Too old for the 'roo?

It's only one night, maybe two, and you'd think I'd be jumping up and down with excitement. And yet, oddly enough, I'm not ...

Maybe it's because I'm going the night Bruce Springsteen, Eryka Badu, Al Green and John Oliver are not performing. The only band I recognize on the Thursday night line-up is Portugal the Man and that's only because I had to drive my two oldest sons to one of their indie concerts two years ago. Based on some of the indie stuff Scott and Ben listen to, I think I'll find the comedy tents and hide out in there.

Maybe it's because it's going to be hot and humid. If I liked hot and humid, I would have stayed in Memphis after my college years, where you step outside and feel like you've just slipped into a nice, warm, wet wool sweater in August. And that's only in May. I can only endure the hot and humid of our weekend camping trips because I rarely move my carcass farther than 10 feet from the swimming pool. Nice, cold swimming pool.

Maybe it's because I'm just too old. The idea of swimming through painted and unwashed bodies in 90-degree heat, 95 percent humidity, and 100 percent irritation isn't appealing to me anymore. The last time I actually looked forward to getting squished, having my sneakers decorated with various brewed and bodily fluids, and introducing the inside of my ear drums to each other, I was about 21 and working at the Memphis in May music festival. We slaved in the heat and humidity, setting up chairs for the many big acts coming on that night. Since they were paying us in beer (drinking age was 19 at that time), I can't remember a single one of those acts except John Kay (of Steppenwolf) and Delbert McClinton. I think the Stray Cats were there ... maybe Billy Idol ...

Once I thought I saw Elvis, and then I realized it was just a bad reaction between the St. Pauli Girl Dark I was drinking and the bagel with cream cheese and lox I'd eaten earlier at Johann Sebastian Bagel.

Luckily, I realized at a fairly young age that spending $100 on a concert ticket, then spending the entire concert standing in the upchuck line in the bathroom was just a little silly. Spending more money on beer, a temporary purchase at best, when I could be spending it on T-shirts to be treasured forever (or until my future sister-in-law pirated them away), was even sillier.

And, as I got older, I realized that spending $100 on tickets just to be crushed, mushed, pushed, and pawed, my feet swimming in spilled soda and my head wreathed in someone else's pot smoke, when I could spend $15 and get the CD and listen to my favorite artist in the comfort of my own home was the ultimate in silly.

And that's when I knew I had finally crossed the line into Middle Age.

I think that's why you see so many non-young people -- middle-aged people -- at Bonnaroo. They don't want to admit they've slid across that line. They don't want to confess they'd rather be sitting on the back porch and listening to Neil Diamond than slam dancing and pit-diving to Coheed and Cambria. They want you to think they're dancing right by the giant amplifiers because they want to rock 'n' roll all night, not because the battery in their hearing aids crapped out an hour ago.

I actually am looking forward to Bonnaroo -- just a little bit. It will be fun to be there as an observer, to see the different mix of people, and to experience the strange subculture that is the greatest music festival of all time. I will remain removed, a little smug, a little patronizing ... and wishing, not so deep down, that I had the nerve to run through the sprinklers and fall asleep on picnic tables and be 20 years old again.

Of course, if I were going the night Springsteen is playing, this would be a whole different column.

The teenyboppers would be standing back and snickering, a little smug and a little patronizing, about the middle-aged old broad screaming "Da Boss!" at the top of her lungs.

-- Mary Reeves is a staff writer for the Times-Gazettte. She can be reached by e-mail at mreeves@t-g.com.