The other night at a gig, I caught my reflection in the black mirror of someone else’s phone screen: middle-aged, sweat-glazed, clutching the barrier like a pension plan. I looked left, then right. Shiny pates catching the lights. Phones raised, a couple with cameras so big they probably needed photo passes. And I felt a creeping realisation: I wasn’t just surrounded by the “6 Music Dads” everyone complains about. I was one.
The meme has been around long enough to need no explanation: greying men in band merch, clutching craft IPAs, while they argue that the latest Idles album isn’t as good as the first and complain about their tinnitus. It’s funny because you know exactly who’s being described. It’s cruel for the same reason. And it’s uncomfortable because, if you happen to be that bloke, it can feel accurate. Scroll through social media and you’ll find the charges: blocking the view, killing the vibe, hogging the front. The message is clear enough: time’s up.Get to the back, grandad.
At some point, every music fan faces it: the nagging suspicion that you might be too old for this. It comes not from the music itself—songs don’t expire, after all—but from the culture around them. But let’s be honest. It’s not really about old men at gigs. It’s about what they symbolise. It stands for the dread of getting old, the sense of entitlement, and masculinity that’s long since lost its sense of cool. The “6 Music Dad” meme survives not because it’s about concerts, but because it gives everyone else permission to laugh at the inevitability of old age, conveniently directed at someone else. Dad dancing used to be the shorthand for generational embarrassment; now we have dad moshing. Same dig, different gig.
The reality, of course, is far more nuanced. Look at the crowds at Slowdive, whose 2023 album was the best thing they’ve done in years. Half the audience are teenagers who stumbled across them on TikTok; the other half are people who never stopped playing Souvlaki. When the opening chords of ‘Alison‘ hit, the decades dissolve in one long cheer. Or take Bikini Kill’s reunion shows: riot grrrl veterans bellowing “girls to the front” alongside people who weren’t alive when that slogan was first shouted. Even cult acts like LSD & The Search for God, back after years away, manage to pull in rooms that are half greying shoegeezers, half wide-eyed initiates, dressed almost identically.
So why does the mockery persist? Because sometimes the stereotype is earned. Everyone’s seen the bloke who films the entire set on his phone, camera suspiciously fixed on the bassist — invariably young, invariably female. Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale has described how invasive it feels to perform under that kind of surveillance. That’s not fandom, it’s voyeurism. And yes, those blokes tend not to be twenty-two.
But the caricature is a problem because it expands one particular form of bad behaviour into a whole category of person. The majority of older fans at the barrier aren’t leering. They’re there to lose themselves again, to feel the bass rattle through bones that complain louder these days. It’s misguided at times, but hardly sinister. And if you think selfishness at gigs is exclusively the preserve of the middle-aged front row, try watching a band through a forest of raised iPhones. That’s another argument for another time. Entitlement isn’t generational; it comes free with the ticket price.
Besides, the joke’s on anyone clinging to the front: it’s not even the best place to hear the music. You’re usually ahead of the PA, catching only distorted bass and whatever the monitors happen to be spitting out. If fidelity was the point, you’d be at the mixing desk. Which begs the obvious question: why the obsession with the barrier? Proximity, bragging rights, the hope of eye contact, the chance to grab the setlist? Or maybe it’s something else. Believe it or not, not everyone at the barrier is there out of choice. For some fans — older or not — that front rail is the only safe vantage point. Smaller venues rarely have raised platforms or accessible seating, so the barrier becomes necessity rather than indulgence. To sneer at “old men at the front” is often to ignore disabled fans whose bodies can’t survive the crush. Ageism is sometimes ableism.
Meanwhile, the real threats to live music are rather more pressing. Stadium ticket prices now resemble the cost of a short city break, grassroots venues are are folding faster than festival tents in a storm, and new bands can’t afford to tour. By the time you’ve finished moaning about whose bald head ruined your sightline, another ticketing scam has been exposed or another beloved dive has been boarded up by the council.
This is what gets lost in the memes. Live music has always been contested territory: who gets to the front, who gets to see and be seen. Riot Grrrl’s “girls to the front” wasn’t about excluding men, it was about visibility and safety. That principle matters more now. Venues should feel safe for everyone — especially those who get pushed aside everywhere else. Women and girls have a right not to be harassed by men. Younger, or shorter fans deserve sightlines. Disabled fans deserve access. Older fans deserve not to be treated like a punchline. None of these needs cancel the others. What’s missing isn’t space, it’s tolerance. But when it works, it’s beautiful. I’ve seen teenagers prop up sixty-somethings in the pit without thinking twice. Parents asking if they can stick kids on their shoulders so they can finally see through the haze. People who’d never agree on politics, or anything else, united for a few minutes of joyful noise, singing together.
Growing older as a fan is hard. You’re torn between opposite forces. You’re proud to still be here, but embarrassed that you look like the meme. You laugh at the caricature but recognise yourself in it too. You’re grateful for another night with the music, but wary of what your presence symbolises. It’s awkward and often ridiculous, but maybe that’s just the price of still giving a monkeys. The “6 Music Dad” isn’t the enemy. The real danger is intolerance and the idea that only certain bodies belong at the barrier, only some experiences count, only some fans are acceptable. Music doesn’t come with a sell-by date, and neither should our ability to share it. If gigs collapse into selfishness — manspreading dads elbowing the rail, kids filming for clout, disabled fans edged out altogether — then everyone loses.
The promise of live music has always been that, for about ninety minutes, you get to disappear into noise and sweat and song. But if you catch me down the front, glistening like a rotisserie chicken, nodding earnestly with my phone in the air — please, for the love of God, tell me to pack it in.
Photo credit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/backstage/6musicfestival/
