Thoughts on the Darren Criss Concert

I have always been bad at acting my age.  I think my parents may have realized this when I said I wanted to move to New York and go to Columbia University to be either a banker or a film director...at roughly age seven.  I think I realized this when I was thirteen, when, after being given the option of picking a free CD from my band class, I didn't go with the Spice Girls or Fiona Apple or Hanson, I went with The Supremes (subsequent albums included Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, and Smokey Robinson, and thus began my obsession with the 1960's).

It wasn't always me being interested in things too old for me (amongst them through the years Shakespeare, politics, and about a thousand other examples my good friend Liz could come up with rather readily), though that's typically the way it went, as I've always been an old soul.  I can remember being 16 or 17 and Disney Channel was suddenly included in our cable package for the first time and I became hooked on Lizzie McGuire.

This is all my way of saying that I'm aware that a 28-year-old man going to a Darren Criss concert isn't something that you would normally see.  I watch Glee religiously, and I know that I am older than the average Gleek.  The reality is, though, that quality is quality no matter what age range it is geared for, and Darren Criss, beneath the curly hair and perfect grin, is a talented guy.  He knows how to write music, he knows how to perform.  I'm aware that screaming when he starts singing "Teenage Dream" is probably a bit much, but there it is.

I have to of course rate the concert, which was incredibly fun (a big thanks to my friend Ann who put up with me geekily singing and jumping along, even though we were some of the older people there, at least those that weren't serving as chaperones).  As a performer, he's aces.  He knows how to work the audience timing just right when he took off his jacket to squeals from the crowd.  He has that strong performer's confidence when he's singing the standards of his concerts that people will start singing along.  There wasn't a single song that he felt false, that he felt over his head, even though he was trying out a good deal of new material.

In fact the only kibbitz that I had was in some of his banter, getting a bit self-deprecating.  Though the venue was relatively small, I have never been in an audience that adored its performer that lovingly (give or take seeing Dolly Parton), so the "aw shucks" moments seemed a bit much on around the third time.  But Darren seems to have them come from a very genuine place-an artist trying to stay true to his core fanbase as his casual, potentially more fickle admirers grow and grow due to his substantially larger presence on Glee and in the world of the tabloids.

But getting back to my point, I think music is still one of the most ageist of entertainment forms, in regard to relegating its fans to their specific "time period."  Books, for example, have become all inclusive, with Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games being equally popular amongst adults and teens alike.  This is also true of movies, with those franchises, and more obviously Pixar films being enjoyed by all.  Think of the critical acclaim that met The Social Network, a film that dealt with a technology that most over the age of 40 had only been briefly acquainted at the time, even though it had been in the lives of Gen Y for many years.

So I think it's appropriate that we start getting over the "you're too old" maxim with music while we're erasing these preconceptions in other entertainment venues.  Art, and especially music, when its quality, is supposed to be universal whether its the stylings of the latest young performer graduating from small-time bars to the stadiums or whether its the legendary rock gods out for one last hurrah with fans old and new.

So feel free and have One Direction on the same playlist as Bob Seger, Carly Rae Jepsen next to Tina Turner.  And if you have the chance, see Darren Criss in concert.  He's amazing.