Pensions: what we can learn from a Take That concert

I went to the Take That concert in Cardiff last night accompanying my wife for whom I’d bought the tickets as a birthday present. At 48, I can’t say that the band was really my cup of tea and I had a preconceived idea that I was going to be the only man in a crowd of 65,000 screaming teenage girls: not my idea of fun.

Well, I was wrong on several accounts. One was the fact that within a 50-foot radius I counted over three dozen men of a similar age, accompanying wives and daughters I presume. And, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the show: probably making it into my top 5 gigs and I’ve seen well over 100 bands including the ultimate showman, Freddie Mercury with Queen.

It made me think. Here we had your average over 40-year old red-blooded, beer-drinking male standing for nearly two hours to see a band that I suspect most hadn’t relished the idea of: some, like me, even quietly cringing when entering the Millenium Stadium where, until recently, we were used to seeing FA Cup finals. Nevertheless, those same guys mellowed within minutes of the band coming on stage and ultimately joined in the fun, singing, dancing and hand-clapping.

Why? Well I think it was because the performance was unlike any other I’d seen. It was exciting, visually and audibly stimulating, and presented with great finesse. To be short it was different and it worked.

I left there thinking, if we could only do that with pensions…