The familiar crackle of our vintage stereo speakers hums to life as my phone finally pairs after three attempts. This nightly ritual – wrestling with outdated audio equipment just to flood our home with sound – has become my quiet rebellion. The Bluetooth confirmation chime feels like a small victory, granting me temporary sovereignty over the household soundscape.
Music choices here carry weight beyond melody. My spouse covers their ears when the basslines hit too hard. The neighbor’s broom handle taps a protest against the ceiling. Even the dog howls along in misguided harmony. Yet tonight, as Underworld’s ‘Born Slippy’ erupts through the speakers, the kitchen itself seems to vibrate in reluctant agreement – saucepans rattling on their hooks, silverware trembling in drawers.
This stereo system, older than our relationship, becomes a bridge between eras when it cooperates. The same speakers that once played my parents’ vinyl now pulse with digital beats from my smartphone. Two 67-year-old British men named Karl and Rick – old enough to be my father – are currently splitting my skull open with thirty years of accumulated techno wisdom through this technological time machine.
Dancing barefoot across the linoleum, dishwater still dripping from my wrists, I repeat the mantra I’ve voiced for decades: “I need to see them live.
A quick search reveals they’re touring. Lisbon. Just three hours away by plane. Dates that align perfectly with my calendar. The universe seems to be mixing its own track of synchronicity. But as my finger hovers over the event details, an unexpected static of doubt interrupts the signal.
Forty. That number flashes like a strobe light across my consciousness. Shouldn’t my nights now be measured in baby formula scoops instead of BPM? My social media feeds show two distinct realities – college friends documenting preschooler milestones while my underground crew posts blurry club photos. The algorithm can’t decide which version of adulthood to show me, so it serves both simultaneously.
Our house will never echo with children’s laughter. That possibility dissolved in sterile clinic rooms years ago. Yet this stereo – this stubborn, aging sound system – continues transmitting life through its fraying wires. Maybe some soundtracks aren’t meant for dancing with toddlers, but for remembering how to dance with yourself.
The Underground Revolution in My Kitchen
The soft hum of our vintage stereo system fills the air as I fumble with my phone – the only device in our household that still connects to this relic of 90s audio technology. This nightly ritual of pairing modern Bluetooth with analog speakers has unofficially crowned me the resident DJ of our home, a title I guard fiercely between the hours of dinner cleanup and bedtime.
My partner rolls their eyes as the familiar crackle of aging speakers gives way to the pulsating bassline of Underworld’s ‘Born Slippy.’ The water droplets on our dinner plates begin vibrating in perfect sync with the 140 BPM rhythm. At 67, the band members should theoretically be enjoying quiet retirements, yet here they are – three decades into their career – still crafting electronic soundscapes powerful enough to split skulls open.
There’s something beautifully absurd about scrubbing lasagna pans while air-drumming to music that belongs in a Berlin warehouse at 3 AM. The yellow rubber gloves on my hands transform into makeshift DJ equipment, their squeaks against ceramic adding an accidental percussion layer to the track. This is my secret rebellion – turning the most mundane domestic moments into underground raves for an audience of one.
Our elderly neighbor Mrs. Henderson inevitably pounds on the wall when the bass reaches its crescendo. The dog howls along to Karl Hyde’s distorted vocals in either protest or canine techno appreciation. My partner finally relents and dances with me for exactly one song before retreating to quieter pastures. None of them understand that these three minutes of abandon are what keep me sane amidst spreadsheets and grocery lists.
What fascinates me most isn’t just the music’s endurance, but the band’s. While my peers measure their lives in children’s birthdays and mortgage payments, Underworld’s Rick Smith and Karl Hyde still tour with the same intensity they had when I first discovered them at university. Their continued existence in the electronic music scene feels like permission – a living rebuttal to society’s unspoken rule that passion has an expiration date.
Tonight feels different though. As I wipe down the countertops to the mechanical rhythms of ‘Rez,’ a notification pops up on my phone screen. Against all odds and demographic expectations, Underworld is playing Lisbon next month – just a three-hour flight from our quiet suburban home. The water from the faucet suddenly sounds like crowd noise from a massive arena. My dishrag becomes a towel mopping sweat from a festival forehead. For the first time in years, I’m not just remembering the music – I’m remembering myself.
In this ordinary kitchen with its outdated appliances and daily routines, the revolution isn’t televised. It’s streaming at 320 kbps through speakers that should have been retired years ago, played by a woman who refuses to accept that dancing belongs only to the young.
