Teens Love Old Rock Band T-Shirts. Just Don’t Ask Them to Name a Song

[moparedtn]

Their 'Sam & Dave' tour of 2002 went down well with fans, they sang mostly VH songs. But despite onstage smiles and jokes, rumours say that they didn't mesh well off-stage.

Well-documented actually. YT is full of first-person reports from both.

 

[YY1]

I managed to se Sammy when he still had a Trans Am on stage.

I believe he eventually brought that back.

 

[YY1]

...and I just found a pic of punk-*** 16 year old me from 1984, sitting on my 66 olds 98.

(Soon to be posted in the "back in the day" thread)

I'm wearing a WTUE shirt.

I still have a circa 1984/85 WTUE shirt, but the one in the pic has the sleeves cut off.

Right before I moved to FL, 95 WYNF shirts were the hot ticket. Seen on MTV a LOT.

 

[Sahara]

I’ve seen over 45 big concerts, mostly back in the day. I still listen to metal, loud, on a big, quality stereo.
I raised our daughter right.
When she was perhaps ten or twelve I asked her what her favourite Iron Maiden song was. She responded “Wicker Man”. ****, I was the expert and didn’t even know the song. I had to look it up. She currently wears a bootleg Ramones shirt that we got her in Mexico, as well as an original David Bowie shirt from when I saw him in the eighties. Her mom, me, and her saw ‘Maiden the year before covid, then Metallica. In between she went to ‘Priest in another province with her boyfriend. When she studies she listens to Rammstein on headphones.
Priest is playing Edmonton next August and we may go if our work schedules coincide.
Not all young kids listen to **** music, at least not if I can help it.

 

[64BEL]

I’ve seen over 45 big concerts, mostly back in the day. I still listen to metal, loud, on a big, quality stereo.
I raised our daughter right.
When she was perhaps ten or twelve I asked her what her favourite Iron Maiden song was. She responded “Wicker Man”. ****, I was the expert and didn’t even know the song. I had to look it up. She currently wears a bootleg Ramones shirt that we got her in Mexico, as well as an original David Bowie shirt from when I saw him in the eighties. Her mom, me, and her saw ‘Maiden the year before covid, then Metallica. In between she went to ‘Priest in another province with her boyfriend. When she studies she listens to Rammstein on headphones.
Priest is playing Edmonton next August and we may go if our work schedules coincide.
Not all young kids listen to **** music, at least not if I can help it.

I had to look up The Wicker Man, too. There's a green Challenger in the video. My daughter and I saw Maiden in 2017. I have to admit that I was disappointed that I only knew a small handful of the songs they played. They didn't play much from when I first saw them in 1982.

 

[YY1]

Agree. I counted six songs I knew at the 2017 show, including the relatively new "Fear Of The Dark".

However, most of their new (er) fans seemed to know the words to all their songs, but especially the new ones.

I did see a large number of parent/offspring combos.
It was interesting to see which one was wearing a vintage band shirt and which was wearing a newer band shirt.

We had "8:00 o'clock" stage level seats. Not great, but decent.
My wife actually bought a second set about the same view but opposite side.
She sold them online 3 days before the show for more than double what she paid for them!!!
we actually got paid to go to that show.

...and now I get to say...yeah, my wife scalped some Iron Maiden tickets a while ago.....

 

[patrick66]

My first concert was Chicago, at the University of Northern Colorado in 1975. I went to a total of 102 concerts from then through 1985. Saw Pat Benatar one night and then Rush the next night, in 1983. The Stones in the old Kingdome in Seattle in 1981, along with four other bands! Until the 2003 tornado, I still had most of the old ticket stubs and a whole box ot concert T-shirts I had grown out of; and hoped to hand down to the boys.

My sons, OTOH, have each seen three. Just three.

 

[64BEL]

It's funny, but when I was 18, I thought my 28 year old boss was crazy for not going to concerts anymore. I said I'd never stop going. We were going to concerts all the time back then. LOL, how times change as you get older. Once in awhile I'll go to one, though. A little over 2 months ago I flew to Denver and saw the Scorpions (again) with my daughter and her boyfriend. I still know all of their songs, and they still put on a great show even with 2 of them in their 70s, now.

 

[Sahara]

It's funny, but when I was 18, I thought my 28 year old boss was crazy for not going to concerts anymore. I said I'd never stop going. We were going to concerts all the time back then. LOL, how times change as you get older. Once in awhile I'll go to one, though. A little over 2 months ago I flew to Denver and saw the Scorpions (again) with my daughter and her boyfriend. I still know all of their songs, and they still put on a great show even with 2 of them in their 70s, now.

View attachment 1383730

Scorps are still awesome, as is Accept and Udo, their former singer. Hard to believe he’s a grandfather.

