By: Wyatt Corder

Growing up, I was not your typical middle schooler. I would doodle and make art almost obsessively, couldn’t play sports to save my life and liked watching Antiques Roadshow with my mom. It was our favorite pastime. The love and excitement that I had for Antiques Roadshow meant that I was able to find the best items; some of which I would’ve liked to have in the house. When my mum decided to redecorate our living room one time, she made the decision to hire somewhere like this Happy Valley house painting company to paint our walls, and I remember wanting to complement the design of the walls with some of the items that I had seen, just in case we were to get them in the future. But it was fair to say that this didn’t happen, much to my disappointment. The painters did a great job, and the living room looks the same as it does today. It still didn’t stop me from getting excited about Antiques Roadshow though. But the thing that set me apart the most from my teenage peers was my love for older music, or classic rock as we know it.

I formed an affection for classic rock because I grew up hanging out in my living room listening to records with my Dad, while I read and played on my Game Boy. He would put on something classic like a Rolling Stones album, or Fleetwood Mac’s magnum opus “Rumours,” and I would look at the album art and read the liner notes, calmly fascinated by the cool and intimate way that a record presented a band’s music.

By the time I was in high school my Dad had gotten me a record player and stereo system of my own and I would make weekly trips to local Austin record stores, rummaging through milk crates for albums of my favorite bands. While people still use records today, most people opt for a Majority Snowdon ii soundbar, or something similar as they don’t take up as much space as a record player. My Dad, being the vinyl junkie that probably had phono preamps similar to phono preamps at Graham Slee HiFi so he could enjoy his vinyl in the highest quality. He would also give me extra copies of albums he already had, one of my favorites being “‘Live’ Bullet” by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. My Dad told me that this was an album he grew up listening to, so he wanted me to have it. The experience of listening to this album was like receiving some family heirloom, knowing that my Dad had listened to this same music when he was my age. This feeling, combined with the ritualistic experience of letting the needle drop on a vinyl disc, with no Spotify, earbuds or shuffle mode, gives me a feeling of sublime nostalgia, and I think I’ll be listening to classic rock all my life.

Being a fan of classic rock, I’m very hyped for what the Erwin Center has planned for its shows in 2019! If you want to relive the magic of the ’70s and ’80s or help someone discover the magic of this music, then come to the Erwin Center on February 9 for Fleetwood Mac and March 8 for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band!