AIDAN SMITH: Dance of the Lone Groover

The last time I was on a bus of this vintage there were coloured streamers draped from every window. In a stunningly artful reworking of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, we sang "We all live in a plate of tattie soup" the entire journey, both directions, and laughed until we were dizzy.

Because that was a Sunday School picnic and therefore not yesterday, this double-decker I’m on now, being as ancient as it is, soon breaks down. Buses are like girls, so they say. If you don’t like one, another one will come along. Yeah, right. But are rock bands like buses, and will you like them? I was about to find out ...

T in the Park is Scotland’s premier skiffle fest. It takes place every July amid the gently rolling hills of Perthshire, on what traditionally turns out to be the wettest weekend since records began. But this time conditions are freakishly summery. The cream of this nation’s youth has skin the colour of milk but it is soon stripping off to let those elusive UVAs get at its UHT.

"Ur yooz two gonnae get wankered?" inquires the lad in front of us in the queue. He is bare-chested, with a Rangers strip tied round his waist. My friend Alan, who is still wearing his leather jacket in defiance of the blazing sun, and who will later smile bashfully at being told he looks "very Strokes", nods in vague agreement.

"Ah wan a compytishun in the Sun," our fellow fest-goer explains. "This letter comes by recorded delivery and Ah think: ‘Shite, it must be a summons frae the court.’ But it’s no’, it’s a ticket fir T in the Park. Av never won a’hin in a compytishun before. Have a right f****** hedonistic weekend, boys."

Now I know what you’re probably thinking: this fellow doesn’t come across as an outstanding representative of "the cream". But credit where it’s due: he knows what hedonistic means. In his case, it almost certainly means heading for the Slam Tent and staying there until it’s time for Oasis. The Slam Tent is where dance music happens. I think I like dance music until I venture into the big blue tepee for Green Velvet, who aren’t skiffle exactly, but electroclash (come on - keep up).

Over a thunderously clanky beat, the Mohicaned singer chants: "Somethin’ ’bout those little pills unreal the thrills they yield until they kill a million brain cells." Everyone in the crowd is flicking their hands at the stage, apart from me, though I don’t actually realise I’m standing rigid with my arms tightly folded across my chest until a girl with three rings in her lower lip inquires: "Ur you a cop?"

Are you ever too old to rock? Most of my friends have stopped buying popular music recordings, not unless you count compilations whose titles begin with the words "The Ultimate Collection … ", and I don’t. With one exception, they’re younger than me, but I’m still intrigued as to what a CD by someone calling himself Felix Da Housecat might sound like, so they nickname me the Lone Groover, after a cartoon that ran in the NME during the 1970s. But I’m fast running out of festival buddies. Scott is my usual chum for such occasions but he had to call off because any day now he will become a dad. (Doubtless this means the next CD he buys will be Bob the Builder’s not-yet-written concept album about time, something the building trade knows nothing about.)

If you look hard enough at events like T in the Park, there are plenty of sights and sounds to make you feel old. There’s the lad slumped outside another tent with "Jimmy Eat World" felt-penned on his face. Is his name Jimmy and is he very, very hungry? I scan the foodstalls on his behalf: chips, burgers, more chips … and Space Cadets, courtesy of the Herbal High Company, described as "an uplifting natural psychedelic that will take you to another dimension".

The hospitality area is another dimension. You do not feel old here, for there are others trying to hold back the years, and hold on to their waistlines, including a former colleague known to all as Rave Dad - but you do feel clean.

Teenage boys munching pizzas with complexions to match do not possess the glittery pink, access-all-areas wristbands. Now we feel like we’re on the rich side of the Big Brother house.

Hospitality is full of PR bunnies (not a bad thing) but lots of these liggers plop themselves on the lush grass, sup the sponsor’s ale, and don’t move all day long. You’ve got to get out there and see Yoof Scotland at play. A tidal wave of Tacchini sweeping Trainspotting-type neds past the Brain Machines ("the ultimate digital drug") and the Mr Softee ice-cream vans en route to the Chemical Brothers’ show might not sound spiritually uplifting, but you cannot fail to be impressed by its sheer, elemental power. This must be what Scott McKenzie meant when he sang about "people in motion".

They didn’t have text-message posts at Woodstock and that’s their loss. This is how da kids communicate now. Get with it, daddio. Many of the messages are puerile but "If you luv Bucky, shout!" pretty much captures the mood. "Water for two groats and a turnip" sounds like a good deal. And I can’t help thinking about Jack the Pumpkin Girl: was she granted her wish and did she get to sleep with all of Green Velvet?

I had a good time, anyway. So did the babe-in-arms who slept soundly all the way through the glorious feedback hell of Sonic Youth. T in the Park is all things to all neds. The Lone Groover lives.