17 July

Look at every person in that crowd, and find me the one who’s really ‘there for the music’. They’re there for the crowd, the appeal is to be part of a crowd. Hardly anybody you see in this pic is actually listening, they’re focused on the singer whipping them into a frenzy, and on each other. It could be a football game and the crowd would look indistinguishable. Gigs are social events much more than they’re about music. The gigs people go to are increasingly the ‘trending’ gigs, the social aspect of the event begins long before the actual day. I should say, to know your culture is not to criticise it, it’s just to recognise it for what it is. Then what’s good and bad about it can come into focus too. Humans didn’t suddenly develop such an enormous enthusiasm for music that tens to hundreds of thousands of them packed into stadiums to listen carefully to it. This is a social movement, mistaken for appreciation of art. It’s how the youth of the 1950s and 1960s ‘mobilised’, and we repeat that today without recognising it. Kidult culture.