Foolam’s Folly

From an email sent to a good friend from the WONDERFUL city of Berlin (no sarcasm there, I enjoyed my time there very much, and will return…) Saw Wolfmother tonight. Har har…I have a like/not always like relationship with that band, but they did rock (but other bands do the 70s rock thing better), the Germans loved them. Germans make for GREAT rock audiences. Califone played to a pretty full (for the club) audience, maybe 75 to 100 people, and they were loved and cheered on for an encore (and favorite songs acknowledged.) Wolfmother (or as I jokingingly have been saying in my head with a German accent VULF MOOTER!) played to a few thousand people who were super enthusiastic. Ya know how in NYC at some bigger shows the singer trys to get the audience going with handclaps, and maybe a third the crowd does it for 15 seconds or so (have to admit I am one of the lazy ones!) Well, at this show the crowd started it numerous times, everybody into it. They love rock in Berlin (well, techno, dub, etc, too, and some punks around as well.) What was interesting was the crowd. In NYC at a show like this, the majority of the audience would be well under 30. But at this show I would say a third of the crowd was 30 or over, and I kid you not that besides numerous folks in my age range (late 30s to early 40), I saw at least a couple people who had to be 50 !  It was not like one of those shows were I look around and all I see are early 20 somethings and I start to feel older. It seems like there are more people here who stay seriously into music (or at least going out) as they get older. Nice. At Califone, saw one German couple who were somewhere in that end of 40 or beginning of 50 bracket, and they were the most excited and loudest people at the show in regard to their cheering. Interesting.Bobby Conn rules! I had a great time seeing them in Philadelphia at lil ol Kyber Pass a few years ago. They rocked. Like Queen.