I am having difficulty writing the blog, or indeed doing anything which requires a level of concentration, because I am in excitement overload as the Download Festival grows ever nearer.
I suspect I am more excited now than in all my years of concert going in my teen years. Back then I had the vanity of youth. My body went in and out in all the right places and I was under the illusion that it would never be any different. Income was given not earned and wholly disposable. And, like all my peers at the time we believed we were the first to discover everything and no subsequent beings would have as much fun/creativity/excitement as us because we were unique.
I would come out of my bedroom as we got ready to leave for the latest rock concert and ask Mum for a review of my outfit. It was usually something along the lines of 'you look like a New York hooker'. I couldn't have been more pleased and Mum never worried, as she was always by my side at the concerts. I was playing extreme dress up but with a safety net.
My mum always contended that concerts (of all genre though rock and metal were our preferred choices) were an integral part of my education. As such she wrote some ingenious letters to my school of why I had to leave early that day. Indeed to see David Bowie meant missing an end of year exam. As I recall I 'had an appointment with a dermatologist which could not be rearranged.'
I expected to enjoy myself, to be entertained and to be adored, because that's what life was all about, it was a given.
Today, my body goes out and then forgets to come back in. My income is spoken for before it gets to me. Another generation have discovered that they are 'it', (but I hope am not quite as far from it as Grandpa Simpson: "I used to be with it, but then they changed what "it" was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's "it" seems weird and scary to me")
No, today I know the value of enjoyment and being entertained and that it is all too often transient. So when I have the opportunity of three days of rocking with like minded people, three days of forgetting the bits that don't go back in and the quick to leave money, it is little wonder I am like a coiled spring.
This excitement is manifestating in an inability to concentrate on anything non-concert related as I said earlier, but also in some odd vocalisations. Bizarre, giggly 'oohs' and 'aahs' just slip out but more worringly for the last few days I have been singing the words 'Cradle of Filth' to the theme tune from Blankety Blank
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