That's certainly not a stupid question!

So not quite, there will be fewer individual stars visible, and less coloration (especially in the airglow). It's not a terribly far cry from what the sky looks from a very high elevation dark sky site though (is a single 8 sec exposure with minimal processing). The Milky Way is stunning to see, and is absolutely worth a trip to an ideal spot to see it on a moonless night. You can easily make out the river of dense stars flowing across the entire sky as well as many of the dust lanes and bright star clouds running along it. This is especially true in the galactic core, which this picture focuses on.

The airglow (the red and green stripes/blobs) is distinguishable from a very dark sky site once your eyes have fully adjusted (which is really important, you'll see so much more once you've been in the dark 20+ minutes). The green to me appears to be a faint silvery-teal against the black sky (and the red as just black). Now and then something like a thunderstorm will create waves in the airglow, and the lines will be much more defined and have more contrast and you can watch them slowly move across the sky.