 

[Gus chiggins]

Rolling Stones and Iron Maiden T-shirts are in fashion among younger generations, even if they’ve never heard the music​

Like many 17-year-old high-school students today, Sarah Jenkins doesn’t listen to the Rolling Stones. Her closet tells a different story.

In seventh grade, Ms. Jenkins decided to buy the shirt that everyone was wearing, she said—a crop top with the Rolling Stones’ signature logo of red lips with a tongue sticking out. The next morning, she came downstairs sporting her new T-shirt. For Ms. Jenkins, in Highlands Ranch, Colo., the shirt was just a hot new style trend. For her father, 50-year-old Scott Jenkins, it was a flashback to junior high.

View attachment 1343236Fashion satisfaction



“Hey, that was my music back when I was your age,” Mr. Jenkins told his daughter. “Do you even know that music?” In jest, he asked her to name a couple of Rolling Stones songs.

“Obviously, I couldn’t tell him any as I’ve never listened to the band before,” said Ms. Jenkins. She still wears it regularly, along with a more recently acquired Metallica T-shirt, which is “even more of my generation,” said her father. Ms. Jenkins can’t name a song from Metallica, either.

What is now a running joke in the Jenkins family has become a broader trend in the cyclical world of fashion, with boys and girls of younger generations wearing old rock band T-shirts despite having never listened to the music.

View attachment 1343237

Scott Jenkins and his daughter, Sarah Jenkins.


Jacob Gillick, a 28-year-old teacher in St. Louis, Mo., who described himself as a “teenage metal-head growing up,” said that during the last school year, he would see five to six middle-school students a day wearing a T-shirt of a rock band he recognized from his own adolescence.
“It’s a huge letdown when you realize they don’t actually listen to it,” he said.

Major fashion retailers like PacSun and Urban Outfitters offer products like Nirvana tees and The Who pullovers. In a survey last year by online retail company RushOrderTees, the top nine music T-shirts owned by respondents were all artists from the 1990s or earlier, with AC/DC taking the top spot. (Ariana Grande came in at No. 10.)

Some attribute the surging demand to social media, which can expedite aesthetic trends without bringing the music fandom along.

Rockabilia, an online seller of rock music merchandise, had a supply of 300 T-shirts for Static-X, a heavy metal band that formed in the ’90s, sitting around for years. Suddenly, all the shirts sold out in less than 24 hours. Messages filled Rockabilia’s email inbox and phone lines, seemingly from young teenagers, asking when it would restock the Static-X shirts.

“We were kind of curious so we asked, ‘Are you a fan of the band?’ And they had no idea what it even was,” said Frankie Blydenburgh, a co-owner of Rockabilia. He and his team later discovered that a TikTok in which someone who happened to be wearing a Static-X shirt had gone viral.

View attachment 1343238Static-X bassist Tony Campos performing in 2006.PHOTO: ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES

Tony Campos, the bassist for Static-X, doesn’t mind if people wear the band’s shirts without listening to the music. “I used to be more of a purist,” said Mr. Campos. “But to me, that’s just closed-mindedness.…A big part of bands’ income these days is merchandise sales. So the more you can get out there, the more you’re going to be able to make a living.”

Brian Ebejer, who goes by the stage name Edsel Dope and is the lead singer of the heavy metal band Dope, formed in 1997, echoed the sentiment. “Honestly, I’d rather a kid buy my merchandise than listen to my music, because I make more money from a shirt than him listening to my music for free on Spotify,” he said.

Some rock-band-shirt-wearing teenagers are actually fans of the music. Ben England, 18, and Luka Owen, 19, became best friends over a mutual love of rock music. They are also friends with Ms. Jenkins, and they noticed all the merchandise worn by their fellow students.

“Whether it is Rolling Stones, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, or Sublime, it seems like you can’t go a day at school without seeing one of these shirts,” they wrote for their student newspaper last March.

With band shirts now a purely aesthetic choice, they have found themselves misidentified as nonfans. Mr. Owen recalled wearing one of his Led Zeppelin shirts while out shopping. At the counter, the cashier asked if he could name five Led Zeppelin songs.

He certainly could. “I own every album that they’ve ever produced,” Mr. Owen said. The cashier gave him his items for free after finding out he was actually a fan.

View attachment 1343239

A Ramones shirt from Urban Outfitters.PHOTO: CHRISTIAN VIERIG/GETTY IMAGES

Merchandise for Cannibal Corpse, a death metal band from the ’90s, found new popularity after Kourtney Kardashian Barker was pictured last year wearing the band’s shirt, borrowed from her husband, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker.

