To show you how silly this nostalgia business is, a Fakebook ‘friend’ of mine, whom I don’t even know, he’s only the brother of a guy whom I once knew, and didn’t even know had a brother, proudly posted a list of what he considers best rock and roll recordings ever. Proudly and shamelessly. I hate lists in the first place, but this one told you everything about the guy and nothing about the music. Told you how old he was and what crap he listened to when in his teens. Nostalgia from beginning to end. That plus bad taste (Yes, “stairway of heaven”, the 70s reference point of ridicule by rock critics was there). Numba won, was, you’d never guess, “A Hard Day’s Night”. WHAT?
I have a quote that Yogi Berra can buy from me for next to nothing and claim as his own: “I don’t miss nostalgia.”
If I recall the essay by Lester Bangs in one of the two collected works books, he essentially said that Bob Seger’s middle of the road rock was designed to help listeners recapture that “high school moment” while engaged in whatever drudgery now occupied their lives.
Even with the big stadium bands, I think part of the nostalgia for those days is the people “you” went to the show with, and possibly the roadtrip to get there. How many “stadium” shows did anybody go to by him or herself, let alone enjoyed it with the performer so far removed and tiny (especially in the pre-big screen video days).