Nostalgia, ticket prices... not what they used to be
In the good old days they used to say that nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. Little did they know what was to come — too busy looking back maybe. Nostalgia these days is better, or worse, depending on your viewpoint. It’s definitely more potent. In the UK, nostalgia became not just a policy, but a whole strategy, a way forward.
Pop music tells us a lot about the id of a people, what they really feel, deep down. Mid-June, 2016, I saw Coldplay perform in Wembley Stadium. Same vibe as now. Lots of colours, lit-up wristband to make you feel a part of the rally.
I looked down on to the field from the stand at one point and saw a load of what looked like middle-class English guys who worked in banking, punching the air and losing it, singing along to Viva la Vida. “I used to rule the world/ Seas would rise when I gave the word/Now in the morning I sleep alone/Sweep the streets I used to own.” Any nuance or meaning in the song, needless to say, was lost in the mob. And as they belted out “I hear Jerusalem bells a-ringin’/ Roman Calvary choirs are singin’” over the rousing Elgaresque strings, I swear to God I thought, “oh shit”.
Sure enough, one week later, British people surprised everyone, including themselves, by voting for Brexit. And a new Jerusalem was built in England’s green and pleasant land. To be clear, I’m not blaming Coldplay for this.
The frenzy around people of a certain age last week over Oasis told us something, too. Oasis were all about nostalgia the first time around; a re-enactment of The Beatles with a swinging Sixties/ mod/Carnaby Street aesthetic.
And now, somehow, they are nostalgia squared. We are now nostalgic for the relatively harmless nostalgia of that Britpop era. The Union Jack prominent in Britpop iconography seemed more benign then. It was all about Cool Britannia. The counterculture hung out at Downing Street and Tony Blair represented a new generation, a new hope.
Simpler times. Happier times, when no one ever believed Russia would be at war with Europe, that a plague would change everything, that fascist mobs would be back on the streets.
Back then people thought history was over and was only there to be plundered for harmless nostalgia, while we all lived forever.
The scramble for tickets for Oasis told us something about now as well. Everybody is used to being screwed these days. There isn’t enough of anything and even if you try and do things the right way, you end up waiting and waiting and then, just when you think you’re there, you get locked out or the price has suddenly jumped.
You’d live with it, if it was just Oasis tickets. But of course it’s houses, childcare, infrastructure, school places for kids with special needs, orthodontic services for children… add your own issues to the list. Economists like John Fitz-Gerald are now actually suggesting the only answer may be to start suppressing our growth.
As Chris Martin might say, sometimes it feels like our castles stand, upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand.