Guns N' Roses & Mötley Crüe at SPAC Help Us Remember Our Youth!

Growing up in the 1980s, life was measured by cassette tapes, Friday nights, loud guitars, beer balls and the brothers and sisters who stood beside you. It wasn't about social media, cell phones, or taking the perfect picture. It was about living in the moment. Every generation gets its time, but those of us who came of age in the '80s know there was something different about those years. They weren't just the best years of our youth—they became the soundtrack of our lives.

For me and my brother of nearly forty years, Billy "Dilligaf," two bands stood above them all: Guns N' Roses and Mötley Crüe. We wore out cassette tapes on old boom boxes, turned the volume up until the speakers rattled, and believed those nights would last forever. Looking back now, we realize it wasn't just the music we loved. It was the people we shared it with.

Time has a way of reminding us that forever comes faster than we ever imagined.

Most of the crew Billy and I ran with back in those days have left this world. Brothers who laughed with us, drank with us, and helped make us who we are now are gone. About fifteen years ago, Billy and I made a promise—a pact that no matter how busy life became, we'd get together at least once or twice every year. We had learned the hard way that the years don't slow down, and tomorrow is never promised.

That promise brought us together this summer. With Billy going through a serious health scare right now, getting together is more important then ever ! 

On July 26th, Billy came to visit, and along with our brother Craig and our friend Diane, we headed to SPAC to finally see Guns N' Roses together. We'd seen Mötley Crüe together over the years, but somehow we had never shared a Guns N' Roses concert. Standing there as the lights went down and those first familiar notes filled the night air, it wasn't just another concert.

It was a time machine.

For a few precious hours, we weren't older. We weren't carrying decades of responsibilities, scars, or memories of loss. We were those kids again, standing in someone's backyard with our friends, blasting Appetite for Destruction on a beat-up boom box, believing life would always be this good.

Three nights later, Craig, our brother Brian, and I were back at SPAC for Mötley Crüe, with Extreme and Tesla opening the show. Three legendary bands. Three more hours where the calendar stopped mattering and the music reminded us exactly who we were.

I hear people say all the time that Guns N' Roses and Mötley Crüe don't sound like they did back in the '80s.

I always smile and ask them, "Who among us still does?" None of us are twenty anymore. The bands have aged.

We've aged. Life has changed us all.

But that's the point. These concerts were never about chasing musical perfection. They're about something much bigger.

They're about reaching back through time and grabbing hold of a part of ourselves we thought was gone forever. They're about looking to your left and seeing a lifelong friend who's become family. They're about looking to your right and almost expecting to see the faces of the brothers who should still be standing there beside you, and for just a little while... it really feels like they are!

That's why these shows continue to sell out. That's why thousands of us keep coming back. Not because we're trying to relive the past—but because, for a few hours, we get to touch it. 

One day, years from now, Billy, Craig, Brian, Diane, and I will look back on these concerts the same way we now look back on those wild nights in the 1980s. We'll wish we could have just one more evening together. One more laugh. One more song. One more memory. That's why we make them now. Because memories become priceless the moment they can never happen again.

So if you think these bands don't sound like they did forty years ago, that's okay. Just don't tell the rest of us. Most of us aren't listening with our ears anymore. We're listening with our hearts. And somewhere between the opening riff and the final encore, the years disappear, old friends come home, and brotherhood lives forever. Rock and Roll gave us the soundtrack. Friendship gave it meaning. And loyalty made it last a lifetime.

I am your Bro, LJ James, and I'll see you around the Mountain. Follow me at Facebook.com/LJJamesTheBikerDJ