Everything was worse before.

The train connections, the choice of food, and then not even the internet!

Nevertheless, we remember our youth with this melancholy that eats everything up: the music was better, the films were nicer, the people on the street greeted us politely, and anyway everyone behaved better.

Why it is like that?

Because you never feel as much as when you were young, never live and experience so intensely, because you can only fall in love once for the first time, drink beer for the first time and that one song that will accompany you forever, only once hearing it trigger something for the first time.

So it's not that easy to become a fan even though you're not 16 anymore.

Johanna Dürrholz

Editor in the “Germany and the World” department.

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It happened to me anyway, in the summer, by accident.

There are few things as good as an outdoor concert.

The sound usually blurs a bit, guitar sounds drift over, mix with distant clapping, the echo of the microphone distorts the voices, someone shouts something, everyone answers.

It often seems like a riotous wind blows the long hair off the musicians' faces and tickles the backs of the fans' necks to make them scream a little louder, to make them feel the mood rising around them as their own, so that they are suddenly a part of something bigger.

Beyond forty

Even those who are at a distance from the stage usually notice what's going on, which energies are being released or not, even if only scraps of music and human noise arrive.

The first chords of a well-known song, the onset of polyphonic singing from the crowd - Sommer couldn't sound better.

That's what happened to me on a Friday night.

I was alone at the Glastonbury Festival.

(But are you really alone-alone among 200,000 people? Exactly.) The last time I watched was Billie Eilish.

The night's still young, first night at the festival, no rain (which is really fabulous in England), everywhere people who still wanted to experience something.

I was tired, the journey and twelve hours of concerts stuck in my bones, so I made my way back.

It was dark, I'd had a cider and was drifting with the crowds, blissfully listening to the chatter around me and watching the Brits celebrating, who didn't need any special excuse to stop and drink.

For example, a group of about 50 nicely teased people had gathered at an ice cream stand, which had a fairly decent layout - and danced and hooted to every song.

So I walked along without knowing exactly whether I was actually walking in the direction of the exit, but the streams of people who seemed to have a goal, at least someplace, would take me somewhere.

We passed another large stage, which was under a huge circus tent, the side of which was open to anyone under ten feet.

A great deal of light and a great deal of noise came out.

And a lot of energy.

As if of its own accord, the crowd pushed me over.

Suddenly I was standing on the edge of the tent where a lot of people were dancing and singing, most of them in their 40s. On the stage stood a handsome old rocker: lanky, androgynous, long dark hair, flared trousers, signs of age under his Eyes.

Fabulous gospel singers sang with him (and a gospel singer who sang for his life).

A woman with black bangs and black leather trousers was playing the bass.

The whole thing was only shown in black and white on huge screens, which of course made everything incredibly cool and made the people on stage even more beautiful.