I got an interesting reply when I tweeted my delight at having scored tickets to a performance in the first tour by Buffalo Springfield in 43 years.

Okay, it’s not the entire original band. Dewey Martin and Bruce Palmer are, sadly, no longer among us. But the opportunity to see Neil Young, Steven Stills and Richie Furay on stage performing iconic hits together was too much to pass up. They’re playing two nights at Oakland’s stunningly renovated but intimately small Fox Theater, and I figured I had only the slimmest hope of being among those to snatch up a pair of seats. They’re in the balcony, almost all the way back, but Michele and I are in.

The response to my victory tweet asked whether it wasn’t depressing to watch a bunch of old guys dragging out their old songs.

I certainly understand the thinking behind the tweet. I’ve seen several performers eeking out a living by touring fourth-tier venues and meandering through their decades-old catalog of hits. How else could the guys from Air Supply put food on the table if it weren’t for casinos with stages?

But age isn’t a certain indicator that a musician is no longer able to innovate or entertain. Phil Lesh, bass player for the Grateful Dead, is 71 but still touring and playing with musicians in various configuratons, exploring and reinvinventing old Dead music by adding musicians to the experiment (like Steve Kimock, Ryan Adams, Jackie Greene, Jimmy Herring, Warren Haynes, Robben Ford, Jorma Kaukonen, Derek Trucks, Trey Anastaso, Page McConnell, Mark Karan, and Larry Campbell. But Lesh has also introduced new tunes.

Neil Young can still bring a crowd to its feet. George Thorogood cranks out new albums with new music. Nobody would accuse Paul McCartney or Paul Simon of resting on their laurels. In fact, Elvis Costello called Simon’s new album, “So Beautiful or So What,” the best of his career.

At the end of his career and life, John Lee Hooker continued to bring crowds to their feet. Eighty-five-year-old B.B. King may need to sit when he performs, but he still produces some of the most heartfelt blues you’ll ever here. In fact, the list of aging musicians who remain at the peak of their creative and performing powers is huge. (Who’s your favorite aging rocker?)

I raise this issue not in defense of rock stars/AARP members, but because age bias is a real thing (and one, as I approach 57, of which I’m increasingly conscious). At a social media conference, an older speaker was challenged by a twenty-something audience member as, fundamentally, being too old to truly get social media.

One other interesting point: Performances by everyone listed above draw as many Millennials as Boomers.

And it’s not just a social media phenomenon. We’re entering a time when more than half the workforce will be populated by people born after 1977, yet there will still be plenty of Gen-Xers, Baby Boomers, and Traditionalists (those born before 1946) coming to work, either because they can’t imagine not working or because economic conditions leave them no choice.

To assume these workers are just biding their time and have nothing to contribute is a serious miscalculation, particularly among younger managers and leaders. Age is not an indicator of passion, creativity or the ability to stay current and engaged.

As we find ourselves in the next five or six years with five generations at work (as those born after 1997 start joining the workforce), it will be incumbent on companies to take steps to ensure the age-diverse population can work together, understand each other’s differences but celebrating and leveraging their strengths to bring the best of all ages to the table.

If Phil Lesh still has a lot to give at 71, so does a mid-level employee.