Old Cover, Young Book
I went to
see Peter Gabriel on Friday. Those of you who know me will know that he’s not
my musical cup of tea, but he is Husband’s, and as he’s sat through his fair
share of Morrissey gigs for me (apart from the one where he walked off stage,
and no one got to sit through that, reluctantly or otherwise!) I braced my
knees for being squashed by the seat in front and wondered how many songs I’d
know.
The concert
was a 25th anniversary concert – it’s 25 years since the album ‘So’
was released , and yes, for those who remember it being released, hasn’t the
time flown! But this silver anniversary
celebration meant that the audience was very… middle aged. I like to think I was one of the youngest
people there (even though I know I wasn’t!).
If you’d wandered into the arena by mistake, you could have been
forgiven for thinking the event was actually the Specsavers convention, so many
pairs of rimless glasses were in attendance.
The lighting technicians must have had quite a job, as there were so
many bald heads, the lights were at risk of bouncing off one and blinding
someone. There were matronly bosoms
aplenty, and a disproportionate amount of outfits that looked like they’d been
ordered from the back of a Sunday supplement.
I’ve no doubt that more than one handbag had a Lakeland plastic banana
guard in it.
And then the
music started…
Suddenly,
the venue was full of young, enthusiastic Peter Gabriel fans who just happened
to be wearing a more mature and worn in body than they had been wearing 25
years ago. Bingo wings rippled and there
was dad dancing at an intensive level, but these people were enjoying
themselves. There was a couple in front
of us, in their mid to late forties, and they danced with abandon. They even had a routine for a couple of songs
(nothing Strictly style, just some
co-ordinated clapping and hip bumping.
But they had definitely done it before).
It all made
me think. How often do we judge the book
by the cover? We make our assessments of
people in less than ten seconds, we’re hard wired to do it. How often are we right? We can’t avoid getting older, but I’m
beginning to think we might all need to let our inner 20 year old out more
often and not worry about what other people think, because the reality is that
there will always be someone ten or twenty years younger than us who thinks ‘blimey,
look at the old girl go’.
I can
guarantee that I will never, ever buy a banana cover though.
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