Loyal Kids Defend Their New Kids on the Block

I’m one of the parents who drove my child to the “Kids” concert and actually sat with her! Yes, there were many of us, and I think that we all would probably have given anything to have been in the parents’ waiting room, sipping wine and dredging up old concert memories. Ah, nostalgia! But, in reality, it would have been akin to child abuse to have abandoned a child to the shameless hucksterism, deafening noise and mob mentality that was occurring inside the amphitheater.

It was with great surprise that your coverage failed to inform the masses that the concert began with three youthful acts, extolling the virtues of their soon-to-be released albums, thereby delaying the arrival of the “Kids” for an hour. Not to mention the fact that the snack stands had run out of hot dogs and pizza--nutrition to the under-age set--at 6:55 p.m. Not only were the fans hungry for their idols, but they were ravenous!

I wonder if the parents in the waiting room were merely trying to avoid Donnie Wahlberg’s blatant display of his underwear in the first number, his berating and embarrassing behavior toward a fan ‘round about the third number or his later appearance in a T-shirt that said, “Drugs Suck.” Surely, they would have been thrilled to be right on the scene when Donnie asked the fans to scream, “Drugs Suck.”

Down front in the trenches, two other mothers and I spent the entire evening keeping hysterical and obnoxious 14-year-olds from smashing unescorted 8-year-olds. There was a mother in the fifth row who did bring her child, a 6-month-old baby. Even my 9-year-old could figure out that the child would probably never hear again.

Waxing nostalgic about the Beatles is fun but not if you recall that those ‘60s concert-goers couldn’t hear their music. Never fear, the ‘90s have brought us the technology to supersede the screams with music at an astronomical decibel level.

Ironically, this all came as a big surprise to the cable-TV, video generation who just didn’t have an inkling that they were not going to actually sit or stand and sway to the smooth tunes. I wonder if the wine-sipping parents gave even a thought to the comfort of their children. By the end of the concert, most of the kids in the first 30 rows were sitting down, with hands over their ears and ready to hop into bed.

I wonder if the world really needs more young girls adoring young men who lace their performance with synchronized crotch-grabbing? It was a very Magic McDonald’s Summer.

I tried to think ahead--I bought a giant box of noise-reduction earplugs for my three young guests. But they could not filter out the hype. As a seasoned concert-goer of some 20-odd years, I couldn’t help but be relieved that I had seen them all . . . the Stones, the Who, the Doors, the Kids. But I’ve grown tired of the national press coverage of music, which every day grows closer to being an extension of the advertising industry.

A young man is brutally beaten to death by a police officer at a Grateful Dead concert and it’s attributed to the band. An All-American group like the Kids can be shameful capitalists, chauvinists and crude, . . . but it is a thrill for the fans. Give me the Dead any day.

Now I’ll go sip a glass of wine.

CHANCY S. WOOLDRIDGE

Orange