Creativity Quote by Paul Kantner

There is a special kind of shock reserved for counterculture true believers: the moment you realize the crowd that supposedly shares your values can still turn on you like any other mob. Paul Kantner’s line lands because it punctures the romantic myth of the 1960s rock audience as inherently enlightened. It’s funny in a dry, disbelieving way, but the humor is a defense mechanism. He’s not just describing property damage; he’s describing a betrayal of the implied contract between band and fans.

The phrasing matters. “An audience of ours” carries a proprietary intimacy, as if the relationship is curated and stable: our people, our scene, our bubble. “Wouldn’t have expected” frames the violence as a category error, not merely bad behavior. Kantner isn’t shocked that crowds can riot; he’s shocked that his crowd could. That’s the subtext: the counterculture didn’t abolish aggression, it just gave it better slogans.

In context, it echoes the late-60s/early-70s comedown, when concerts became flashpoints for everything the music claimed to transcend: policing, drugs, ego, factional politics, and the basic thrill of breaking things. “Equipment” is a telling choice. Bands are often accused of being corporate sellouts; here, the band’s tools become the target, as if destroying the machinery of art is a shortcut to authenticity. Kantner’s quiet astonishment reads like a lament for a scene that mistook disorder for liberation and confused intimacy with immunity.