Aging & Wisdom Quote by James Young

Young is doing something sly here: praising today’s crowds while gently re-mythologizing the old ones. The line starts like a standard veteran-rocker observation about audience energy, then swerves into a cultural diagnosis. “Marijuana fog” isn’t just a sensory detail; it’s shorthand for an era when rock concerts were packaged as a chemically assisted escape. By framing that haze as something that has thinned out, he’s not wagging a finger so much as rewriting the terms of authenticity: the thrill is still there, but it’s earned in a cleaner, more self-directed way.

The phrasing matters. “In this day in age” (the slightly clunky colloquialism) signals he’s speaking as a working musician, not a theorist. “It seems to me” tacks on humility, a soft landing that keeps the comment from sounding like a moral verdict. That hedging is strategic: plenty of modern shows are still drenched in substances, but Young is reaching for a broader vibe shift - from druggy communal blur to an overt, performative high. “More naturally exuberant” reads like an endorsement of audiences who show up ready to participate, scream, film, and turn the concert into proof-of-life content.

Contextually, it’s a Boomer musician negotiating legacy in a post-’70s ecosystem. He’s reassuring longtime fans that the band still “got a strong response,” while also flattering younger crowds as emotionally present rather than chemically distant. The subtext is survival: the music can outlast the haze because the audience’s appetite for release has simply changed its form.