Why taking young kids to see your favourite bands live is just wrong

The buzz of seeing a live show has not diminished. I hope it never does.

My back grumbles in protest every time I opt for a standing ticket - seats are for wimps - but I still love getting to a venue or stadium early, watching it fill up, and the stage emptying as the tech teams complete their prep before the lights go down. As much as I loathe the term ‘experience’ that is exactly what it is.

I’m lucky to have seen almost all of my rock heroes - only Bowie eluded me when he went and had a heart attack and pulled out of T In The Park - which is just as well since, despite possessing a music O-Grade, I never stood a chance of making lead guitarist in any band. Those who can, get to play jaw-dropping solos. Those who can’t get to call for an encore.

Music, as John Miles once said, is my first love and it will be my last, but much has certainly changed over the decades.

The single biggest transformation in recent years has been parents going to see their favourite bands with their kids in tow. It’s weird - and fundamentally wrong.

Billy Joel at Hyde Park saw five-year olds bopping away to Uptown Girl, while the sight of bairns on shoulders at a Springsteen gig still defies logic. I don’t buy the ‘oh my eight year old just loves his songs” defence. They don’t. They shouldn’t.

Until their teenage years, kids should have their own music favourites - preferably ones you dislike or disapprove; ideally ones you even hate. By all means let them rediscover the albums of your youth and find their own connection with the rock greats, but if they have just learned how to tie their shoe laces, then they shouldn’t be able to name the bass player of Rush.

I strongly believe music should speak to, and for, one generation.

As a bairn, the few albums in our house included Pat Boone, Cliff Richard and a recording of Peter & The Wolf. My musical journey kick-started with punk and then dived into heavy rock with a strange side step into all things psychedelia, and I still adhere to the Meat Loaf lyric of “everything louder than everything else” so the walls of our wee flat often shook.

My dad’s ‘if you can’t whistle it, it isn’t a tune’ view was pretty much shredded as I went though a phase of Captain Beefheart, Iron butterfly and Frank Zappa and emerged into a world of King Crimson.

When I started going to gigs aged 15, it never once occurred to me to ask my folks to come along, any more than they thought I might like an evening of James Last at the Usher Hall -and that is exactly the way it should be, but, instead, gigs have become inter-generational shared experiences.

It all started when I saw Iron Maiden at the SECC where dads and sons proudly headbanged together, and, since then, it’s become the norm to see kids bored and fidgety as a day at a music festival draws ‘way past their bedtime,

So, here’s tip - book a babysitter. They will be cheaper than the ticket you just wasted on your bairn who is now sitting on the ground watching a cartoon on their iPad asking is it time to go home yet? Repeatedly.