To celebrate the release of Caveman Chronicles, an Amazon best-selling memoir and mythic musical memoir already beloved by readers, Todd Mayo has crafted a compelling series of essays. These essays provide a glimpse into the rich narratives woven throughout the memoir, offering readers a taste of the remarkable stories that chronicle Mayo's journey.
Destination Music
By Todd Mayo
As the founder of one of the world’s most frequented destination music venues, I understand the way live music calls us to special spaces. Some music venues are singular. This singularity may be the result of its pedigree—the history of musicians who have performed there—or its location, say, if the venue is ensconced in nature in some beatific way. Sometimes it’s both. In these cases, the concert venue is elevated to a pilgrimage site. These venues are secular holy shrines that make a concert magic. Seeing your favorite band live in your hometown is special, but traveling to see your favorite band in a space that is somehow mythic? Well that can be transcendent.
The first live concert video that I ever saw was U2 from Red Rocks Amphitheater. It made me fall in love with U2, yes, but also with Red Rocks. A year or so later, U2 performed “Bad” from Live Aid in another iconic place: Wembley Stadium in London. That performance planted a seed for me. Years later, London began calling me for a different kind of musical pilgrimage.
It was early fall in 2023 and I was browsing resale tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Cincinnati. Three grand apiece? For the cheap seats! There are four of us! Fucksakes I could take everyone on a European vacation for a week for less than that! And that’s when the next thought came: … Could I?
An hour or so later, I had proven it. Flights, Airbnb, and tickets to Wembley Stadium, that musical site that had called out to me all those years ago. To take my daughter, son, and niece on a pilgrimage, on the quest of a lifetime across the ocean to see Taylor Swift in an epic venue, all for the same price as four nosebleed tickets in Cincinnati. I will do it, I thought, because I must do it.
Taylor Swift is, for so many, the genesis of a musical awakening. You never forget the artist that truly awakens you to the visceral power of music and the ways it can make you feel. Teenage hormones and deeply-felt music create Big Bangs every generation that evolve into entire universes of mythic fandom. To be a fan with that kind of awakening is to buy into everything about the artist. Yes you buy into the artistic output but also the origin story, the lyrics, the subtext, and the drama of it all. As well as the recorded music, merch, and tickets.
My exposure to Taylor Swift started in the car a couple years ago. My daughter, Maggie, was in 7th grade and we had 30 minutes per day, 5 days per week with just us, and everyday I would say two words just as we got in the car: “What album?”
This was fall of 2022, so Evermore and Folklore, two of the most recents albums, were my first deep dive into Taylor’s music. Over time, we’ve listened to everything, a few times over.
I could only stare ahead and murmur with a quivering voice, ‘Have a good day sweetie” one day as tears were rolling down my cheeks below my sunglasses while listening to “Never Grow Up” with my 12 year old daughter who was so rapidly just doing just that.
Most days when Maggie got out, Taylortime was done and I’d put on a podcast or “my own music.” The first time I left Taylor on post-Maggie’s departure was during “All Too Well,” the 10 minute version. I couldn’t have “changed the channel” if my life depended on it.
And there I was in Wembley Stadium with my Maggie and my son Jackson and niece Kells and tears were rolling down my face beneath my sunglasses again as Taylor sang “If I was a Man.” Few experiences can rival the communally cathartic experience of 90,000 mostly tweens, teenage girls, and women channeling their Taylor fandom, singing along with such raw emotion for three and a half hours. The sets, the lighting, the band, the dancers, the costume changes were all sublime. But it was the songs and the emotional power of a hundred thousand or so people channeling what those songs mean to them and sharing that feeling, live.
Sharing that feeling, live. That’s really it, isn’t it? That’s why we go. Whether we travel a few blocks or miles or halfway around the world, we go to share that feeling, live.
While in London, we saw works by Picasso, da Vinci, Monet, and Van Gogh at the National Gallery. We saw the actual Rosetta Stone, Egyptian mummies, Greek and Roman marble statues, African pottery, Chinese ceramics, buddhas, and so much more at The British Museum. We saw St. Paul's Cathedral, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, white pelicans and swans at St. James Park, street performers at Trafalgar Square, the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London. We ate fish and chips and had high tea. We saw so much in addition to the show. We experienced a journey full of art and culture throughout the history of humanity itself.
Music is a calling. For some it is a calling to create, for most it is a calling to appreciate. We made the pilgrimage not only for a destination music venue but for a destination music artist, Taylor Swift. Taylor now can make any appearance, anywhere, a destination music event. I’m glad we made the pilgrimage to Wembley to see her in her prime, and move through the eras of her own mythic, musical life. And we will never forget sharing that feeling—as a family—live.