Editorial: The lovers, the streamers and me

A rainbow connecting with Foo Fighter fans ...

It wasn't that long ago that the demise of the music industry was being predicted.

Streaming services offering free or cheap music were denying artists and record companies the riches once available through the sales of CDs and LPs.

Despite the inferior listening experience (albeit improving by the hour, it seems) the all-you-can-eat streaming buffet has enticed even the most conscientious of objectors.

Many of us hung on to the naive notion we would boycott streaming and keep buying CDs, nay, go back to vinyl even.

Until we capitulated when we realised that for the cost of one CD you can have a month's worth of streamed music, and find those albums, artists or songs that don't exist on the shelves or behind the counter of your local record store anymore, because there are none.

As it was, streaming didn't kill the music industry, and for all its perceived inferiority to CDs or LPs, it has forced world-wide change that regions like Northland are benefiting from.

Artists and bands are hitting the road around the world, making big bucks from regular live performances and touring, and compensating for the comparatively meagre returns streaming services offer.

At one time, a well known live band performing in Northland was rarer than the mystical blue kumara.

But this summer, the live music bug has well and truly spread.

Not far from Mangawhai, Northern Bass at New Year's treated electronic/dance music fans to a three-day festival.

Artist like Elemeno P, Jordan "Exponents" Luck and James "The Feelers" Reid have arrived over summer. Fat Freddy's Drop played in Kerikeri early in the new year, at a venue that has also hosted UB40.

And coming up, Whangarei's Fritter Festival (March 10) with Salmonella Dub headlining and the Bay of Islands Music Festival, featuring reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, Katchafire and Northland soul legend in the making Teeks.

At a ground level stage, don't forget the bars and pubs once again pumping with the vibrancy of live songs.

And down the road, acts like Foo Fighters have made Auckland a regular stop on world tours.

These types of gigs offer rite of passage experiences too.

After mistakenly believing I had paid nearly $300 for two grandstand tickets, I discovered I hadn't.

And after queuing for 20 minutes with my 15-year-old son to get in, that was the last I saw of him, before we reconnected back on the North Shore at the bus station where our ride to Whangarei was waiting.

It has been gently suggested that more parental supervision might have been in order on my part.

Although given that I was last back to the car after getting off at the wrong bus station, perhaps the 15-year-old should have been supervising me.

(He seems fine, by the way, no random shouting or "throwing of the goat").

I think it was Kermit the Frog, the renowned vocalist, who sang about the Rainbow Connection.

Funnily enough, a rainbow burst into view at the Foo Fighters.

Kermit used to sing about "the lovers, the dreamers and me".

There I was at the Foo Fighters, minus one son, connecting with rainbows, the lovers, the streamers and me.

Rock on live music.