ROCK N ROLL THROUGH THE EYES OF A TEENAGE DAUGHTER - by JCE

I live and breathe music 24/7. In my house, music almost never stops playing. Every plan we make seems to have music as a central theme. I can’t so much as take a run, relax on my patio or even drive to the store without making a good playlist. I spend far more time listening to music than I do watching TV, that’s for sure. This is how my daughter grew up, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say.

Naturally, my daughter has formulated her own musical tastes from a young age, preferring not to latch on to “Dad’s music.” I will say we do love quite a bit of the same music, because we both have pretty wide-ranging musical tastes, and we love to share new musical discoveries with each other. We also love to go to shows.

My daughter, who is now 19 years old, reads all of my Pencilstorm ramblings as well as the journal I keep of all the shows I go to see. So when she suggested I write something about my favorite shows that we have gone to see that were “her bands” I thought it was a cool idea. My daughter’s first concert was the Jonas Brothers when she was seven years old. That one isn’t going on my list. Neither is 5 Seconds of Summer (twice), Big Time Rush, Florida Georgia Line or even Billie Eilish, who was cool. Every one of those shows and lots of others were great simply because I was there with my daughter and we never fail to have great musical adventures together. We have also seen tons of shows that I absolutely wanted to see that my daughter also wanted to see—Bully, Starcrawler, The Struts, Halestorm, Cilver, The Pretty Reckless, Jade Jackson and many others, but this blog is about shows with my daughter that I never would have been at if she hadn’t asked me to take her. These were her bands, her choices, over a number of years. So here’s the best of the bunch, in no particular order:

BIG & RICH w/ GRETCHEN WILSON at Celebrate Virginia in Fredericksburg, VA

I am not a country music fan. My daughter, however, does enjoy certain country artists. I don’t think she has listened to these guys in years, but here’s the story; Big Kenny is from the county I live in. I knew him before he moved to Nashville and made it big. So, when my 10-year old professed that she liked Big & Rich, I used some contacts and got her a signed photo and a signed book for her birthday. That’s all I needed, but Big Kenny also came through with concert tickets including VIP seating and backstage passes. We all had a blast and my kid cried tears of joy. That was many years ago, however. The rest of these will be more current.

Big Kenny being very nice to a star struck kid

ROYAL THUNDER at The Camel Club in Richmond, VA

I took my daughter to some shows that typical young teenage girls love, but as her musical tastes started to get a little more refined, my daughter decided she wanted to start going to see some club shows. Luckily, unlike when I was a kid, most shows these days are all-ages. So when she happened upon a hard-rocking outfit called Royal Thunder and asked if we could go see them at a little club called The Camel in Richmond, VA, I agreed and we went to see her first club show. Talk about a nice surprise. They played a killer set, gave a shout out to my daughter - who was about the only underage kid there - and we had a great time. It was my first time at The Camel, but I have been back several times since then.

Mlny Parsonz, vocals and bass for ROYAL THUNDER, also made time for a picture and a brief conversation with my daughter.

FALLING IN REVERSE / MOTIONLESS IN WHITE (THE END IS HERE TOUR) at The National in Richmond, VA

My daughter went through a period of time where she was mostly listening to very heavy metal. I’m not talking about hair bands, I’m talking darker stuff. I wouldn’t put Falling In Reverse into the scream-o category, but this tour featuring five bands was heavy, and I really wasn’t looking forward to it. Nevertheless, we headed for Richmond, stopping at Starbucks for coffee and later grabbing a meal. I am a Dad who has been lucky enough to spend some quality time with my daughter, just the two of us, going on a bunch of rock n roll adventures. We parked and got in line and once in, quickly realized that my 5’3” daughter wasn’t going to see much from the floor, which promised to be a full-tilt mosh pit anyway. Instead, we went up to the balcony and got front row seats. The first few bands were hit & miss, mostly miss. But then came Motionless in White. I learned a lesson in being open- minded that night. The band was visually spectacular, hard rocking, and yes they screamed a lot, but it was damn good. Their song called “A-M-E-R-I-C-A” was the one that sold me. Falling In Reverse was pure energy and also a sight to behold. It was a great night.

ANDY BLACK at The Norva in Norfolk, VA

We drove over three hours to make this one happen. Andy Black, who is best known for the band he fronts called Black Veil Brides, was an absolute must for my daughter, so we booked a hotel and bought tickets. The first solo record by Andy Black is pretty decent, so I knew I would enjoy the music. The show stands out as one to remember mostly because my daughter loved it, and the trip in general holds good memories.

The marquee at The Norva

Andy Black onstage

ALL TIME LOW / SWMRS / WATERPARKS / THE WRECKS at Rams Head Live in Baltimore, MD

At some point, my kid latched onto punk-pop-emo-indie stuff and we took her to D.C. to see All Time Low and Sleeping With Sirens. That show left me unimpressed. This later show with a bunch of great bands is probably my favorite one in this blog.

The Wrecks opened the show and they were spectacular. I knew a few songs of theirs already and they were great, but they broke out a new tune called “James Dean” that got me pumped up early. Look that one up. Next was Waterparks. All I need to say about this was that we had not heard much of their stuff, if any, beforehand. They are now, a few years and a couple of albums later, my daughter’s very favorite band. So that alone made this a special show. She has raved about Waterparks since that night. Next was SWMRS. For me, they were the highlight of the evening. Their guitar player was wearing a skirt and as he bounced and wobbled all over the stage all I could think of was Captain Sensible from The Damned. I really like SWMRS now, but this was the first I’d ever heard of them. All Time Low were the headliners, and while I will admit their songs are good and their set was good and they deserved to be headliners, I had more fun discovering the new stuff.

The only thing that wasn’t perfect about this show was that my daughter and her friend who came along went to the floor, while my wife and I took a spot in the balcony. That seems proper when you have two parents and two teenage girls, but I did miss talking about all the finer points of what we liked and didn’t like during the show. No worries though, we broke it all down afterwards. We can talk music for days.

SWMRS – My view from the balcony, my kid is somewhere in that swarm below.

ALL THINGS GO FESTIVAL at the Union Market in Washington, D.C.

So far you have discovered that my kid likes punk, metal, and even country. Well she likes pop, too. That’s one thing I love about her, she is open to everything, and she likes what she likes. So when she asked me to go to this festival in D.C. I was not surprised. It’s a two-day festival featuring mostly female artists. The main goal was to see Carlie Hanson on Sunday so we opted for single day tickets. We got to the market a little before gate-time and once inside the fences (this was outdoors) we took a spot on the front rail. In order we saw: Shenna, Teamarr, Carlie Hanson, Allie X, Olivia O’Brien, Leon, Betty Who and Melanie Martinez. My daughter liked Olivia O’Brien. I thought Allie X was interesting, but none of this was up my alley. So why did it make my list of good shows? Because of Carlie Hanson. She was highly engaging and entertaining, she played more songs than a lot of the others and most importantly, she was the reason we were there and my daughter loved her. She rocked a lot more live than her records might suggest. This was a very long day: we arrived at 11:30 a.m. and left at 11:30 p.m., plus the drive was two hours each way. And yet my kid and I had so much fun critiquing artists, people-watching and just spending time together that I was very happy to be there the whole time. (My aging back started achin’ a bit toward the end there, though.) The coolest thing that happened was that an hour or so after Carlie Hanson played, we spotted her and her bandmates heading for the food vendors, or the exit, I’m not sure which. We were able to catch up with them and my daughter got to meet another hero.

We had the front rail for the artist we came to see.

Carlie Hanson (right) and band surrounding JCE’s daughter.

VANS WARPED TOUR at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD

Perhaps my favorite day spent with my daughter bonding over music was the Vans Warped Tour in 2018. I won’t recount that one here because I wrote about it previously. If you have time, go back and check out this previous piece here on Pencilstorm:

http://pencilstorm.com/blog/2018/the-vans-warped-tour-2018-my-experience-by-jce?rq=jce

I’m lucky to have a daughter who shares my greatest passion, music.