The Browser Tab Identity Crisis
The glow of my laptop screen cast fractured light across the kitchen table at 2:37 AM. Three browser windows stood at attention like soldiers from different armies:
Window 1: Underworld’s tour dates pulsing in neon green – Lisbon, September 15 at LAV – with that familiar ache spreading through my sternum.
Window 2: A spreadsheet calculating flight+hotel+VIP tickets (€487 total, exactly what we’d budgeted for fertility treatments last spring).
Window 3: The ovulation tracker app that still sent push notifications despite being archived, its pastel pink interface now overlaying Google Maps’ street view of the music venue.
A Facebook notification sliced through the tension – my college roommate Sarah posting ultrasound #3 beside a onesie that read “Future Rave Baby.” The algorithmic counterpoint appeared instantly: Marco from my 2002 warehouse days checking into Berlin’s Tresor with a caption about “still splitting skulls at 44.”
My thumbs hovered over the keyboard, caught between typing “best earplugs for middle-aged ravers” and “IVF success stories over 40.” The cursor blinked like a metronome set to the tempo of indecision.
Then came the vibration – Mom’s predictable 3AM text: “Dr. Chen has a cancellation next week. When are you trying again?” The screen dimmed as if embarrassed for us both. In that momentary darkness, the refrigerator hummed the bassline to “Born Slippy.”
I maximized the airline tab. The departure date selector overlapped perfectly with cycle day 14 on the fertility calendar beneath it. Two potential futures diverging at Lisbon Airport’s Terminal 2. The math was absurdly simple:
- Roundtrip ticket: 2.5 days of hormone injections
- Front row spot: 1 failed embryo transfer
- Hotel upgrade: 3 months of prenatal vitamins
Chrome suggested I search for “am I too old for techno” as my fingers grazed the trackpad. Three tabs snapped shut simultaneously – the tour page, the clinic portal, the baby name generator I’d forgotten was open. Only Spotify remained, quietly playing “Two Months Off” on infinite repeat.
Somewhere in East London, two sixty-seven-year-old men were probably awake too, tweaking synth presets for crowds half their age. My mouse hovered over “Book Now” as the first morning light turned my spreadsheet cells the color of a positive pregnancy test.
The B-Side Tracks of Unborn Children
The sterile scent of antiseptic still lingers in my memory, mixed incongruously with the faint piano notes of ‘August Hospital’ playing through clinic speakers. That was the soundtrack to my third and final IVF failure – a melancholic composition that somehow made the plastic chairs and framed botanical prints seem even more desolate. I remember focusing on the fire exit sign above the doctor’s head as she spoke, its glowing red letters blurring as tears threatened to fall. The exit I couldn’t take from this reality.
Back home, my dresser drawer tells parallel stories. On one side, a Ziploc bag of expired pregnancy tests – their double lines faded like forgotten dreams. On the other, ticket stubs from a decade of concerts, their thermal ink barely more durable than those test results. I run fingers over both collections, noting how the slick plastic of ovulation predictors contrasts with the matte texture of aged paper tickets. Two futures preserved in different materials.
Sometimes I imagine alternate timelines. In one, a five-year-old with my partner’s eyes and my terrible rhythm tries to dance to Underworld while building Lego towers. Would they have inherited my love for throbbing basslines? Would nursery rhymes have slowly replaced techno in our household? The phantom weight of a child sleeping against my chest sometimes surfaces when I’m lost in music at home, their imagined warmth overlapping with the vibrations from the speakers.
Medical reports in my files carry timestamps that strangely sync with musical milestones. The month we started fertility treatments coincided with Underworld’s 2016 reunion tour. My last negative pregnancy test came the same week they released their ‘Drift Series’ boxset. There’s an absurd poetry to how life’s disappointments and artistic triumphs can occupy the same temporal space.
Now when I hear certain songs, they carry double meanings. The hopeful build of ‘Rez’ recalls both ecstatic dancefloor moments and the cautious optimism of waiting rooms. Aphex Twin’s ‘Avril 14th’ – once just a beautiful interlude – now conjures images of springtime procedures and the French clinic where we made our final attempt. These tracks have become palimpsests, their original meanings overwritten by medical memories yet still faintly visible beneath.
