In the early part of the 20th century, novelist LP Hartley famously wrote: “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”
But this weekend, the past was just down the road at Scone Palace.
The Rewind Festival rolled into town once again, offering music fans a trip down memory lane while helping to revive the careers of returning pop acts.
It was a chance for people of a certain age to revel in the day-glo eightieness of their childhood.
There were songs played this weekend, some forgotten gems, that haven’t had a public airing for decades. Listening to them can help take you back to a simpler time: taping the charts on a Sunday afternoon, or using your Walkman in the back seat of the family car.
And it proved that nostalgia has become big business.
The Rewind Festival has gone from strength to strength since it launched a decade ago, tapping into an insatiable appetite for all things of yesteryear.
And the nostalgia factor has even turned political, with certain politicians promising to take our country back to less complicated times.
Of course, tramping about the grounds of Scone Palace in luminous wellies, dressed as one of Village People and eating Spangles is not a true reflection of what the ’80s was like.
Similarly, if you were hosting a ’70s night party, you wouldn’t fill your house up with uncollected bin bags and cut the power every 40 minutes.
Nostalgia is about remembering the past the way we want to remember it. And its best triggered by sounds – like Tiffany’s I Think We’re Along Now – which are almost exclusively from that time. Things that were welcomed with a burst of enthusiasm, but got forgotten about as soon as the next big thing came along.
It’s impossible to predict what future generations are going to feel nostalgic about.
Will our grown-up children get a pang of excitement when they hear the chime of Netflix booting up? Will Psy – of Gangnam Style-fame – ever perform in Perth to the same exuberant crowds that Howard Jones did this weekend?
Who knows? For now, I’m going to stock up on unsold fidget spinners and emoji cushions. Just in case.
