Gary,
"The demise of live music"..... That's a sad thing.
As far as DJs go, I'd prefer to walk into a place and find a live player(s) attempt to make some music more than listening to a DJ spin even if he/she does have more tunes than a jukebox in the corner. And the live ones don't have to be the cream of the crop. I'm probably more tolerable than most as far as the quality factor goes.

"I just hope kids can again come to appreciate live music".....I'm not totally optimistic about that.
I think there's a lack of appreciation for the human element making music and musicianship all together.
You can see it in the reduced number of students enrolled in band instrument lessons at schools and how small the school 'concert' bands have gotten. The kids aren't interested and they don't get encouraged by the parents who therefore, aren't interested. Lack of funding in school budgets for the arts don't help any.

But I do have some optimism in that the canned product will lose luster and a crave for hearing some variety of style being applied to songs will grow again.

Don,
"the guitar player was fooling with the bass man's wife. The singer got pregnant."

I was one of those weekenders, now feeling lucky that I was not a guitar player or a singer!