Last weekend I saw Stevie Wonder at the Co-op live arena in Manchester. A fantastic gig at no doubt the worst venue I’ve ever been to.

I was going to blog about Stevie Wonder, but there’s nothing much to say. After a shaky start his voice was still very strong, the band was, naturally, excellent, the hits kept on coming. I think he’s one of the major songwriters of the twentieth century and I’m not alone. One of the singers began his solo set by repeatedly saying “Mr Stevie Wonder. The Legend”. I understood what he meant. I was slightly awestruck to be in the same building as him. This man was sharing the same stage.

But this isn’t a piece of music criticism. It’s more an observation of the changing world. There was a great variety of people there that night, young and old. I myself went with my children who are big Stevie fans. There were undoubtedly a lot of music fans. But I don’t think that music is important to people nowadays as it was in the past.

That’s not to say that there aren’t lots of young people really into music nowadays. I regularly play in bands with young people whose musicianship far higher than I remember when I was younger. Teenagers nowadays have access to a far wider range of music through things like Spotify than was available to me as a child, and as result of this they have far more eclectic tastes.

But music doesn’t form such a big part of most teenagers identity as it once did. When I was at secondary school you liked Pop, or Northern Soul or Heavy Rock. It was a question you always asked when you met someone. What sort of music do you like? It was understood that it was part of your identity. I remember how one girl in my form would always be late to afternoon registration as she’d stayed home to listen for the number one record on the Thursday charts. I remember the excitement or disappointment when we heard that Duran Duran or Adam and the Ants had reached the top spot.

I don’t see that same level of tribal loyalty now, at least for music. That’s not a good or bad thing. That’s just the way it is.

I saw it at the Stevie Wonder concert. Many of the audience members spent most of their time shuttling between their seats, the bar and the toilet. That’s partly the result of the modern practice of seeing an audience as an opportunity to maximise its revenue stream, something the Co-op live has taken to an extreme (Did I mention how much I hated the place and the contempt they showed their customers?).

But it’s not just that. I’ve been to lots of gigs where I’ve left before the last song. But not for an artist I really cared about.

You have to wonder at the number of people who got up and left as the last song began on Saturday night. This was a gig where the tickets cost a minimum of £100. It was likely the first and last time people were going to see this artist, a legend in many people’s eyes.

Music is, of course, very personal. A song that some love can leave others cold. But this was the last song of a gig. It was Stevie Wonder playing Superstition. What on earth did they expect to see? Were they surprised? Were they disappointed. Or would they rather just get off early so they could have another drink?

Like Milhouse said: “You’ve changed man, it used to be all about the music.”