An Age Old Question

Or a question of age

This was originally going to be a comment on someone else’s Substack.  But the more I thought about what to say, the more it grew beyond a mere flippant comment, tossed away for comedic effect.  No, this was a serious question that demanded a serious answer.  Well, as close to serious as I can muster.

Over at the excellent Boiler Room, the other day, Chris Schulz asked the question: “Am I too old for music festivals now?”

Chris asked the question in relation to going to Laneway as a 45-year-old.

The short answer to Chris’s question is an emphatic “hell, no”.

But then I was always going to say that, as someone who attended Laneway 2019 as a 57-year-old, and who was downright excited for Laneway 2023 as a 61-year-old. I mean, Haim, Phoebe Bridgers, Fontaines DC, Yard Act and The Beths, all on the same day?  How could I not be there?  Stupid Auckland weather, it turned out, was how I could not be there.

Yes, rocking up to Laneway when you’re on the verge of collecting your NZ Super carries with it a certain amount of baggage.  When you arrive, for example, they have to check your ID.  This is a legal requirement.  Yes, it is funny up to a point to be ID’d at age 57, but it also comes with the risk that the person checking the ID will look at it and then look at you and then speak very slowly and clearly, like you are a bit senile.

“Sir, are you sure you should be here? You do know that this is a festival of the popular music of today, right? This is not some baby-boomer thing, where you lounge round in deckchairs in a vineyard, listening to a band long past their prime roll out their greatest hit and a bunch of filler material.  Today, sir, will be full of young people, standing up, maybe even dancing and/or enjoying the effects of alcohol and drugs.  There is no telling what might happen. And some of the artists will be rap artists, so there will not only be bad language, but they will use a lot of words that you have no idea what they mean. And it will be loud, and it does go on quite late, probably well past your bedtime. So, I ask you again, sir: are you sure you’re in the right place?”

Laneway 2019 was the first time I was ever truly made acutely aware of my age, at a music festival.  But not in a way I could have expected.  Yes, we went with the kids.  Yes, we got there early to see a band fronted by the son of a friend of ours and full of people our kids went to school with.  Yes, the kids shot up the front while we stood at the back with the proud parents and remarked how the band sounded a bit like the bands we grew up listening to.  All of this I expected.  This is the generational nature of music – the passing of the baton.

It was what happened later that brought age fairly and squarely into play.

I was with Tania, my lovely wife and excellent music festival companion.  We were standing in the shade of an Albert Park tree, watching some act neither of us had ever heard of, when a young man approached.  Would it be okay if he stood with us?  We said yes and together we stood, in the shade.

It transpired that the young man had gone too hard, too early and was on the verge of freaking out.  He thought that maybe hanging with this nice, grey-haired old couple for a bit might chill him out.  So we hung and we chatted and it turned out that the young man, while not a rocket scientist, worked for a company that makes rockets, which was really interesting to me and Tanz.  Then, after a bit, he’d calmed down enough to head back into the fracas.  He thanked us and walked away and we never saw him again.

This, in itself, would have been interesting, but blow me down if another variation of the same thing didn’t go and happen, later in the day.

By now Tanz and I are sitting at a picnic table, taking the weight off our ageing legs, having a wee wine. A whole other young man asks if he can join us.  Sure, we say, and he sits.  Turns out this young man worked in commercial real estate and was sad because he didn’t have a girlfriend.  I wondered to myself if the two things were connected.  He wondered out loud if getting really wasted at Laneway 2019 might solve his relationship woes.

In our role as roving music-festival-life-coaches Tanz and I advised him that: (a) a music festival probably wasn’t going to be where he meets his truly beloved; but (b) if, by chance, he did, then being really wasted may not leave the desirable first impression.

The young man did not take our advice and decided that getting wasted was the way forward for him.

He asked me if I wanted some pingas.

I thanked him for the offer but declined graciously.

He looked at me incredulously.

“Man, how old do you have to be to turn down drugs?”

“Old enough that you have no idea what drug it is you’re being offered,” I replied.

The young real estate man moved along soon after, presumably to get wasted.  Meanwhile I got out my phone and Googled what pingas are/is.

All of which is a long-winded way of getting to the point that while the short answer to Chris’s question is ‘no’, there is actually another question, within that question, that must be taken into consideration – and that question is: which age are you talking about?

I, for example, have many ages, all on the go at the same time.

I have my Actual Physical Age, which is currently 62.

I do not like this age.  Partly this is because I work in an undeniably ageist industry, even though it will fervently deny it.  The entertainment industry is obsessed with finding the new and the young.  Network people are obsessed with bringing in younger viewers, even though none of them watch network anything these days.  To feed this craving, producers desperately want to find that young new writer and those hot new actors.  Being experienced apparently means you speak in a tired old voice, no matter what you are saying.

Meanwhile, in my head, the one that sits atop my ageing body, I have a Creative Age of, I think, 27.

To the Creative me the world is an exciting place, full of possibilities.  At 27, I’ve got a few years under my belt, but I am still brimming with youthful energy and great stories, fighting to find their way onto a screen near you.

Tempering and honing my Creative Age is my Behavioural Age, which is a solid 35.

This means I’ve lived.  I’ve made mistakes.  I’ve learnt a few lessons along the way. Like how getting really wasted at a music festival usually means you miss all the bands you came to see because you were asleep under a tree, which thus rendered the whole day a complete waste of money.

No, at 35 you can trust me.  It sends the message to the world that here is a guy who has seen a few things and now has it sussed.  A man of quiet confidence, who knows what life is all about.

Which is problematic for my Emotional Age, which is 19.  Here I am but a baby and I have no clue what anything is about and why the world functions the way it does.  Trump, climate change, David Seymour in a position of something approaching power - everything sucks and makes no sense and there is no hope for humanity so why bother.

Luckily, I have my Essential Age to keep my Emotional Age at bay.  I don’t know the exact number of my Essential Age but it is somewhere between my Actual Physical Age and my Behavioural Age.  My Essential Age is the best true measure of me that I am aware of. 

Actually, Chris, come to think of it my Essential Age is probably somewhere around 45 – certainly not too old to go to Laneway.

But probably far too old for Rhythm and Vines.

So there you go, question asked and question answered.