Dubstep's Awkward Generation Gap

My First All-Ages Electro Show or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love 19+

Dubstep is taking over the world -- yes, with young'uns too. As cool as I thought I was when I started blasting dubstep and dancing alone in my room, I soon learned that dubstep wasn't all that new. Hipsters had been listening to it ironically for years, and it was also catching on with the younger generation.

I found evidence of this especially young demographic during my first ever dubstep concert. I was psyched for it. No longer would I have to dance alone; I could finally share the experience with others in a big raw sweaty danceparty.

The concert was Nero. I walked through the door of The Vogue with my two friends and immediately felt the bass beat against my chest. Revved up, I charged through to the front -- but something was off. Soon it became clear: the gratuitous and decadent style of the eponymous Roman dictator was reflected uncomfortably in pre-teens with soothers and glitter makeup and the stench of pre-pubescent hormones.

It was awkward.

I love big sweaty dancepits, but two seconds in this debauchery would've required a strong legal defense. I wanted to call their parents: "Bring your kids home. Watch Barney and Friends with them in a safe environment. Cleanse them of this place! What are they doing here?!"

Instead of watching wholesome television, these middle-to-high schoolers were taking their shirts off and writhing in a massive heap of awkward body movements (they were stealing my dancemoves). They were staring glassy-eyed into the patterns their friends were making with their multi-coloured finger lights. They were wearing stuffed-animal backpacks that carried minimal storage space. What was the purpose of it all?! Never had I felt so out of place. Never had I felt such self-righteous indignation. Never had I wanted to dance more to Nero's "phat beats," but these urges were being perpetually thwarted by the spectrum of responsibility that was now shining through my newly discovered conscience.

After the show, me and my buddies went to McDonald's. Unbeknowst to us, however, we had been followed -- in line behind us was half of the audience from Nero. All of their glitter, all of their running mascara, all of their thin patchy mustaches dripping with sweat, all of their shiny young acne'd faces were revealed to us in a horrific fluorescent relief.

When the disappointment of this show had faded, I started to reflect on this experience with a clearer head.

I was forgetting that I used to be this young: I used to be driven by lust and confusion and the urge to be seen as a rebellious youth. Not that I ever acted on these impulses -- I had the decency to repress these urges, alone in my room weeping to the sweet sounds of Korn as they evoked a young angst that I had no idea how to express. Why couldn't these kids be as repressed as I was? Or, at least, why did they have to express their desires so confidently (if awkwardly) in front of my withered and weeping inner-child?

I wasn't angry about their need to express themselves in whatever angsty way they deemed necessary at the time, as they role-played their favourite youtube videos in front of me -- I was more angry that they had to do it at my concert. My inner child was supposed to unleash itself. I was supposed to be dancing like a maniac with my shirt off in a heap of age-appropriate bodies as we all heave up and down to the polyrhythmic beats of Nero. But they took that from me with their...with their inappropriate youthfulness! I couldn't get craycray when I was feeling such a strong biological and social imperative to act as a good role-model for these kids.

And they made me feel OLD too! Little brats.

The younger generation can keep their all-ages shows -- I'll feed my inner child with the other adults in the beer garden.