My Spotify playlists tell this story in fragments. Between upbeat techno tracks appear odd inclusions – a Satie composition I heard during embryo transfer, the jazz piece playing when we got the bad news. These musical bookmarks create an accidental diary of loss and resilience. Sometimes I wonder if this is how we pass down stories when traditional family trees aren’t possible – through curated soundtracks that future generations might decode.
The clinic’s waiting room had a stack of parenting magazines I used to flip through. Now my coffee table holds music festival programs and vintage synthesizer catalogs. Both represent potential futures – one commonly celebrated, the other requiring more explanation at dinner parties. When acquaintances ask why we don’t have children, I’ve started answering with concert dates instead of medical details. ‘We’re going to Lisbon to see Underworld’ carries less emotional weight than ‘We couldn’t conceive’ while being equally true.
Perhaps this is how cultural lineage works when biological continuity isn’t an option. The music I love won’t inherit my DNA, but it carries forward my passions, my values, my stubborn refusal to let disappointment silence life’s rhythm. Those ticket stubs may not document first steps or school plays, but they mark moments when I chose joy over grief, when the beat dropped and I kept dancing anyway.
Dancing Grandmothers at Berghain
The bouncer at Berghain’s infamous door gives my silver-haired companion an approving nod – not the usual skeptical once-over reserved for wide-eyed twenty-somethings. There’s an unspoken recognition here: she’s no tourist. At 62, Marta has been dancing to techno longer than most club-goers have been alive. The security staff know her by name, always discreetly checking if she needs water or a seat near the chill-out area.
This is Berlin’s worst-kept secret: the true royalty of underground electronic scenes often arrive with reading glasses and orthopedic insoles. On any given weekend, about 15% of Berghain’s crowd sports gray hair – not as fashion statements, but as earned badges of honor. The club even keeps a stock of earplugs behind the bar specifically designed for age-related high-frequency hearing loss.
Heart Monitors on Stage
Last summer, I watched Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter perform at 76 with a heart rate monitor discreetly strapped to his wrist. The medical device synced perfectly with the 120 BPM classics, its soft beeps adding an unexpected layer to ‘The Robots’. Backstage, his rider included chamomile tea alongside the standard rider requirements – a detail that made me reconsider what ‘hardcore electronic music’ really means.
This phenomenon isn’t confined to Berlin. Ibiza’s DC10 hosts ‘Matinee Silver’ Sundays where entry discounts increase with your age. Amsterdam’s De School runs ‘Midlife Ravers’ workshops teaching forty-somethings how to pace their MDMA intake with electrolyte supplements. The underground has quietly built its own geriatric infrastructure.
The Unprescribed Side Effects
We’ve all seen that metaphorical pharmaceutical leaflet:
SOCIAL AGE NORMS
Common side effects may include:
- Spontaneous conversion to golf enthusiasm
- Irreversible ‘back in my day’ syndrome
- Loss of high-frequency hearing (replaced by mortgage discussions)
- Inability to stay awake past 11:17pm
Consult your culture if symptoms persist
Yet here in this concrete temple of bass, Marta dances with the fluidity of someone who never stopped. Her moves aren’t the frantic jumps of youth, but something more profound – a full-body conversation with rhythms she helped pioneer. When the beat drops, she doesn’t throw her hands up; she closes her eyes and smiles like someone coming home.
The real rebellion isn’t in staying out late – it’s refusing to let society dictate when your cultural participation expires. Those Berghain bouncers understand what most don’t: true club culture isn’t about being young, it’s about being alive. And the antidote to prescribed aging? It’s waiting at Lisbon airport’s Gate 23, where my flight to the Underworld show boards in two hours.
The Lisbon Survival Guide
My calculator app has never seen such creative accounting. I’m comparing columns that shouldn’t exist in the same universe – one titled “IVF Cycle Estimate” from three years ago, the other “Lisbon Music Trip” blinking with a fresh cursor. The numbers dance before my eyes: one round of fertility treatments equals approximately fifteen international concert weekends. The spreadsheet becomes an accidental manifesto.
The Middle-Age Ravers Toolkit
Packing for a techno pilgrimage at forty requires different considerations than my twenty-year-old self tossing glow sticks into a backpack. My updated essentials list looks suspiciously like a crossover between a pharmacy and a DJ booth:
- High-fidelity earplugs (-27dB reduction) – Because tinnitus doesn’t qualify as a souvenir
- Compression knee sleeves – For when the beat drops harder than my joints
- Electrolyte tablets – Replenishing what the sweat sacrifices
- Portable folding stool – The ultimate power move during eight-hour sets
- Blue-light glasses – For deciphering 2AM Uber pick-up locations
The irony isn’t lost on me as I order anti-fatigue insoles from the same website where friends register for baby showers. My shopping cart tells an alternative life story – one where bass vibrations replace lullabies.
