Life moves pretty fast

It has been, initially at least, an unplanned outcome of my sabbatical that I have been to some brilliant concerts this year and that there are many more to follow.

In recent weeks, with my love of lots of types of music, these have included, Pet Shop Boys, Muse, The Weeknd and most recently Red Hot Chilli Peppers.  My highlight thus far though must be Blur’s performance at Wembley Stadium a few weeks ago. An event that has instantly become my favourite concert I have ever attended. It was invigorating, the hits were brilliant and the atmosphere, the humid stormy skies notwithstanding, was electric.

Damon Albarn, the lead singer of Blur, mused at one point in the show at how much “agnostic energy” had been expelled in that location since the opening of the original Wembley Stadium one hundred years ago. As can be extrapolated, it is a thought that has had me ruminating.

When I think of all the times I have been to Wembley and then bring to mind all the similar events I have experienced in other locations, an interesting train of thought occurs.

Why do we, humans, crowd together for these things and why, on most occasions, do we come away exhilarated and will seek to do something similar again as soon as we can? Furthermore, why is it events of this type that I have found to be incredibly helpful in my process of healing?

When you look at the logistics of attending such big events in isolation, contradictory to that thought of exhilaration, are the unappetising smorgasbord of activities you must go through to get there.

Of course, you will spend a decent amount of money that will only increase as you move through the process. Firstly, on tickets, if you managed to get through the antagonism of queuing, then the booking charges and various other “fees” are added on and immediately you raise an eyebrow!

The queue method is not made less stressful being online as you wonder if that “place in the queue” bar will ever actually move across the screen more than a pixel every ten minutes. Or you are helpfully informed of the extraordinary number of people in the queue ahead of you, despite you joining right at the start.

Next, there may be accommodation required, often at a slightly higher rate than you remember that location being before. Then travel, train tickets or petrol and parking, or both! Then the food and drink kick in as a captive audience are presented with bargains such as £6-£8 per pint of fairly dubious lager in a plastic cup! All in all, financially it is something of a hole-in-pocket burner!

But once you’ve accepted all this, you then have the general activities of the day to consider. Working out the amount of time needed to travel is frequently massively expanded by our old friend queuing making a comeback. In recent times for me this has included about five hours total either side of the recent Muse gig in Milton Keynes sat in a large traffic jams.

If you are standing at a big show, you may want to get there early to get a good spot. You are not alone in this. The contrast between the sedentary wait in the queue and the burst of energy to get out into the floor at a pace, is noticeable in the leg muscles.

Between those two events comes the terrifying turnstiles. During the football season I must have gone through a turnstile at least once a week and yet in the back of your mind there is always that thought that something will go wrong at this point. It is a place of pressure for all involved. Will the bar code that you printed on that slightly-running-out-of-ink printer or newly downloaded app work properly? If not, will there be a steward on hand to help once they have stopped looking at you pitiably whilst you fumble through the process. Meanwhile the fear of all those in the line behind you increases exponentially in case they experience such humiliation themselves.

If you can breathe that slight sigh of relief as the little light goes green, you have those metal bars chasing after your Achillies Heals, ready to give them a nice little chastising clip if you go too slowly.

Then you are perhaps received into the warm embrace of another steward. This one is either going to get rather handsy or is going to wave the metal detecting wand of judgement at you, as you wonder for some irrational moment, if the metal belt buckle you have on will mean instant ejection from the event. I won’t even go into the panic felt if you have a bag of any size or if you are foolish enough to carry some form of drink!

But if you are very lucky, both you and your bag will receive the dispassionate nod or hand flick of progression and, if you want to have the full show experience, you may even get a luminously coloured wristband which you can overtly display and let your fellow event attendees know, “Fear not! This man has been frisked and deemed worthy!”. Having been at The Weeknd concert at the London Stadium on the Friday before coming to Wembley for Blur on the Saturday, at one point I had two such wristbands in my possession. So adorned was I, I felt like I was Paul McCartney headlining Glastonbury!!!

Finally, you bump and barge your way through the crowds for the event itself. The chaos of the concourse and the “Excuse me! Sorry!” of the shuffle to the chair, where you hope you don’t kick over someone else’s overpriced beverages and confectionary. The late comers then hunt for small-labelled seats in the dark or perhaps the six-foot-four fella, who reckons that stamp sized space right in front of you is his point to stand, despite it being two minutes to the start and you have been nurturing that eyeline to the stage through a series of warm up acts for the preceding three hours.

Then, once the event is done, exhausted with sore feet, scrunched toes, ringing ears, a shredded throat and a thumping forehead either from the aforementioned beer or lack of liquid entirely, you are likely to bundle on to a train and get to settle in either with your head in someone’s armpit or vice versa depending on height differentials and get home at ridiculous o’clock.

And do you know what – it’s great fun!!! Why? Because of that energy that Damon eulogised.

I’ve heard it said that humans are herd creatures and we do seem, generally speaking, to be happy in our little groups at these events. Our field is surrounded by metaphorical Collie Dogs in their neon steward vests and then on come the shepherds to lead us through the show, game or sing along, conducting us up and down waves of emotions to the event conclusion.

Was Freddy Mercury, as an example of a phenomenal front man and whose memory was also celebrated at that Blur show, effectively the ultimate musical “Old Bob Tackett and his good boy Shep” on One Man and his Dog?! I’ll leave you to try to work that out and hope other Queen fans don’t hate me for that thought!

It is in that emotional rollercoaster that the agnostic energy is found though and why, ultimately, despite the money, chaos and tiredness, the main emotion for me at the end of events of this type is exhilaration.

And best of all we transmit it to each other. My shared experience with people I don’t know at football, gigs or even as humble as the recording of Radio 4’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue I attended a few days earlier in Ipswich, led me to wishing, in some cases pretty drunk strangers, safe journeys home and shaking them by the hand.

That interaction. That shared event. That is where healing can be found in my experience. You give and receive emotions of all sorts to the crowd around you and you all benefit from the uplift and craziness of it all.

I have been asked a number of times at events this year, if I am on my own and then receiving a slight, “I don’t think I could do that” response, when I reply in the affirmative. The point is, I may not have anyone with me that I know, but I have interacted with all the world of people from overexcited teenagers to old hippies and many a fella who should know better by now, and we are connected because we can all say we were there.

When looking at a lifetime of such events and telling stories of them, it’s not the sore feet you remember, but the atmosphere and connection you felt to an energy greater than yourself.