Am I too old for music festivals now?
Am I too old for music festivals now?
Three awkward conversations with three strangers about my age at Laneway.
It started at the front gate.
“Can I see some ID please?” said the security guard.
I pulled out my driver’s licence and handed it over.
“That’s the oldest one you’re going to see today,” I told him.
He laughed.
I looked to his left.
The security guard next to him was stifling his own giggles behind his hand.
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” he said, “but now you’ve said it, I guess it’s OK.”
That was how I was greeted at the entrance to Laneway last week, a musical festival I have always felt welcome at.
At this year’s event, a supersized comeback after four years away that let 16-year-olds in for the first time and aligned Laneway a little closer to the Big Day Out, that wasn’t always the case.
I started going to Laneway in 2009, when Florence and the Machine and The xx headlined the Britomart-based Australian import, a buzzy, boutique, indie alternative to the bigger festivals flourishing back then.
I was 31 years old then.
I had no kids.
I’m 45 now.
I have two of them.
Fuck.
Just typing that number, it hit me.
I’m old now.
Am I too old to attend Laneway?
As AJ Tracey performed in the blinding afternoon sun, I was made to feel that way.
The UK rapper was wearing a football shirt.
I didn’t know which team it was, so I grabbed my phone, snapped a pic and prepared to send it to my football-mad teenage son to find out.
“Good zoom,” yelled the kid behind me.
“What?!” I yelled back.
“I said, ‘Good zoom!’” he hollered in appreciation of the abilities of my iPhone camera.
I explained the situation.
I wanted to know which football team AJ Tracey supported.
“I’m sending this photo to my son,” I said.
A puzzled expression spread across his face.
Clearly, I’d said something he couldn’t quite fathom.
“Your … your son?” he said.
I nodded, sighed and turned back to the stage.
I’ve had conversations about my age with people at music festivals before.
At Hidden, a weird 2019 festival that I only attended to see my favourite rapper JID perform, someone ran up to me and inquired about my age.
“I’m 40,” I told them.
“30?!” they responded, both mishearing my answer, then acting like I’d given them a number that couldn’t quite make it through their frontal cortex.
At Skrillex last year, someone stumbled out of the moshpit, embraced me then whispered in my ear, “How old are you, brother?”
“I’m 45,” I said.
“Phwoar,” he replied. “You still look pretty good.”
I just laughed.
But on both of those occasions it only happened once.
At Laneway, it happened for a third time.
The sun was setting. UMO was blistering through a huge headlining set on one stage, and Steve Lacy was setting the scene for Stormzy over on the other.
“Who’s that?” asked a stranger in one of the R18 drinking pens, pointing his beer towards the main stage.
“Steve Lacy,” I replied. “I’m heading there now.”
“Oh,” he said.
He paused, raised an eyebrow, and said: “Aren’t you … too old for Steve Lacy?”
The question hung in the air.
I didn’t know how to respond.
Maybe that wasn’t his question at all.
Maybe what he really wanted to ask me was something else.
Maybe it was this: Aren’t you too old for Laneway?
Being at a huge multi-stage event again – running into people I hadn’t seen in ages, enjoying beers in the sun while seeing some incredible live acts – made me so happy.
I felt my soul recovering from the hideous debacle my family and I were forced to endure last year.
Music festivals have always been my happy place.
They still are.
I don’t want to stop going to them.
I never want to stop going to them.
But I also don’t want to be the old man in the corner, stinking the place up for the kids.
How do you know when you’re too old for a music festival?
Is it when three strangers make separate inquiries about your age in the space of a 10-hour day?
They’re not rhetorical questions.
I really want to know the answer.
Because I don’t have one.
The week ahead….
The biggest event in music happens today when the Super Bowl halftime show kicks off … any minute now. You can stream Usher and co via the TVNZ+ app.
I really enjoyed all the Synthony coverage over the weekend. While I couldn’t make it, I have covered this orchestral extravaganza before and the homegrown event shows no sign of slowing down. Honestly, this event’s rise continues to amaze. The Herald has the staggering numbers, and a review.
I’ve also been enjoying all of the Big Day Out coverage for the festival’s 30th anniversary (it started here in 1994). TVNZ has a delightful interview with Jon Toogood about Shihad’s explosive late-afternoon sets, and Hauraki host Greg Prebble interviewed a bunch of acts for this podcast. Is it time for a comeback?
It’s a quiet week for concerts but that will change very soon with about a dozen big-name rock acts heading here over the next three weeks. More on that soon but for now, Blanco White is at the Tuning Fork on Friday, Camp a Low Hum kicks off in Wainuiomata the same day, and Hybrid Minds headline a new dance festival at Trusts Arena on Saturday.
Lastly, SZA tickets go on general release today at 2pm. As my awful pre-sale experience proved, it’s rough out there, so good luck. I still haven’t been refunded by Ticketmaster even though I was charged twice for two tickets, a total of $1054.88 that meant I spent all weekend with a maxed out credit card…
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At the last Laneway I went to, some dude yarned to me for a bit and said I had a "crunchy granola Mum thing going on". I wasn't even a mum then...and I was 34. That was six years ago! What would they say now...ha
I thanked the checkout "age verification officer?" for looking at my face the last time I purchased a bottle of wine at the supermarket.
Sometimes I'm old without face recognition - a quick glace at the back of my head is all that is required to verify my vintage. Apparently. Sigh.
As for festivals - I'm no good in crowds, so I experience these things vicariously through the power of your words, and others.
So, please keep on..keeping on, Chris.
This may require that you are sometimes a subject of curiosity - for those more age sensitive, youthful festival attendees, but that surely also makes you a rock star of sorts?
And by my calculation, by that measure alone, you have many, many more years of festival appearances ahead of you.
Rock on! she said, verifying her own age.