Last week I had one of my biggest nights out in a long time – and on a Monday! I went to see Midnight Oil at the Palais in St Kilda for one of their farewell concerts. If you don’t know the Palais, it’s one of the best venues for seeing live music.
Growing up, I loved their music. I hadn’t listened to it for a long time but when the music started it’s amazing how every single lyric of the songs came back to me. They were ingrained into my memory, which I thought was quite ironic when I often can’t remember what I did a couple of days ago!
As I looked around the crowd, I took a moment to take it all in. The crowd was pretty much of the same vintage – mine – with a few fresh faces like my 16-year-old nephew! It seems 80’s gear really hasn’t gone out of fashion. It seems more men were fans than women. And it seems that age does not slow down that band. Peter Garrett, the lead singer, is 69 years old. His voice was incredible and he was doing his moves around that stage for two and half hours with only one small break. They were on fire and that venue was pumping. The energy was high!
Our society often puts limits on people and their ability because of their age. We look to retrench those over the age of 50, we don’t want to see people (women) on TV over the age of 40, we believe people are past their peak at 30. This is such a limiting mindset and one I believe doesn’t serve us at all, particularly in business.
Age is not the limit – your mindset is the limit. Midnight Oil is proof of that! Their performance was as good if not better than the 80’s and 90’s. If I had of believed they were ‘past their use by date’, I would’ve missed out on one of the best nights of my life spent with my sister and my nephew.