Betty Hettrick at Rose Bowl 1D concert
My wife Betty and I may have been the only people in their 50s at one of the recent concerts of One Direction at the Rose Bowl who were there without teen or pre-teen kids with us. Many parents didn’t even bother going in the stadium that was filled with 60,000 fans on three consecutive nights, choosing instead to lie around on the golf course-turned-parking lot for several hours eating and drinking like it was a tail-gate party, or to hang out at the club house jammed with parents talking so loud you couldn’t hear the concert in the stadium a short distance away.
One Direction concert at Rose Bowl
We were very glad we went in to see the concert filled with performances of hits such as “What Makes You Beautiful,” “One Thing,” “Story of My Life” and “Best Song Ever,” all sung with great energy and no typical boy band-type choreographed dance moves. The five young British singers were charming and amusing in their banter between songs, and the scale of the stage and video screens and effects was enormous and used quite effectively. Sitting (actually, standing most of the time) amongst the exuberant and well-behaved throngs who sang along with every song was also very infectious and even gave us goosebumps to see so many kids unified in their enjoyment of such good, clean fun. And many of the songs have lyrics that inspire self-confidence and boost one’s spirits.
Scott Hettrick
We’ve taken a bit of somewhat understandable ribbing from family and work associates for attending the concert as fans, and even for simply enjoying the uplifting music of this group that admittedly appeals so primarily to teen girls that the singers even take the time during their show to thank parents, grandparents, and siblings for bringing their fans to the concert.
Woodstock 1999
That’s OK, I’ve often been the oldest or the youngest guy in the crowd, from my last-second decision in my 40s to attend and wander through hundreds of thousands of young fans at Woodstock 1999 to get within a few feet of the mosh pit where I enjoyed acts ranging from Godsmack and Everlast to Creed and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, to my first foray into the crowded masses at a head-banger concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2005. I was also among the older fans at a Madonna concert at Staples Center awhile back, as well as at a B-52s concert, both of which were great fun nonetheless. Conversely, I’ve been among the youngest at equally memorable concerts such as one of the final performances of Frank Sinatra in front of a few hundred of us in a lounge at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas when I was in my forties. His “Summer Wind” instantly became my favorite. Betty and I were also among the youngest in the crowd at a Barbra Steisand concert in Anaheim.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still primarily a child of my generation; I continue to go to concerts periodically of the Beach Boys, Bruce Springsteen, Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Rolling Stones, etc., And I still love classic rock – I drove halfway across the country on a weekend a few years ago just to see my favorite British heavy metal band Uriah Heep play at a riverboat casino, and drove on only three-hours of notice to Coachella to see Bachman and Turner play a Native American Casino, and took my family a couple years ago to see the reunited Van Halen play Staples Center. I went on-stage with several others at an Elton John concert at a Vegas casino to stand at his piano and sing along with him on “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting.”
But I can’t take a steady diet of classic rock or any of the music only of my generation. In fact, it’s sad to think that many people primarily listen to only one form of music that they have been hearing repeatedly since their youth. We’ve enjoyed concerts of Hawai’ian music in Orange County as well as Bluegrass performances in the Ozarks. We both also enjoy Broadway musicals and this summer we saw contemporary jazz artists Pat Metheny and Bruce Hornsby at The Greek Theatre. We find plenty of fresh fist-pumping and inspiration, soulful and mellow in the music of today’s youth as well as that of the days of our parents and grandparents.
I relish my wide range of musical interests – everything from Perry Como to Katy Perry, James Taylor to Taylor Swift, Cher to Pink, Lady Gaga to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Van Morrison to Van Halen, The Beach Boys to The Backstreet Boys, Emerson Lake & Palmer to Eminem, and from The King of Swing (Benny Goodman) to The King of Pop (Michael Jackson). You will hear music playing on Pandora in my office ranging from Fleetwood Mac to Mack the Knife, and everything from Disney movie songs to Gregorian chants, and from Beethoven and Bach to New Age.
Robert Flack, Montreux Jazz Festival
Alice Cooper
The most fantastically diverse array of live performances I saw in one evening was at the Montreux Jazz Festival. With multiple artists playing simultaneously on nearby stages, I was in heaven with the option of first choosing to see Robert Flack perform the soul-touching “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and George Benson sing “On Broadway,” two of my all-time favorites, followed by the polar opposite choice of sitting in to watch Alice Cooper (in full make-up) sing everything from “School’s Out” to “Elected,” and finish the evening by going to a basement jammed with head-bangers to immerse myself in the rush of electric music by Swiss industrial band The Young Gods (then in my 40s, again one of the oldest in that crowd). Meantime, we also really enjoy high-energy pop songs from one-hit wonders and all kinds of artists from Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me, Maybe,” Pink’s “Raise Your Glass,” and Psy’s “Gangnam Style” to Los Del Mar’s “Macarena” and the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe.”
Alex & Sierra at Avalon
So, we don’t apologize for enjoying the songs of the five young men in One Direction who have handled themselves and their meteoric rise to global super-stardom over the last four years with amazing maturity, unity and infectiously fun personalities. To see talented singers perform live just as they are being discovered by audiences in their earliest days is exhilarating and like capturing lightning in a bottle. In June I enjoyed another such experience on a much smaller scale when I decided after work one evening to drive to the Avalon club in Hollywood to see Alex & Sierra in their first concert and on the verge of the release of their first single “Scarecrow” with just a couple hundred people in the club. They were so charmingly nervous and visibly and verbally excited to be there, and yet performed beautifully and in a way that few will ever see again as they quickly get used to their new place in the world.
One Direction could eventually suffer from Justin Bieber disease or start squabbling amongst each other and break apart as so many singing groups of young men have done in the past, from NSync to The Commodores and even The Beatles after only 10 years. So, that’s why it was so energizing to be a part of the One Direction experience now. To feel the electricity of excitement of 60,000 adoring fans, which was more than saw The Beatles at their U.S. concerts, and this was just one of three consecutive nights of crowds that size.
I would also have loved to have been at one of those Beatles concerts, which were also filled primarily with screaming teen girls as they sang simplistic teeny-bopper songs like “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah).” But look what those teen girls recognized then about that group of British mates who would go on to become perhaps the greatest group of all time. Unlike the amazing and unprecedented songwriting team of Lennon-McCartney and the instruments that each of the Beatles played masterfully, only one member of One Direction, Niall Horan, plays an instrument on stage (guitar – he celebrated his 21st birthday with us at the concert), and only a couple of them do much songwriting or even co-writing so far (mostly Liam Payne).
One Direction concert at Rose Bowl
One Direction is simply a fun group of boys on a staggering wave of international popularity singing light and fun songs in terrific harmonies, well-produced, that are full of good vibes. Not unlike The Beach Boys that appealed to the youth of my generation.
I imagine many of those Baby Boomers who are laughing and judging Betty and I for attending One Direction wish they had attended a Beatles concert 50 years ago, and would do so today as 50s/60s-somethings if the original Beatles somehow materialized in their 1964-66 form to play the Rose Bowl now.
Instead, some of them have unfortunately begun to act and sound like the parents and grandparents of their childhood, quickly dismissing the music and groups of today’s youth as “nothing like the music of my day.” “They don’t make music like they used to.”
As for me, I have no interest in music that goes in one direction, so you’ll have to excuse me for thoroughly enjoying One Direction.
— By Scott Hettrick