Get a (new) life!

Oct 01, 2009
By Anton Ponomarenko

RIGA - Our main problem is that we tend to look more serious than we really are. About 97 percent of adult men and women would never go to a punk-rock concert. The reason for not going isn’t just because they don’t like that kind of music, but mostly because they think that this would be inappropriate for them, being so serious and grown up, to drink beer from a keg, to dance until you can’t tell the floor from the ceiling, and not remember how they ended up in the place where they woke up.

Of course, no one actually made this type of research, and these statistics are made up, but I bet that if someone did, the real figures would hardly be any different. And this is a problem of modern society. We are so used to living by the outdated socially acceptable norms that we’ve totally forgotten how to have fun the way we used to. It’s like driving along the same road from your home to the office and back, five times a week for the last fifteen years. You know this road and you like it, because you know every hole and every bump in it so well, that you don’t see the new buildings built around it, nor do you notice the new road signs. Perhaps you could go faster here and make a left turn there, but you’ll never know…

It is as common as having breakfast. But despite this syndrome of conservatism, nobody does a thing to make things change. Nobody, except for the people in marketing and PR, who are constantly trying to appeal to one part of society or another, to make us like things that we don’t know about yet. And, their job is harder now than it ever was.

And the economic recession is the one to blame. Thirty years ago girls were going crazy over Robert Plant and Harrison Ford, willing to give everything for their idols, but they don’t care much for the modern actors. I’m sure that most of them have absolutely no clue about who Ashton Kutcher, or Eminem are, and they wouldn’t bother to know. Try selling something to them. Of course, there are certain individuals who have a rare combination of natural talent and luck. They can sell a two year land-line contract, to a nearly deaf 84 year old lady, having to write the whole product presentation down for her, because otherwise she wouldn’t understand… I beg your pardon – she wouldn’t even hear what the sales person was telling her, but even they are helpless when it comes to selling a gazillion of those contracts, because nowadays people are very often too pragmatic, they’ve seen it all and they don’t want any more of it or because it would enable them to change their life a bit.

So the only hope for the marketing people is, in fact, the younger part of the population, which unfortunately, has very high demands, very low income and constantly changing interests. That doesn’t make their life any easier, does it? But there’s nothing you can do about it. Not in a fortnight. It would take decades for the people of all ages and social levels to become equally attracted to the same things. Until that happens we’re bound to live the way we’re used to, in a world where the youth go to a rock concerts and the adults take a walk in the park, feeling rational and tranquil.

But in case all of the abovementioned tickled your memory a bit, and you feel like going crazy along with all the teenagers who haven’t yet lost the taste for life, you’re welcome to come to The Prodigy concert and feel free to give it all you’ve got on the floor of Skonto Hall to the music of their newest, and in my opinion, most adequate and interesting album “Invaders Must Die,” on Saturday, October 3.
If, however, you’re not that much into Rave, you still have a chance to enjoy some old-school Hard Rock with a legendary band now touring around the world and celebrating their 40th anniversary since getting together. Who is this band, you ask? Yes, you’ve got it right, it’s Nazareth! You have to be quick though, because as you’re reading this, Arena Riga is being set up and sound tests are probably already running. Nazareth is performing tonight, Oct. 1, at 8 p.m. on stage at Arena Riga.

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