4 hours ago
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This year, assuming I can get a ticket, I will be seeing Oasis on their reunion tour. I will be surrounded, I expect, by thousands of fellow middle-aged men lustily singing “You and I are gonna live forever” – while knowing some of us won’t even make it through the decade.
Lately I have noticed that much of the music I listen to and the gigs I attend now have their roots in the past. I first saw Oasis when I was 23, and my greatest hope for this summer’s concert is that it might briefly transport me back to the 1990s. I saw Pulp in 2023 and it was incredible – but mostly because it brought back memories of seeing the band decades ago. The same goes for Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, who I saw last year. For my generation, gigs seem to function as temporary time machines that give you a chance to revisit the glory days.
The only concert I attended last year that was not drenched in nostalgia was Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. It was the most successful tour in history, and Swift is the biggest pop star on the planet, so it should not be entirely surprising that I had a total blast at the shows (yes, I went twice). But, according to some, I had no business even being there. A recent survey suggested that four in 10 of people between 25 and 34 think the idea of people in their 50s and 60s attending a Swift gig is embarrassing. It made me wonder how I would have felt, when I went to see Madonna in 1990 as a 19-year-old, if I had spotted anyone in their 50s in the audience. I suspect I would have thought they were quite cool.
I have never cared about musical snobbery. When I was in my late teens I went to see Billy Joel on the River of Dreams tour while my friends were seeing the Stone Roses at Spike Island. (In 2013 I went to see Ian Brown at Finsbury Park in London to try to recall a youth I had never had.) In my early 20s I would go, inevitably alone, to see the likes of the Everly Brothers, Lou Reed and Tin Machine. I did so because I loved the music – or David Bowie in the case of Tin Machine – whether it was considered cool or embarrassing. That does not mean I cannot hazard a guess as to why some younger people may feel it is a little shameful to be in your 50s or 60s and enjoying music that is so obviously aimed at a much younger audience.
In an age where music seems increasingly split down generational lines, crossing them can reek of the musical version of a midlife crisis. The vast majority of the audience at the Swift concert was young, female and sporting rather more glitter than me, but I did not feel at all uncomfortable because I was there to accompany my daughter, Laila – and anyone who might have glanced over to me would have firmly put me in the “Swiftie dad” box and carried on singing. If I had gone alone I would have been much more self-conscious. In effect, I am in a codependent relationship with my daughter – she needs a parent to go with her to concerts and I need a child. I am dreading the day she is old enough to go to them without me.
When Laila was very young I influenced her musical tastes – which is why she wanted to see Springsteen and Paul McCartney with me – but now she is influencing mine. She introduced me to Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, as well as less well-known bands such as Sunday (1994). I could claim I only listen to these artists for the sake of a closer relationship with Laila, but the truth is that I really like their music. I feel grateful to have been introduced by my daughter to these artists because otherwise my musical diet would have remained largely unchanged since the 1990s – and be all the poorer for it.
The first time I saw Oasis on stage was at the Haçienda in 1994. My abiding memory of that gig is feeling a rush of euphoria and joy. Swift’s music may, to quote an artist from my generation, say nothing to me about my life, but it is smart and sophisticated, and watching her on stage I felt that same rush of euphoria and joy. It felt thrilling to be among young people happily creating their formative musical memories, and it felt liberating to be at a concert focused on the present, rather than looking back to a youth now half a world away.
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Sarfraz Manzoor is an author, broadcaster and screenwriter
