What do you know about Coachella? I suspect that unless you are a bit of a music obsessive, then maybe the answer is a Paul Daniels type “not a lot” answer. Hell, I surround myself with music for most of the day and I know that Coachella is a music and arts festival that takes place every year in California. If it wasn’t for Steve Lamacq, who attends the festival every year for BBC 6 Music, I’d know even less. The line-up is truly staggering, including many of my bucket list artists, although I’d openly admit that I am not familiar with the names of most of the acts. However, The Guardian hack Emma Brockes writes about the festival not to debate or review the actual content, but to have a pop at middle aged men in general and former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in particular.
Trudeau attended the festival with his girlfriend Katy Perry and Brockes writes: “It’s that photo of Trudeau in college-age uniform – scruffy jeans, white T-shirt and a baseball cap worn backwards in what looks to me like a definite reach for a modern-day JFK Jr vibe (good luck with that, Trudeau!) – that invites us to consider the relationship of middle-aged people to music festivals and conclude that, at some point, perhaps the dignified thing is to call it a day.” Ha fucking ha, is my reaction, without the trace of a smile. Trudeau is 54, you see, 13 years old than his girlfriend and it seems to me she is reading all sorts of things into both Trudeau’s attendance and appearance at the festival.
I am a good deal older than Trudeau and my clothing of choice is jeans and T shirts, along with a baseball cap (worn the right way round) if the mood takes me. I do not attend festivals because frankly at my age I prefer to sit at gigs, I’ve always hated camping and need to know where my nearest bathroom is, but I am not going to be told by some privileged, middle class, ex Oxford University student (as literally all Guardian hacks are) to “call it a day“.
While I don’t go to festivals – to be fair, I never have – I do attend plenty of gigs where many, though not all, people are younger than me. Frankly, it doesn’t concern me one jot. It’s no one’s business. And while my age suggests I should be wearing neatly ironed slacks, a collar and tie and a pair of Hush Puppies, my choice is to wear what I feel most comfortable in.
Brockes makes it clear that those who have always attended festivals and continue to do so into late middle age are not the target of her article: “Anyway, it’s not those people I’m talking about; it’s the ones who only started going to Coachella when they hit 50 and who fail to understand that, if you have to consult the Reddit thread, “Am I too old for Coachella?”, then the answer is probably yes.” What absolute tosh. Why should reaching a certain age prevent you from doing something new? What if you take up a sport in old age in order to help you stay fit? Why should you be deemed too old for it? I am forever buying and listening to music by artists who are just breaking through. Am I supposed to say: “Oh hang. I do like this music but because some second rate hack at a newspaper says I’m too old for it so I should return to Boom, Smooth or Greatest Hits radio and get stuck in to the music of the past?”
I find the whole subject incredibly ageist. Why should I not enjoy the music of Karol G, Turnstile, Wednesday, the Strokes, TEED, Alex G and Little Simz? I don’t like these artists because they’re cool and trendy. Christ, I’ve never been cool and trendy and I’m not about to start now.
Perhaps, it’s because I am so old that I find Trudeau and Perry to be an attractive couple? And when I see them photographed at Coachella, looking suitably chilled-out and happy, I find it rather heartwarming. Brockes clearly doesn’t feel the same way: “These people are, of course, perfectly entitled to enjoy popular music. But glancing at the photo of Trudeau and Perry or, in years past at Coachella, Danny DeVito, often pictured backstage, it’s hard not to feel one’s spirits sink.” No, love. It’s reading miserable, cheap, pissing-taking articles like yours that make one’s spirits sinks.
Whatever happened to live and live? Quite a lot, it appears, if you’re penning a cheap clickbait piece for a newspaper that is not just going to hell in a handcart politically, it’s doing so culturally, too.
If you are over 50 and you find something new that you like, then why not celebrate? And then ignore those who want to put you in a box labelled old, where all you are allowed to do is drink tea and biscuits, watch Bargain Hunt and cling desperately to the past before you shuffle off your mortal coil.
Has it touched a raw nerve with me? No, not really. When I go to a gig with my sons and I am clearly one of the older people in the audience, do I think I really shouldn’t be here because some newspaper hack said so? If people think I’m too old to do things I want to do, then that’s their problem, not mine.
