Ryan Tramel

The Goo Goo Dolls played this concert on July 4, 2004. There’s a strong case to be made that—down to the exact day—it represented the peak of American history. Post-9/11 unity still defined our social ethos. The country was finally overcoming the shock of the horrifying attack, but it was still thought about, discussed, memorialized daily. The war in Iraq, though divisive, still looked winnable (at least possibly, by some). George W. Bush and John Kerry were running in a contentious election, but their campaigns would end up looking positively gentlemanly compared to anything that would follow beginning with the Obama era four years later. The stock market had recovered from the dot-com collapse, and the housing market was still booming. The Global Financial Crisis that would bring ruination to countless retirees and permanently set back the earnings potential of millions of millennials remained years ahead. Nobody outside Wall Street had ever heard the term “subprime mortgage” or “collateralized debt obligation.” Facebook has recently launched, auguring the age of social media. But its usage was still confined to a few thousand early-adopting users at selective colleges; it would be months before it became a household name, years before its algorithms turbocharged cultural—and political—division, incentivized the mass production of digital slop, and fried the collective dopamine receptors of mankind. The first iPhone was just a sketch on a white board in Cupertino. Text messaging and mobile email barely existed; office workers could leave their cubicles and not think about work until the next morning. Music was purchased on CDs, movies were rented at Blockbuster, homework was turned in on paper. MTV still played music videos. Kids could be kids. Reasonable adults could have reasonable debates about reasonable political differences without crashing out or canceling relationships. Culture wasn’t defined by irony, discourse wasn’t consumed by political polarization. The world wasn’t yet digital; it was governed by people—our logic, our emotions, our human hearts—not by algorithms in distant data centers. It was all still authentically human. It was all still real. And the Goo Goo Dolls went up on stage in Buffalo, New York, on the Fourth of July, with nothing but raw spirit, and absolutely crushed Iris in the rain. We didn’t know it at the time—wouldn’t realize it until years later—but that was the zenith for us. The peak of America’s exceptionalism, the apogee of unbridled Americana. That was the top. I will always love this video.