I think most of all, I miss the drives home.

Throughout high school and college, going to rock shows was an event. My friends and I had elaborate rules—no listening to any of the bands’ CDs the day of the show, whoever sits shotgun is required to stay awake on the ride home, and never stop to ask for directions—and the whole thing was an event requiring hours of phone calls and miles of emails to organize. Getting there and back was half the fun, especially if we were headed to a venue we’d never been to before. This was before ubiquitous cell phones, back when Mapquest was just as likely to dump you off at an abandoned junkyard in West Philly than it was to actually get you to the show on the other side of the city. This was also before cultural relativism set in, when my friends and I were militant about our musical preferences, policing ourselves (and our friends) for any inappropriate “popular” music leanings. We misidentified immature proselytization as pretentiousness, and in that guise it was easy to assume the moral higher ground against commoditized mass entertainment and those who fell for it. Perhaps it was our way of striking back at the “in” crowd, whoever they were—we had better taste, and that was more important than anything.

We listened to the best music in the world, and we knew it.

It’s going on ten thirteen years later, and shows are now quotidian. There’s little anticipation, even for big shows, and I’m much more likely to blow off a gig because I’m broke or tired (or both) than back when the lives of myself and everyone I knew revolved around the scene. Sure, I’m jaded to a certain extent, and I bet we all are: there are very few bands left that I absolutely must see before I die, and newer bands don’t excite me nearly as much as they used to, primarily because a) it seems like there are far more of them than there used to be, and b) I now have a larger frame of reference and find it much easier to dismiss new music as merely derivative. But there are also the prerequisites that come with being somewhat of an adult, responsibilities that will only grow. It’s hard to admit that there are simply better or more important things to do than head to a show, things like: cooking dinner, catching up on sleep, not spending money I don’t have, reading that book that’s been sitting on my nightstand untouched for almost a month, visiting with family, finishing work, hanging out with loved ones, and drinking booze in the comfort and safety of my own home.

But probably the biggest change is that going to a show is no longer the zenith of a night out. It’s an everyday event, alongside grabbing a beer with friends, checking my post office box, picking up a new loaf of bread, depositing a paycheck, and watching Roseanne reruns. I don’t spend the whole week looking forward to Friday night anymore. Heading to the club—which is now merely twenty minutes away, instead of an hour and a half—is no longer a great adventure. And there’s always something to do before and after that deemphasizes the show itself. You might think that I take live music for granted, and to a certain extent I probably do—how many times have I justified missing a touring band simply by thinking that I’ll have a number of other chances to see them again?—but I also think that this familiarity has made the music more valuable, as well. Namely: back when heading out to a show was such a primary experience and the focus of days of preparation and weeks of anticipation, the music itself was practically non-important, secondary instead to the process—no, the exercise—of getting there and back, seeing and being seen, building camaraderie and community based on shared experiences. Now, the simple fact that I choose to see a band perform when I have so many other options (both in terms of other bands playing that night and in terms of doing something else entirely) is a reflection of my interest in the music itself, not in the show experience. In other words, when I’m at a show now, it’s because that’s what I’ve chosen to do over many other things competing for my attention.

When you’re young, everything’s a spectacle, practically an experiential requirement. When you’re older, it’s a conscious choice.

There are things that I miss, sure. The absolute surety that I’ll see someone I know at a show, simply because I always see someone I know. The prospect of making a new friend—boy or girl—based on this single shared experience. The feeling that I’m experiencing something huge and important, and knowing that my life is better than that of everyone who’s not at the show. Having that bond in common with the couple hundred other people there. Knowing that there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than at that very show. But most of all, I miss the drives home.