What’s the worst thing about having become a really old rockstar?

Dear Daffo,

This morning I wake feeling great. I’ve had a good night’s sleep, which is rare when you’re on tour. I leap out of bed, fling open the curtains and breathe in the new day, my blood singing in my veins. I decide to dye my hair, which I do, then I throw on a suit and stand before the bathroom mirror, my piercing blue eyes looking vital and dangerous, and my hair sleek and black as a fucking raven’s wing. I bound out of the hotel – I’m in Odense, on an island in Denmark – and the sun is shining, and the lusty birds are singing, and the trees seem to burst out of the ground entirely for my delight! It is a good day, Daffo! A very good day indeed!

Up ahead, two old people shuffle towards me, a hunched husband and an even more hunched wife. They have matching cardigans, and each wears a Cure T-shirt. They see me, stop, and their mouths fall slack. I can see the sudden shock of recognition cross their fucked-up old faces, then that spasm of joy when they realise the final thing on their bucket list is about to come true. They are going to meet Nick Cave! They start shaking and getting flustered, stammering that their names are Dorrie and Sven and going, “Oh my God!” and “Nick Cave!” and saying unbelievably depressing things like “We’ve been fans for half a century” and “We once saw Robert Smith in a supermarket but we didn’t want to disturb him,” and eventually they ask the inevitable, “Can we get a selfie?”

Now, all this is fine, I suppose, except I fucking hate having my photo taken, especially selfies. I acquiesce, though, because I’m suddenly tired and don’t have the energy to say no. They start rooting around in their bags for their phones, still going “Oh my God!” and “Nick Cave!” and asking whether I’d heard the new Cure album until I point out that Sven’s phone is hanging on a lanyard around his neck. I’m standing there with the life draining out of me and now Dorrie is telling me how her mother used to love me, her fucking mother!, and that she’s dead now, her mother, and they played The Cure at her funeral and so on.

Then, I suddenly realise, Daffo, what the worst thing about being an old rockstar is. It comes to me in a moment of the purest clarity. The worst thing about being an old rockstar is that the old rockstar’s old fans don’t know how to work their fucking phones. The couple stand there, jabbing uselessly at their screens, trying to get them to flip into selfie mode or whatever, saying, “I’m not good with phones” and “How does this thing work?” and “Oh, my God” and “I can’t believe it’s Nick Cave” and I try to help them, but I don’t know how to work their phones either.

Eventually, they manage to take a selfie, and for that fleeting, hellish moment I see my image on the phone – the crazy old face, the strained grimace, the panicky, rheumy eyes, the angry, pleading Pavarotti eyebrows – and I realise that the only difference between me and these dentured old fuckers grinning into the camera beside me is that I dye my hair black, which I see, in that dreadful flash of existential lucidity, just makes me look older and fully ridiculous. The couple toddle off, going “Oh my God!” and “Nick Cave!” and “What a lovely guy!” I walk back to the hotel to write to you, Daffo. I put on The Cure.

Dear Daffo, I write – 

Love, Nick 

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