Photos by Metro Virgin Mobile photographers

All-ages gigs should come with warnings. Not for the under-18s, to watch out for the stray glass of vodka & soda posing as water – no, I want a warning for the over-agers, us old-timers. Watching Cloud Control play to a swarm of teenagers at the sold-out Metro Theatre, I found myself torn between aching nostalgia and pure, grandma-strength loathing.

DJ duo Fishing opened the night with the foolproof combination of a Macbook and an old projector. We drifted through dreamy psychedelic visuals and retro 1950s footage of whitegoods and bizarre bathing suits… and boobs. Lots of boobs. Part of me wondered if a good projection show was possible without a sneaky pair of nipples. The other part simply wanted to cover the eyes of the grinning, giggling pubescent boys to my right. Both parts thought it was time for another drink.

Leafy vines appeared across the stage and five boys decked out in fringing, khaki and feathered hats bounded up before us. You can’t help admiring the amount of energy Jinja Safari put into their live sets – it felt like The Jungle Book had crash-landed in the middle of the The Lion King. The girls next to me certainly seemed like they should be in a Disney movie, anyway – I honestly did not know that human beings could jump that high. I still don’t believe it. This girl must have been spring-loaded. The jumping turned to full-body swaying. Which turned to spirit fingers (or spirit arms, really). Which turned into an amalgamation of full-body spirit-swaying, with a jump up toward the ceiling every chorus. I’m not certain, but I think my mouth may have been agape… Did we really used to behave like this at gigs when we were her age? I wondered incredulously. I refuse to believe I ever had such an irritating amount of energy. This had better be the best 40 minutes of her life.

But then, you know what? Somewhere between getting my toes decimated by this leaping tweenage fangirl and getting grumpy at a kid for spilling my drink, I was stopped short by my inner child yelling at me: ‘Quit being so damn old!’ Maybe I was jealous. Maybe I just wanted to be back in the days when I knew every band member’s full name and would yell them out between songs just to prove it. Maybe I just missed being that freaking stoked about live music.

Or maybe I just didn’t want my nose broken by her flailing elbow.

Amid my musings, I did what old people do – got another drink and found a good spot on the Metro tiers to watch Cloud Control in peace. Impressed, I watched the crowd confidently sing along to every word of each Bliss Release track, a feat which clearly put some colour in the cheeks of the Sydney-via-Blue Mountains four-piece. Fishing came back out for the encore to help out on a cover of the School of Seven Bells track ‘Half Asleep’ – perhaps a clue to some exciting new genre-dabbling in CC’s future. And as far as I could see, no-one had their toes broken or their eyes scratched out by any wild, bouncy fifteen-year-olds. They all ambled out, glistening and bedraggled, ready to be picked up by their parents and then spend the car trip home ranting about how hot that guy from Jinja Safari is.

… Fuck it, I wish I was underage.