Stuck up in the balcony, we’re so far away from the stage that the figures standing on it are the size of Lego men. We weren’t quick or savvy enough to get standing tickets.
To my left, a woman whistles, piercing, deafening and incessant. She keeps it up for an hour.
The circumstances aren’t ideal and, yet, it doesn’t matter. I am in heaven, seeing one of the UK’s most popular bands of the day play live in Aberdeen’s Music Hall – four Brighton lads sporting the customary messy hair and skinny jeans of that period, known as The Kooks.
It’s 2006; I am freshly 16 years old, and indie guitar rock is having quite the coming-of-age moment. As am I.
I only went to my first gig a few months ago, underage and terrified of being found out. I needn’t have worried.
The anticipation and sense of occasion, the camaraderie, the freeing joy of singing and dancing along: it was transcendent. I felt the bass drum pound hard in my chest like a heartbeat for the first time and every bad thing in life melted away; I fell in love with live music and I needed more.
So, obviously, when BBC Radio 1 announces a One Big Weekend music festival for Dundee with The Kooks on the bill, my (equally obsessed) best friend and I are SO there. Except… despite it being all we want in the world, we miss out in the lightning-fast ticket lottery, and all our attempts to get on air to win a pair fail miserably. We run out of ideas and, heartbroken, we are so NOT there.
The closest thing to time travel
A mere 17 years later, Radio 1 heads back up the road to Dundee. I feel the need to avenge my disappointed, bitter teenage self. And, somehow, I make it through a digital queue of thousands to snag two tickets. I don’t invite but inform my best friend – we are SO there.
The night before, eating pizza, we switch on the festival’s live broadcast to – as I believe the kids say – check the vibes. The young crowd are scantily clad in neon colours, clearly in their element, dancing to electronic DJ sets in the lesser-spotted Scottish sunshine.
We baulk – at the music, at the fashion, at our own decrepitude. These are not the vibes we’re looking for. When the hell did we get so old?
Spooked, we retreat to YouTube and find the TV coverage of 2006’s One Big Weekend, which some good samaritan has uploaded in full. It’s a museum piece – the closest thing to time travel. Our nostalgia is instant and almost overwhelming.
There’s poker-straight hair and block fringes, vest tops layered over and over, strings of plastic pearls as far as the eye can see. Bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The View, Hot Chip, We Are Scientists (swoon) and, of course, The all-important Kooks perform to rapturous audiences. This was our time; these were our people.
“The best thing about gigs back then,” my friend observes, “is that nobody was trying to film the whole thing on their phone.”
Almost immediately, the TV camera cuts to a flock of flip phones, held aloft and recording as The Ordinary Boys play. We all fall about laughing, both at the comedic timing and the idea that any of us even bothered with those grainy, ridiculously low-quality cameras.
But our giggles are a wee bit sheepish, too – after all, we’ve just caught ourselves falling into that hypocritical “kids today” trap. What IS that racket? What ARE you wearing? When the HELL did we get so old?
This is their time
The next day – getting ready, on the shuttle bus, marvelling at the festival site set-up – my best friend and I are buzzing. And so, of course, are the teenagers all around us. I imagine how electric my elation would be if I were in their shoes; if, 17 years before, we’d managed to get those all-important tickets.
In 2023, the Big Weekend bands aren’t all necessarily my cup of tea, and maybe the outfits aren’t either. But, as things get going, I find I can relate entirely to every single 16-year-old belting their heart out, snapping photos with their pals, soaking up the cultural moment they’re living through. This is their time; these are their people.
I start the weekend feeling old and cynical, but end it energised. This, I realise, will be the weekend lots of those young festivalgoers fall in love with live music – that love will change and evolve over time, but never fade.
And feeling part of something – a scene, a movement – as it happens, well, there’s nothing quite like it, is there?
It’s why I can fill a dancefloor with 30 and 40-somethings whose worries disappear if I blast The Kooks and The Libertines and some Arctic Monkeys of the right vintage. It’s why guys my dad’s age still pogo dance to punk, and why your grandparents who met at the dancing still have a hell of a jive up their sleeves.
Music and fashion is always going to change, but excitable teenagers, in essence, never really will. Let them be.
Alex Watson is Head of Comment for The Press & Journal and still knows all the words
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