Alex Lifeson Quotes

I am continually pleasantly surprised by how many people are showing up at shows and are younger than our first record.

The other thing that was very noticeable on that tour, not so much in the video, was the new young element that were coming to our shows... I started to see some very young people in the audience... maybe 14, 15, 16 years old.

I don't want kids listening to my music thinking it's for their parents. I want them to feel it's theirs.

It's the same thing now. When I go onstage the young people scream and holler as much as the older generation.

After every concert, I greet young people in the lobbies. And I see a huge surge of young people playing music.

It's interesting, as I said on the last tour in America, the audience actually came out, they had to have been the kind of fans who listened to my music via their parents, you know what I mean?

The whole music world is based on the young, the very young people.

I love that - you get everything from seven-year-olds to 87-year-olds at Passenger gigs.

There are a lot of women at my gigs. The first show I headlined was a sea of women, which I can't complain about. I'm pleased these 18-year-old girls like my music.

Folk music was out there. Clubs were springing up and they were hot with the college kids.

There are now grandmothers and grandfathers coming to see us because they are of that age, they grew up in the '50s and '60s and they bring their sons and their daughters to hear the songs they heard when they were young.

All of the sudden the audiences started getting younger and the spread of the attendance was really wide. I think it's as a result of the records selling more that they started following our careers.

Their eagerness for the big-band music and their ability to grasp the essence of it made me realize that today's generation has not been properly exposed to the big-band sound.

I'd say we do reach somewhat of a younger audience, but I think for the most part that younger audience is picking our music up from a brother or sister or even parent, who is turning them onto the band.

Recently, I went to a disco with friends, and all the young people were saying, 'Dudamel, we want to go to your concert, but it's impossible because it's sold out.' It's really amazing.

The whole thing about rock music, pop music, is it's really for kids.

Many, many years ago, I was one of the few conductors who talked to the audience and now a lot of classical conductors have figured it out... otherwise, you just get the back of someone's head playing music you could hear on a CD. It's not enough anymore.

Every generation of rock musician will understand that we wouldn't be anywhere without the support of teenagers buying the records.

One of the things that's clear to me from interviews that I've read is that the more popular successful jazz musicians had audiences above and beyond the music community.

People are like, 'Well, she doesn't know the Sex Pistols.' Why would I know that stuff? Look how young I am. That stuff's old, right?

I was inspired by a lot of people when I was young. Every band that came through town, to the theater, or the dance hall. I was at every dance, every night club, listened to every band that came through, because in those days we didn't have MTV, we didn't have television.

No, I don't know how to get young people to start listening to jazz again. But I do know this: Any symphony orchestra that thinks it can appeal to under-30 listeners by suggesting that they 'should' like Schubert and Stravinsky has already lost the battle.

I want to continue to constantly put out great music, expand further and further with the live show and music that is attracting music fans from all over the place, not only for ravers or electronic heads.

It seems like the older bands are bigger than ever. We get a mixed crowd where you have kids and old blokes like me.

I have a very broad demographic, from the 8-year-old who knows every word to 'Ice Ice Baby' and the college kid who grew up on 'Ninja Rap' to the soccer mom and grandparent.