In defence of seeing Taylor Swift live … when you’re in your 50s | Sarfraz Manzoor

This yr, assuming I can get a ticket, I can be seeing Oasis on their reunion tour. I can be surrounded, I anticipate, by 1000’s of fellow middle-aged males lustily singing “You and I are gonna reside perpetually” – whereas figuring out a few of us received’t even make it by the last decade.

Recently I’ve seen that a lot of the music I hearken to and the gigs I attend now have their roots up to now. I first noticed Oasis after I was 23, and my biggest hope for this summer time’s live performance is that it would briefly transport me again to the Nineteen Nineties. I noticed Pulp in 2023 and it was unimaginable – however largely as a result of it introduced again reminiscences of seeing the band many years in the past. The identical goes for Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, who I noticed final yr. For my technology, gigs appear to perform as momentary time machines that provide you with an opportunity to revisit the glory days.

The one live performance I attended final yr that was not drenched in nostalgia was Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. It was essentially the most profitable tour in historical past, and Swift is the most important pop star on the planet, so it shouldn’t be fully stunning that I had a complete blast on the exhibits (sure, I went twice). However, based on some, I had no enterprise even being there. A latest survey urged that 4 in 10 of individuals between 25 and 34 assume the concept of individuals of their 50s and 60s attending a Swift gig is embarrassing. It made me marvel how I might have felt, after I went to see Madonna in 1990 as a 19-year-old, if I had noticed anybody of their 50s within the viewers. I think I might have thought they have been fairly cool.

I’ve by no means cared about musical snobbery. Once I was in my late teenagers I went to see Billy Joel on the River of Desires tour whereas my associates have been seeing the Stone Roses at Spike Island. (In 2013 I went to see Ian Brown at Finsbury Park in London to attempt to recall a youth I had by no means had.) In my early 20s I might go, inevitably alone, to see the likes of the Everly Brothers, Lou Reed and Tin Machine. I did so as a result of I liked the music – or David Bowie within the case of Tin Machine – whether or not it was thought-about cool or embarrassing. That doesn’t imply I can not hazard a guess as to why some youthful individuals could really feel it’s a little shameful to be in your 50s or 60s and having fun with music that’s so clearly aimed toward a a lot youthful viewers.

In an age the place music appears more and more break up down generational strains, crossing them can reek of the musical model of a midlife disaster. The overwhelming majority of the viewers on the Swift live performance was younger, feminine and sporting somewhat extra glitter than me, however I didn’t really feel in any respect uncomfortable as a result of I used to be there to accompany my daughter, Laila – and anybody who might need glanced over to me would have firmly put me within the “Swiftie dad” field and carried on singing. If I had gone alone I might have been rather more self-conscious. In impact, I’m in a codependent relationship with my daughter – she wants a father or mother to go together with her to concert events and I would like a toddler. I’m dreading the day she is sufficiently old to go to them with out me.

When Laila was very younger I influenced her musical tastes – which is why she wished to see Springsteen and Paul McCartney with me – however now she is influencing mine. She launched me to Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, in addition to much less well-known bands akin to Sunday (1994). I may declare I solely hear to those artists for the sake of a better relationship with Laila, however the reality is that I actually like their music. I really feel grateful to have been launched by my daughter to those artists as a result of in any other case my musical food plan would have remained largely unchanged for the reason that Nineteen Nineties – and be all of the poorer for it.

The primary time I noticed Oasis on stage was on the Haçienda in 1994. My abiding reminiscence of that gig is feeling a rush of euphoria and pleasure. Swift’s music could, to cite an artist from my technology, say nothing to me about my life, however it’s good and complicated, and watching her on stage I felt that very same rush of euphoria and pleasure. It felt thrilling to be amongst younger individuals fortunately creating their formative musical reminiscences, and it felt liberating to be at a live performance targeted on the current, somewhat than trying again to a youth now half a world away.

• Sarfraz Manzoor is an creator, broadcaster and screenwriter

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