As the old adage goes 'just because you've been institutionalised due to the fact that you have no one to care for you/ your children were finding your continued care to onerous, does not mean that you are in no fit shape to abscond your nursing home and attend the world's largest metal festival'. As adages go, it's not the pithiest, nor does it have much universal appeal beyond the very specific situation it describes. Well, thankfully, it is the mot juste for an event that transpired over the bank holiday weekend.
Two elderly men were found by police over the weekend after having fled their nursing home to attend the Wacken Open Air music festival. The festival, which listed among its headliners Judas Priest and the group who continuously prove that up-tempo funk doesn't just have to be a young man's game, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, was completely sold out over the course of its four days, with some 75,000 people expected to attend daily. The fact of its selling out however was not enough to dissuade these two pensioners from attempting to gain entry, and gain entry they did.
A police spokesperson said that, after being alerted by the nursing home of their absence, the pair were discovered at around 3am in a state that can only be described as "disoriented and dazed". Again, given that they were discovered in a metal festival at 3am, the police would probably have been hard pressed to come across anyone who was not 'disoriented and dazed'. The police spokesperson said that "they obviously liked the metal festival [and] the care home quickly organised a return transport after police picked them up."
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Given that music festivals are notoriously difficult to gain access to without a ticket at the best of times, the fact that these two elderly residents of a nursing home managed to, not only sneak away from their home without notice, but also to bypass the no doubt rigorous security checks in place at the festival brings shame to all those who've tried and failed to sneak into festivals. These men are inspirational, they deserve celebration, they deserve the highest acclamation that we in modern society have to offer - a short article documenting their achievements on a students focused Irish media website. This is our tribute.
