I love a good music gig I do. Though recently any bands I want to see appear to be avoiding my hometown as if it’d fallen off the map. Bizarre really, that the buzzing metropolis of Dublin should be so thoroughly snubbed when it’s full of people who routinely shell out 50 quid a ticket without blinking.
So, in an unprecedented surge of pro-activity, I’ve taken a few trips to see how things are run abroad. The first thing I noticed was the surprising amount of parents there chaperoning unembarrassed-looking teens. I think it’s great that a parent would care enough about the welfare of their child to make the effort to go along and torture their eardrums for a few hours/days, it was actually quite touching. That said, I’m all kinds of grateful that Irish parents don’t do this, I can only IMAGINE the hell of mortification my mother and/or father would have wreaked.
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| The mother option - less swearing and racism, but more pointing, talking and general attention-drawing |
Not to mention the fact that having a parent around would definitely affect my whole look. Shunning the passé practice of chemical alteration, I prefer to dabble in what I like to call “wardrobe alchemy”, creating outfits that wouldn’t usually see the light of day (often for good reason). At festivals in particular I do tend to go over the top, perhaps, slightly. Really, I’ll admit it gives me a chance to give an airing to clothes I, like some sort of magpie, bought on the basis of “Ooh, shiny”, thus justifying spending rent money on a scarf. In retrospect I generally end up looking like a child who’s raided her mothers wardrobe, albeit the mother in question would have to be a 1970’s Miss America drag queen with a penchant for glitter. Any excuse to wear a tiara/bikini/wellies combo really. Though my ensembles have earned me attention from the press (2001 Indo fashion column, I’m FAMOUS people!) I do tend to get asked if I’m selling drugs. A lot. But I digress.
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| I'm ready for my close-up! What do you mean, "too much glare"? |
My first encounter with the parental chaperone was at a 3-day festival in France, where I was trying to sell a spare ticket. (Note – I was only looking for face value for the ticket, your intrepid blogger ain’t no two-bit tout. Though touting would stick it to a certain evil ticket company…). Anyhow, this guy approached me enquiring about the ticket for his son, a young bashful-looking teen who stood behind him. So there I was negotiating in my best formal Leaving Cert level French, thinking I was doing a great job, but the guy didn’t seem too convinced it wasn’t some kind of scam, or that the ticket was even real. Under normal circumstances I might have been annoyed, but I was aware that I was attempting to conduct a business transaction with someone’s dad while dressed as a 28-year-old Rainbow Brite LSD nightmare. I finally managed to reassure him and he turned to his son, gave him a pep-talk in rapid French which was universally understandable as “Have a good time, behave yourself. Here’s some money, don’t tell your mother”. I was so moved I knocked a tenner off the ticket price and jokingly told the dad not to worry, that I’d keep an eye on him. I’ll never know if it was my outlandish attire or dire grasp of the French language, but neither the man nor his son seemed too happy with that idea…
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| Je suis Le Cool |
At a recent gig, I ended up standing beside a lady who was holding coats for two younger versions of herself, either her daughters or clones. Assumed offspring were seemingly oblivious to her very presence, not talking and choosing to stand as we were, a distance of two people-deep away from the stage. The lady reminded me of a little Irish mammy in her hairstyle and clothes, and she obviously didn’t do this kind of thing too often, or she’d know that a nice woolly cardigan is generally a bad idea for an indoor rock gig. In Spain.
I was instantly struck with a desire to protect this Lil Mam from any kind of harm should a bit of moshing break out, as well as sudden self-consciousness that my top was too low and I looked stupid dancing. Now the thing about that is, I ALWAYS look stupid dancing, limbs flailing about aimlessly, hair flying. In fact, stupid dancing and debob hairdo is kinda my thing – which made me outraged to see it emulated by a terrible band recently, with a debob-haired woman thrashing about to the sounds of sped-up videogame music. It’s been done. But not in front of someone’s mam. So needless to say, Lil Mam had me on guard. Soon, I’m not only reducing my jumping about to folk-band levels, (gentle sway, potential for lighter action) I’m also acting as a human shield around her, and failing to be nonchalant about it.
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| What? I always dance like this... |
And then, the unimaginable happened.
Swearing.
Raised as I was to have a mortal fear of the vague notion of “disrespecting my elders” swearing ranks right up there with calling an adult by their first name (still can’t manage that). It was the worst kind of swearing too. The lead singer suddenly introduced the next song with “This song is all about… F*****G!” I turned in wide-eyed horror to see Lil Mam’s reaction – nothing. Either she was one of those extremely progressive mothers you might see on Skins or some such (who I’m assured actually exist) or, more likely, her comprehension of the English language was zero – i.e. cannot even identify swears.
I relaxed a bit after this, and Lil Mam seemed to too. At one point I saw her tapping away on the pile of coats in time to “Yes It’s F*****g Political” and another time (one of the high points of the gig for me) she seemed to actually be jumping along with the crowd. Though perhaps she was just trying to see the stage – since she was standing beside me, her view was also obstructed by the giant that follows me to gigs and stands directly in front of me.
Just as I started to really relax, thinking Lil Mam was getting into the spirit and enjoying herself, the lead singer crowdsurfed over our heads and, just like that, Lil Mam promptly disappeared, coats and all, never to be seen again. I’d like to think she burrowed out to freedom, or at the very least the coats stopped her getting impaled on the lead singer’s spiked boots, but I’ll never know for sure...
