Rockin’ in the free world
A little internet surfing only serves to demonstrate how narrow my horizons have become, and how the world has changed.
Sitting down at my laptop last weekend an email from my brother popped up with a YouTube link. It was for something called Rockin’ 1000, purporting to be the “biggest rock band in the world”. I clicked on it and was immediately transported to what seemed another planet.
Here was a world where 1000 people could stand cheek by jowl, howling into shared microphones, sweating over drum kits and thrashing electric guitars in unison. This was no jam session via Zoom; they were jammed into stadiums in Paris, Milan, Florence, Frankfurt. There were pint-sized strummers, nannas with attitude and every age in between. They were playing Bowie, Nirvana, The Who and the Rolling Stones, and they were having a ball. There wasn’t any PPE in sight, unless you count the drummer wearing the sumo suit. What I saw was pure, life-affirming joy; human beings getting together to do something they love. The last video I watched was dated 2019.
Click here to watch the Rockin’ 1000 band perform The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again
When I looked up from my screen, 90 fabulous minutes had passed. I was gazing out over the same view I’ve been staring at since March 2020. I couldn’t help but feel deflated. How the world has changed.
The night before I’d had a long What’s App call with a dear friend who is stuck in China with little prospect of coming home to Australia unless she is willing to fork out about $10,000. She sent videos of snowy mountains in Tibet, where she’s helping to run artist workshops and photographing weird caterpillar fungus, plus hosting a cheesemaking workshop for yak herders, I kid you not.
My horizons have become so narrow that such exotic-sounding activities and places are virtually impossible to imagine. There’s a big wide world out there but here, in our relatively safe Australian bubble, it feels awfully far away.
We can console ourselves with domestic travel, and aren’t we lucky Australia has such a diverse array of destinations and experiences to offer. Our screens are another source of solace. On Instagram, I’ve been watching a British acquaintance flit about Porto and sip champers on her balcony at The Yeatman hotel, which looks over the Douro (that’s one for the wishlist). And I just spent two hedonistic evenings in 1970s and ’80s New York, courtesy of the Netflix series Halston, based on the life of the mononymous and flamboyant American fashion designer. The view of the skyline from his atelier made me yearn for that city buzz.
These visual distractions provide only fleeting relief for increasingly itchy feet. I’m ready for the real deal. But as someone famous once sang: “You can’t always get what you want.”