I could have competed at the local “Battle of the Bands” a couple weeks ago. Even though I’m too old for the competition, the rest of my band is not, so we were told we could compete if we wanted to. There’s no way you could have gotten me to ever do that though. There was no way I could have won. If I were to have done well in the voting then, me, the President of a music school, has just beaten a bunch of kids. I’d look like a total jerk.  If I didn’t do well in the voting then all my credibility as a professional musician would be out the window because I just lost to a bunch of kids. So I judged instead. That felt right. I’ve been teaching for close to a decade now and have been studying rock music in one way or another for virtually my entire life.

Even before walking into the venue at which the event was held –The Den Teen Center- I knew that this was not my kind of place. High school aged kids were hanging around the entrance and wandering about the parking lot, sending text messages, and doing their best to be cool. The way any high schooler should. A band was unpacking their gear and staging it just outside the front entrance all perfectly windswept banged and tight clothed. No, this place was not for me. This place belonged to the kids. They owned it. It was their world and I was invited just for the evening. I was clearly an outsider and almost felt like I was travelling back in time back to high school where I spent a lot of my time just trying to not be the butt of someone’s joke. It’s weird. I’ve spent most of my adult life overcoming my self-confidence issues –I thought- successfully but, for the first several minutes of my experience that night, I thought I had fallen off the wagon. Just as I later found out at my high school reunion, there was no real malice intended upon me. It was all in my head; A figment of my imagination; I made it up; both in high school and at The Den.

By the time the music started at six o’clock sharp, I had made my acquaintance with the staff members on hand, been shown to the judging table and been told what it is that I was supposed to do there. I met the other judges –that part’s not totally true, I’ve known one of the judges, Arielle, pretty well for a while now- and settled in for a night of hormone fueled rock star hopefuls pouring their guts out all over the stage.

Right from the start it became very clear that the kids were alright and I was at least half wrong… I’ll tell you what I mean next week in Part II of this saga.