Our Concert Could Be Your Life: Indie's New Guard Pays Tribute To '80s Icons

In the decade since its publication, Michael Azerrad's book Our Band Could Be Your Life has taken on a sort of biblical quality among fans of independent music. So it's no surprise that this concert — 14 current bands performing the songs of 13 icons of indie rock at the Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan — occasionally felt like church. The lesson of the book — if nobody else is doing it, do it yourself — was repeated many times, and more than one musician credited Azerrad with clarifying the lessons of the earlier age at a moment when they seemed lost.

The audience bought into the story. At any given point you might have been standing between a fan of those icons Azerrad covered in the book and someone who came simply because they loved one of the bands on stage. (Given the number of musicians in the building, chances were good that one of them was just feet away in the crowd.) In the last decade, indie has entered the mainstream. Our Concert Could Be Your Life was a celebration of its fierce, humble roots.

Credits

The concert recording was engineered by Josh Rogosin. Photographs are by Wills Glasspiegel.