The Unsent Messages
Two drafts haunt my phone’s备忘录:
Draft 1: “Ticket secured! Lisbon here I come!”
Draft 2: “Mom, the test came back positive.”
The parallel universes collapse whenever my thumb hovers between them. I’ve developed a ritual of toggling between airline confirmation emails and old fertility clinic paperwork – not out of regret, but as a reminder that life’s detours still lead somewhere worth dancing.
A friend who chose the stroller path texts me: “Aren’t you too old for this?” I reply with a photo of Kraftwerk’s 70-year-old founder performing with a heart rate monitor visible under his shirt. The caption reads: “We become what we practice.”
The Currency of Joy
Breaking down the costs becomes its own form of therapy:
- Flight: 1/15th of an embryo transfer procedure
- Airbnb: Equivalent to 3 months of hypothetical diaper subscriptions
- VIP ticket: Less than a single prenatal vitamin copay over nine months
These aren’t just expenses – they’re reclamations. Every euro spent feels like reallocating funds from a canceled future to an actively lived present. The spreadsheet cells glow with unexpected liberation.
As I test-pack my rave-ready fanny pack (another middle-aged concession), I realize the earplugs serve dual purposes – they’ll protect against both decibel overload and societal expectations about “age-appropriate” behavior. The stool isn’t just for resting; it’s a throne for the queen of her own timeline.
Lisbon won’t know what hit it when this forty-year-old body arrives armed with orthopedic support and undiminished passion. The unsent messages can wait – there are beats to catch and a life to keep dancing through.
The Cursor Hovers
The blue glow of my laptop screen casts shadows across the kitchen table at 2:37 AM. My index finger rests lightly on the trackpad, the arrow hovering over the bright orange “Confirm Purchase” button on the ticket website. Thirty-six euros for a night of synthetic catharsis in Lisbon. The same price as three packs of Pampers.
From the living room, our temperamental stereo suddenly crackles to life – the opening applause sample from Underworld’s live version of Rez swelling through the house like an uninvited guest. I never pressed play. Perhaps the Bluetooth connection revived itself, or maybe the universe enjoys its little jokes. The crowd noise builds, thousands of hands clapping in unison from twenty years ago, traveling through time to judge my indecision.
I glance at the refrigerator where our shared grocery list hangs beneath a souvenir magnet from Berlin. In my partner’s precise handwriting: “Milk finished. Buy more. And… don’t stop dancing.” The last phrase added as an afterthought, underlined twice. He knows me better than I know myself these days.
The cursor blinks. My Spotify Wrapped statistics float through my mind – “You spent 14,682 minutes with Underworld this year, placing you in the top 0.5% of listeners globally.” What percentage of 40-year-old women share this distinction, I wonder? The demographic data doesn’t exist, though society assumes we’re all too busy scheduling pediatrician appointments.
A notification pops up – my fertility clinic’s annual reminder email. “Thinking about growing your family? We now offer…” I minimize it without reading, watching instead as the ticket site’s countdown timer informs me I have seven minutes to complete the transaction before my seats are released. Seven minutes to decide whether I’m still the kind of person who flies to foreign countries for music that makes my bones vibrate.
On the bookshelf, our wedding photo smiles at me from 2012. We look like different people – his hair darker, my face rounder, both of us radiating the particular confidence of those who assume parenthood will come easily. The photo next to it shows us last summer at a beach in Croatia, our laughter lines deeper but our eyes brighter than I remember them being during those years of temperature charts and hormone injections.
The stereo reaches Rez’s first breakdown, the bassline dropping like a stone in water. My finger twitches. Somewhere in Lisbon, two men in their late sixties are probably sleeping soundly, unaware they’ve become the unlikely soundtrack to a midlife crossroads. The timer drops to four minutes.
I think about the practicalities: requesting time off work, digging out my passport, whether my lower back can handle four hours of standing. Then I think about the alternative – another ordinary Thursday night watching cooking shows while scrolling through friends’ baby photos. The cursor moves toward the button as the track’s arpeggiated synths begin their relentless climb.
Three minutes. The refrigerator hums. The applause sample loops again. Somewhere in the world, a child who might have been mine turns five years old today. The cursor clicks.
