardless of quality. Actually I like the ones that are blurry and that have terrible audio because there's the patina of an old memory in the degradation, sometimes better than videos that are more polished.

What's more interesting than me revisiting late-70s concerts is that there are lots of millennials and gen-z's that are into 70s music as well. While watching a 1989 performance by Anderson Bruford Wakeman and Howe (ABWH) I realized that the music they were playing was mostly the 70s Yes material, still being played almost two decades later, so I'm simultaneously revisiting the 80s as well.

In terms of 80s concerts, there was a palpable shift, probably because of the advent of music videos, which made music more surreal and dreamy--sometimes with the video production affecting the songwriting.

On YouTube all generations have such a wide scope now, as opposed to the 1970s when concert footage was difficult to access, or was expensive. Now all the producers of that content seem to be uploading it for possible monetization. It's a great thing because it merges all generations into one and allows us to see the similarities rather than the stereotypes.

From the excellent book on generations, Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future:

"It's more difficult to eliminate the possibility that the differences are due to a particular time period where all generations are affected in exactly the same way. In most cases, time period effects and generational effects work together."