Dear and the Headlights Concert at The Venue

The other week I went to a concert at a local place called The Venue. It is a great little concert house that often has very good bands come in and perform for the younger people of the Boise area. For this concert, my brother and I went to see Dear and the Headlights (an extremely good band from Arizona, by the way). It was an excellent show and a really fun night. But something at The Venue struck me as especially cool: the people there were a perfect description of This Generation.


The young people that were there were all different shapes and sizes. Not to generalize or judge, but there were goths, skaters, preppies, emo kids, jocks, and home schoolers. Really, the people that were there that night could not have been more diverse. It was not an assemblage of the exact same type of person, but it was a gathering of all different people.


Yet the beauty of it was that nobody cared. It wasn't like there were cliques or groups where the certain "type" of person just hung out with others like themselves. Not at all. Everyone was standing in the center watching the bands as one big group. And the beautiful part was that everyone was totally fine that the group was so diverse because of this: everyone was just being themselves.


More than any other generation, This Generation is just themselves. They don't need to impress anybody. They don't need to be this or do that to be accepted. They are fine with who they are because that is who they are. This Generation is great at just being themselves - and being extremely okay with that. The Boomers have their money and position. The Xers have something to prove and rebel against. But This Generation is just themselves.


In fact, here is something that struck me at the concert that night: This Generation is defined by the fact that we are undefinable. My brother and I were trying to get a feel of who was watching the band that night. We saw all of the high school music kids, the cool college kids, the young adults who obviously loved music. There were people there who probably went to every single concert at The Venue, and then there were some there that it was probably their first concert. People were there who were dressed very stylish. Others didn't care what they had on. The room was full of different people - and yet they were all the same. They were all on the same page with the band. They were all on the same page with the community of the concert. They were all on the same page with the people around them. It was amazing.


You could not break it down and say that there were mostly this type of person at the concert or that type of person. You couldn't define the crowd because you would leave out too many other people that were there that night if you had to only choose one. The people that were there that night could not be categorized other than to say this: those people were from This Generation.


And that is exactly what defines This Generation - we cannot be defined. That night at the concert, I saw every single type of young person. But I also saw one single group. It was like seeing the individual trees in a forest, but all of the trees were all different kinds. Even though all of the trees are different, when they are together they still make up a forest. That is what it was kind of like.


But I just love that scene in my mind. I probably did a horrible job trying to explain this. I just know that I love being a part of This Generation. Our very definition comes in the fact that we are undefinable. The very essence of our description comes in the fact that we are undescribable.


And we love that - because that is just who we are.


This is Our Generation.