(source: ebay.com)
Anyone who owns the T-shirt pictured above must laugh at the irony. When The Who went on their "farewell tour" in 1982, thousands of fans filled the stadiums to catch a glimpse of their idols for the very last time.
Or so they thought. Seven years later, The Who went on tour again and promised it would be "the last". Then they went on tour again in 1996 and promised again it would be "the last". It turns out The Who never got sick of touring after all and reunited for good.
The concept of the "farewell tour" is always fascinating. To me, it implies the musician or band is feeling irrelevant in an ever-changing musical climate. Consider 1982: The Who seemed out of step in an era dominated by The Police, Duran Duran, and Dexy's Midnight Runners. The angry-eyed, protopunk-haired teenyboppers of the 1960s slid into yuppie oblivion and treated music as an afterthought in the new age of family values.
Yet when The Who decided to call it a day, millions flocked to their concerts. The Who sold out stadiums as vast and wide as the Kingdome in Seattle or the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando. The newly indifferent punk saw concerts like these as a nostalgia shine, a reclamation of an earlier memory.
It's a strange thing. We buy things, tire of things, and when those things go away, we seem to clamor for them once again. My generation (no pun intended), those Millenials of the late 1980s and early 1990s, suddenly wish for shows like Rugrats and Boy Meets World to return to the air. For the purpose of nostalgia, or maybe something a little bit more, they go see the Backstreet Boys in concert as if 1999 repeated itself year after year.
First came the farewell tour, then came the reunion tour.
And the reunion tour sure is clever because the desert of nostalgia brings out the illusion of relevance. Bands get the illusion they are bigger then they actually are, whereas in reality, the audience is simply older and more niche. This is no slight against The Who. The Who may very well be exceptions to the rule; the imprint they left on popular music is something I cannot deny. But the rule rings true for many figures of fame from the past (like the Backstreet Boys).
At some point during its lifetime, a generation will flirt with regression to a simpler time. Millenials who realize the bone-headedness of majoring in English suddenly dream of childhood. They dream of where they didn't have to worry about debt. I'm sure the same rang true for Baby Boomers who grew slightly disillusioned with the rampant materialism. For many Baby Boomers, The Who signified a time where the youth dreamed of victory in their exaggerated rebellions.
Yet there is something different about the Millenials. To me, Millenials seem to be in permanent regression. Silliness is the mantra of the Millenial. My Generation -- Pete Townshend, your words are calling to me -- stays locked indoors and watches the millions of cat videos online. My Generation -- thanks Pete, you dear old chap -- is dealing with a shrinking attention span.
They are the twenty-something children.
Children, Pete, children... which wars will they fight? Which cars will they build? Do they count on themselves to put themselves together? Or do they wait and expect the glowing online screens to do it for them?
The greatest question: are they afraid to conquer and seize the day? Or are they afraid of the years of mundane? I can't tell. But what I can tell you, Pete, is that these Millenials are more hard-wired into the mechanisms of popular culture than ever before. And in doing so, they are wrapping themselves up in the plastic bubbles not knowing there is a spray of a thousand needles coming to pop those very bubbles. To the child, "pop" is fantasy. To the adult, "pop" is escapism. Because in moments of crisis, it's easier to embrace the myth than the reality that must surely be confronted. The solution, then, is to regress into the caverns of nostalgia.