After her fashion choice received backlash from Cannibal Corpse fans, Mr. Barker publicly jumped to her defense. Even though she isn’t a hard-core fan, he said, why not allow her to celebrate the music? The couple didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“Since then, it’s become a fashion statement. Now Cannibal Corpse merch is more popular than ever before,” said Rockabilia’s Mr. Blydenburgh.

Teens Love Old Rock Band T-Shirts. Just Don’t Ask Them to Name a Song.​

They wear Che Guevera t shirts, and have no idea the murderer, and terrorist he was.

 

[66ChargerHI-PO]

I notice it too here in my state sometimes younger folks than me wearing Led Zeppelin Rolling Stones and AC/DC shirts on, and I walk by em and think the same thing as some others do cool shirt but I say to myself I bet they don't even know who the heck they are. Hmmm, maybe next time I see one I'll ask em if they like the band and ask if they like a certain song

 

[chargervert]

Just more living proof of how dumb the next generation is! They are going to wake up one day after we are gone and say,man are we fucked,my old man was right!

 

[moparedtn]

I had to look up The Wicker Man, too. There's a green Challenger in the video. My daughter and I saw Maiden in 2017. I have to admit that I was disappointed that I only knew a small handful of the songs they played. They didn't play much from when I first saw them in 1982.

Up the Irons!
Big Maiden fan here, from "Killers" being the discovery album for me, then working backwards to their
first one. In particular, Adrian Smith is a favorite guitarist - dude has written a lot of their biggest "hits"
and is a damn fine player to boot, very bluesy in his roots.
That whole string of albums that they produced that made them universally big, each had a first lead single
that showcased the album - and mostly, they were his (Steve Harris being the other major writer for them).

Adrian left the band in 1990 when the label turned the band more commercial, but he's been back since 2000
(Bruce Dickinson left in '93 as well, but returned when Adrian did - after the band finally realized it was time
to get back to their roots).
The band is still a force to reckon with - and HUGE across the globe, of course - but I can't see how Nicko can
stand the strain at his age and perhaps he'll be the first to step down eventually.
Finally - I'm no Gers fan. I'll leave it at that.
It has been and will always be Steve Harris' band - what he says pretty much goes.

 

[Speedbird]

The mask I wore at work during "Covid".
Some loved it.
But someone else actually told me people might.....well, not understand it.
SMH.

Good to see some that were overlook here are enjoying a resurgence.

 

[Sahara]

Sparks! Thanks for sharing that. Bit of Sparks trivia and a rambling story…
In the ‘70’s there was a pile of disaster movies. One was called Roller Coaster. 1977. The band playing in the amusement park played a kick *** punk song called “Mystery Man”. That was my first exposure to Sparks.
Unfortunately, the song doesn’t appear on any of the home video releases that I was able to locate. Probably removed for licensing or copyright reasons.
Thanks for reminding me of a great band from my past.

 

[rirealtor]

I walked into my 14 year old daughters room the other week( I don’t knock, rules of the house) and to my joy, I heard Pink Floyd playing from her speakers. I looked at her in amazement with the biggest grin and asked “ do you know who this is?”
She responded with “ duh, Dad- it’s Pink Floyd- they’re awesome!”

We sat under her LED lights and listened to Dark Side of the Moon together. She’s a good kid.

 

[64BEL]

I can't see how Nicko can
stand the strain at his age and perhaps he'll be the first to step down eventually.

One of the times I saw them in the early '80s I snagged a drumstick that Nicko threw out into the audience. It had his name stamped on it.

 

[moparedtn]

One of the times I saw them in the early '80s I snagged a drumstick that Nicko threw out into the audience. It had his name stamped on it.

VERY cool!

 

[Speedbird]

I walked into my 14 year old daughters room the other week( I don’t knock, rules of the house) and to my joy, I heard Pink Floyd playing from her speakers. I looked at her in amazement with the biggest grin and asked “ do you know who this is?”
She responded with “ duh, Dad- it’s Pink Floyd- they’re awesome!”

We sat under her LED lights and listened to Dark Side of the Moon together. She’s a good kid.

Bowie covered this. My most liked album of his.
(Other peoples stuff, oddly enough.)
Hum.
Don't tell her what you are listening to.
Unfortunately, I think there's an ID app she could use.
Game over.




I think they missed one .
Pope Benedict XVI, 95 from Pope Benedict XVI, Barbara Walters, Pele, and other notable people who died in 2022
RIP
(26 August 1940 – 10 November 2022)

 

[ZR9B]

my 21 yo son really doesn't wear band shirts except blue oyster cult and pink floyd but listens to most of my music and knows it well....my 19 yo daughter does....she got a masters of reality shirt for christmas (from my son) I made her listen to the full album both sides...at least she can say she knows a little bit about it. I quiz her on the songs when she wears any rock band shirt.....at least the ones I like.