Last week I went to my first outdoor music event, for years, in Hyde Park. My Daughter had brought tickets quite a while ago and this forced me and my wife to plan a trip to London and join Cloe at the BST event. This is not something we normally do, although we like music, but we are not into going to gigs or attending festivals!
I have to admit, it was fantastic and we had an amazing time. We danced, sang (all the wrong words) and we laughed loads. The ‘people watching’ was hilarious and the atmosphere was electric. Hearing The Vaccines and Kings of Leon, live, gave me goose bumps. I did miss the England game (In hindsight, nothing worth watching anyway) but spotted someone with the game on their phone, so checked in a couple of times for updates.
After the music, we stumbled towards the tube station, got our bearings and went back to the hotel, a little worse for wear, knackered and ready for bed. On the Monday, I’d arranged to meet up with a mate for lunch and then got a message from another mate to meet up for a quick beer before getting our train home – what a perfect couple of days.
This only happened because my Daughter brought the tickets and then asked if we wanted to go! If she’d have asked before buying the tickets we probably would have said no. The thing is, about getting older, you can fill your days with 100 things to do, very easily, and start to get used to not venturing out. You can stop being bothered to plan stuff, resist having to get things ready to visit places and it becomes too much effort, so you don’t do it.
Open air music events, to me, are filled with young people, shouting, screaming, jumping into each other, spilling beer and urinating anywhere. The vision I had of me trying to find a toilet, getting lost in the crowds and queuing up, 40 deep, to get a beer was not positive, but BST Hyde Park was not like that. There were plenty of toilets and bars, there were people of all ages enjoying the music, the positive energy and it was so much fun.
Added to my future goals is: “Attend at least one outdoor music event per year”. I am looking forward to selecting one for next June. Don’t get me wrong, I am not suddenly going to book loads of festivals, buy a trolly to carry my tent and 2-days worth of essential festival items, grow my hair long or start smoking weed, but I will venture out again next year.
Have you stopped doing things because “You can’t be bothered” or “It’s too much effort”?
I love the fact we have spent our lives entertaining our kids and now they are repaying that service by entertaining us – Beautiful ‘payback’ and we are embracing it with open arms.
Have a great week