For some reason, I didn't want to tell the kids I had a ticket to a Ratdog concert.

There were 14 of us in all in the class — 13 twentysomethings and me — and I was having a little trouble bridging the generation gap. I figured that announcing I was going to a concert by a band that had its roots 15 years before they were born would do nothing to bring us closer. So I kept silent, even as many of them were discussing plans for a night on the town.

We were part of a summer study program in Boston. They were there to explore a career in urban design. I was there to get my head together after a tumultuous couple of years. We didn't seem to have much in common.

Somehow, though, when we were walking around South Boston that afternoon, I let it slip. What happened next blew me away, as we used to say in the '60s.

"Ratdog? You're going to Ratdog? No way! We want to come. Ratdog? Tonight? Hey, freakin' Mike — he was holding out on us. Ratdog!"

They started making plans, checking their wallets and text-messaging friends. In the end, eight or nine of us headed to the show.

The kids took me under their wings. They showed me how to buy half-priced tickets. They showed me how to crash the front-row seats. They showed me that the heart of rock 'n' roll is still beating. They showed me what I already knew: Good music has a way of breaking down generational barriers.

"How do you know all these Grateful Dead songs, anyway?" I asked one of the women during the break.

"My mom taught them all to me," she said. "She's kind of a Deadhead."

So we talked and danced and sang along with every song in the second set. A perfect night.

When Bob Weir and the guys returned for an encore and I heard the first few notes of "Brokedown Palace," I knew I was in trouble. The author Ken Kesey once said that he never understood the power of art until he heard Jerry Garcia play the solo part. It's a sad, soaring lullaby that always carries me back to the thoughts I was trying to escape by spending my summer on the Mainland.

"This song always tears me apart," I said, starting to cry even as I sang along lustily with every word:

Fare you well, fare you well

I loved you more than words can tell

Listen to the river sing sweet songs

to rock my soul.

Then the beautiful young woman whose mom was a Deadhead reached out and gave me a big hug. "It's going to be all right," she said.

Once again, the music had worked its magic.

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.