This past Saturday afternoon and evening, I spent nearly five hours at a music festival with 10,000 other people, most of them under the age of 25, who reminded me of monochrome mannequins walking amidst the brilliant colors of Spring in South Wales. Everything was black—nail polish, earrings, lipstick, t-shirts, and even the music/lyrics were black—punctuated with chrome piercings of every description and location, plus an occasional, irreverent streak of flourescent pink or purple in the hair.
This year’s line-up of 20 bands at The Full Ponty Festival would be classified as Indie, Rock, Alternative, and/or New Wave, including the world-famous Lostprophets who hail from our small Welsh town of Pontypridd (also the home of an “old skool” crooner named Tom Jones). Talk about a culture clash, imagine my surprise when the Lostprophets opened their act by playing Jones’ famous song, nearly in its entirety, “The Green Green Grass of Home” (circa 1966), accompanied by the voices of thousands who didn’t see their first light of day until twenty years later.
Needless to say, there weren’t many other fifty-somethings in the crowd, although the Lostprophets brought their mothers and grandmothers on stage near the end of the concert. I felt very strange being there, not sure what others thought of me or what they might be saying to one another, like “What’s that old geezer doing here?” “Dunno, maybe ‘e’s looking for the loo!” Several groups of teens actually approached me and, without any awkwardness at all, began talking to me. They were really nice kids: respectful, friendly and having a great time together. I quietly wondered if they would have been so warmly welcomed in any of the the evangelical churches the next morning, piercings and strange costumes included?
Why was I there? I know you’re probably asking that question, hoping that I’m not going through a belated mid-life crisis. Actually, I began volunteering as a freelance (emphasis on “free”) photographer for the local weekly newspaper, The Pontypridd Observer, about two weeks ago. A couple of reasons: they are short-staffed in this area, a lot of great community events never get press coverage, and in the words of rocker Paul Simon, “I got a Nikon camera, I love to take a photograph.”
Feel free to visit my Flickr site and see my first efforts at taking photos of a live concert. It was a lot of fun, a new experience, and it opened my eyes to a whole new world of people who need Jesus. While I was writing this blog article, an e-mail from the newspaper editor: they’re running my photos on page 1 and doing a two-page spread inside the paper. Goes to prove the old saying, “Even a blind pig finds an acorn every now and then.” Here’s one of my acorns (photo below):
Come on! Be honest! Did you get in to it?