The thing is, you stayed long enough at that concert to make that impression... Me, I'd have walked out after the first few bars (unless there were some pretty ladies talking to me!). So I guess it can't have been THAT bad!

I think chas is right. Compared to the seventies, my pay hasn't kept pace with inflation, and I think many are in the same position. You get what you pay for. If I make enough just to get by, where's the money for costumes, fancy lighting, and a high rehearsal factor coming from?

Also, you can see how attitudes in the young have changed... Personally, I blame it on 'self esteem' psycho-babble that favors self-esteem without the associated achievement that would actually JUSTIFY that same self-esteem! You can see it in how afraid of anything that actually IS exemplary... Modern musicians must dress like their slacker audience, look like the slacker audience, talk like their slacker audience, and heaven help them if they actually PLAY better than their slacker audience!

Most of the real bands on the charts (not the highly manufactured pop hits, but the real bands) sound like garage bands that would NEVER have got even a hint of a deal in the seventies (or eighties, or nineties )! It's as if the entire youth of our nation are afraid to listen to anything real that might make them aware of just how untalented they are! Where would their precious self-esteem go, were they to acknowledge that, "look! there's someone that is WAY better than me! I guess I must be lousy, after all "

Once upon a time, we celebrated the talented, and made them rich... Now, we avoid them like the plague, and prefer to listen to someone that we think 'hey! I could do that!'. I guess it makes us feel more comfortable in our declining mediocrity...