Remember when you used to be able to go to a rock concert on a Sunday night, have a few drinks, maybe even stop at a diner afterward and still make it to work the next day without a hitch? Then, of course, you cut out the diner and drinks and just went to the show and still made it in and got your stuff done and didn’t bat an eye? I’m pretty sure those days are done. I have to warn you if you’re looking for a review of the show, this isn’t it. I’m not really planning on talking about the music or their stage presence or the sound quality. But on Sunday night my wife and I went to see The Last Shadow Puppets, and I spent the entirety of Monday morning dragging my butt around wondering what I was doing out of bed. Of course back in the day I lived closer to the office, so even if I got home at two, I didn’t have to wake until eight-thirty. I didn’t have someone down the hall screaming, “Daddy I’m up!” at five a.m. But then, too, I haven’t been feeling 100% since Thursday. I’ve had a sore throat and can’t seem to feel rested no matter how long I sleep. “Is it strep?” my wife asked. No, I’ve had strep a few times in my life, and strep is more painful. The current sore throat is more a minor irritation, an inconvenience I’ve been staving off with daily doses of Advil. The sleep thing, maybe I’ve been burning the candle at both ends for too long. Maybe I just need a string of nights where I turn in around nine and get nine hours of rest.

I don’t know, I’d say that concerts are for the younger crowd, mid-to-late twenties, but my dad still likes to go, and he’s in his fifties. So I guess they’re really for people less curmudgeonly than me. I’d say I hate being a hater, but who am I kidding? It’s sometimes my raison d’être. I dislike crowds, but this was exactly the kind of crowd where I stand and mock people in my head. The guy who comes in wearing a bright red Adidas track suit. What? Did you see the promo shots of Miles Kane and Alex Turner and think you’d show up dressed like them? They certainly weren’t wearing track suits when they hit the stage. I think it was a joke, my friend, one you obviously weren’t in on. Then there’s the guy behind us checking his iPhone, giving a spastic wiggle of his hips. Dude, is that supposed to be sexy? Your come hither motion for the ladies? I know that Alex Turner does this rumba style hip gyration thing when he’s playing the guitar, but he’s the front man in a band, and you’re a guy in the audience checking his iPhone. When you get up on stage, having written a song as good as “Do I Wanna Know?” you have permission to do that. But right now, please stop.

I suppose I shouldn’t judge. I’m out of the game. And I sometimes forget that if you haven’t hooked up in a long enough time, you’ll try anything to attract attention to yourself. I also suppose I forget that some of the dumbest most ridiculous gestures actually work in attracting the fairer sex. Like, hey see me, I’m the guy who wears the fedora. It’s my thing, I’m fedora wearing guy. Please come talk to me about my fedora. I have become the father who would smack my son in the back of the head if he becomes that guy and tells him he looks like a fool. But like most kids, he’ll probably keep doing what he’s doing until ten years later he looks back and shakes his head with embarrassment at the thought of that fedora. And hey, I can talk like that because I’ve never done anything to make myself look silly or foolish in the interest of attracting women at a rock concert, right? (If you’re wondering what that clicking sound is, it’s my all the friends and acquaintances I had in my mid-20s rushing to find photographic evidence to the contrary, damn you digital photography!).

Like most people past their concert-going prime (I’m randomly putting that age at 28 and excluding my wife since she’s forever young in my eyes), my wife and I had to get a sitter (thanks to my brother- and sister-in-law for doing the honors) and time our arrival just as the opening act was finishing (since my lower back can’t really do standing in place for more than an-hour-and-a-half stint). And the opening act, Cam Avery sounded good. Had a bit of the Ray LaMontagne (actually I just googled Ray to find out how to spell his name and saw some pictures and they may very well be the same guy). Then The Shadow Puppets came on, and the iPhones went up. I guess this is a common occurrence now, people filming the show on their iPhones. I don’t think it’s been that long since I went to a concert, but I don’t remember it being this annoying. Maybe it’s that I avoid standing room shows, and it’s harder to notice in seated venues. But man is it distracting to have a column of people in front of you shoving their phone directly in your line of vision to the stage. Still, I guess times change. I can either be the grumpy old man complaining about the millennial propensity for taping lived experience so they can enjoy it second-hand later, or I can roll with it. Obviously I’ve chosen the former, though I did make a conscious decision during the show to ignore it and enjoy the music. I feel like I’m too young to be talking about how things were better back in my day when my day was only ten years ago, but everything’s happening so much faster in the modern world, isn’t it?

I glanced at my wife during the show. I thought of how pretty she looked. When they played my favorite song in the Shadow Puppet’s repertoire “My Mistakes Were Made for You,” I wrapped my arms around her and swayed. “Man,” I joked, pretending to do her voice, “don’t touch me. Alex has to think I’m single.” By the end, I was ready for home, ready for sleep. We drove back listening to an Arctic Monkeys’ album. Is it strange that in spite of my curmudgeonly demeanor I’m still excited by the idea of taking my kids to their first concerts, standing in the background while they pretend they don’t know me, pretend they’re too cool for me? By that time, of course, they will be. I think they already are. But I’d still like to school them in the art of the snide remark. I’ll just have to make sure the shows are on Weekend nights. “I’m sleeping in tomorrow,” I’ll warn them. “Anyone wakes me before ten, and you wont’ see another show until you’re forty.” Then again, given my enjoyment of live performance has diminished, I probably won’t see another one until I’m much older than that.