22 August

What began as a mechanism for ordinary kids to ‘make it big’ in the adult world became just the adult world. Gig culture is over, it just hasn’t realised it yet. It also doesn’t recognise how unusual it is to make music into something that is performed. You stand on a stage, and perform. People watch you and listen to you. That sucks music out of everyday life and turns it into an ‘act’. But again, the act is over anyway. Music-as-performance is gig culture. And gig culture is dying. The counterculture, that’s what gig culture is, adolescents trying to take over the world. They succeeded. The generation that started gig culture now own and run the world. Like the free education they then denied to those who came after them, gigs as a route to status have been shut down. There is no more revolution through music, only big money-making tours vacuuming up vast sums as they travel the globe, creating retirement mountains of gold for ageing rock stars to sleep on. The young today won’t be permitted that pathway to status and wealth.