Let’s do this together
I prepared for my night of raving by drinking tea and applying Compeed blister plasters on the train up to London on Saturday afternoon.
I got a text from my best friend Ali asking, “Where are you scooting off to this evening?”
I stuck the plasters on my heels, which were still sore from the soggy 12-mile hike last weekend before I messaged back, “Underworld are playing at Ally Pally.”
“Are they a modern beat combo?” asked my square friend who, unlike me in my old festival days, didn’t spend the 90s on a motorway looking for free parties and being chased by the police.
I met up with a bunch of my old party pals who are refusing to grow old at the North London concert venue. Already 60, Steve is taking early retirement, not to play golf, but to travel around Europe in his van going to festivals, while Paul says his middle-aged motto is “More smiling, more dancing” and, because he is now 59, adds, “And more baking sourdough bread”.
It was a proper old school techno night with 10,000 middle-aged men and women throwing back the years – and their arms in the air. Not to take videos on their phones, but at the sheer thrill of still being alive.
I made a couple of short recordings to send to The Dark Lord to prove it wasn’t “boring music”. She replied, “It’s just electronic beeps and flashing lights,” which is probably a fairly accurate way to sum up the entire music genre.
The queues for the loos had been horrendous earlier so I nipped out during the gig along with a few other ladies. One said, “Ooh, I hate to miss anything, but I’m at that age where I do enjoy an empty row of cubicles.”
Thankfully, there’s a strict curfew at Alexandra Palace and the gig finished at 10.45pm – which is just as well as my exhausted legs wouldn’t have managed any more drop beats.
I noticed a few couples decided to get an early cut even before then – it’s hard work dancing for three solid hours when the only stimulants are pork bao buns and craft beer from the food hall.
I’ve seen Underworld a few times but, now aged 66, electronic pioneer Karl Hyde is sounding better than ever, and there’s a pathos to him that was never there before as he raves to the grave. That man could groove to a cardiac monitor going off.
Then when you thought all the oldies were ready for bed, they played their big hit Born Slippy and the room erupted with an energy not seen since Glastonbury 1999. I just hope nobody pulled anything.
I went home feeling 20 years younger – with some of Paul’s sourdough starter just to remind me I’m not.
■ Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.
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Yours, Siobhan