This post comes to you from the SSE Hydro where I was waiting for an Imagine Dragons’ gig to start – and then finish.
It’s another first – parent of a concert-goer too young to go on their own.
There are many firsts – words, steps, booze cupboard breeches – you anticipate. But others, like the first time someone vomits on you so comprehensively you feel hot chunks slithering under your collar and down your skin, were not in the brochure.
Going to a gig as responsible adult isn’t on many people’s wish lists. If fact, it doesn’t even have a name or, you know, a hashtag. How about #mumgig, #popparent or #dontmindmeimonlyheretodrivethemhomeagainlater?
It’s clear I’m not alone. Among the squealy teens, there are many of us still sitting through the standy bits, heads bobbing gently. But that’s better than the alternative – shame-shrivelled teens beside freaking-out oldies. “Sit down, mum” through clenched teeth.
Still, get-down-with-the-kids mum probably isn’t sneaking a look at the Archers tweetalong, though. Is she?
I’m sure taking the kids to a gig is new thing. Back in our day, you might have got dropped off and picked up, but if you weren’t old enough to go in alone, tough. My first was David Essex in Carlisle, probably ’82. An act of uncoolness no amount of irony could fix.
In the end, I quite liked Imagine Dragons in all their bombastic antheming, but, then again, I quite like David Essex too and I don’t care who knows it now.