My gig invitation turned out to be a Busted flush

Sometimes it can be hard to get a handle on your children’s cultural influences.

My son, an eight-year-old ball of energy, is still just about entranced by Bluey on CBeebies, but on balance is more likely to be found watching a troupe of idiotic YouTubers filling each others’ houses with sand.

The other day he called me into his bedroom to listen to a “rap” he had written, which appeared to narrate an argument between Mr Muddle (of Mr Men fame) and Mr Beast (YouTube star nonpareil) about whether pineapple juice is better than coconut water. It left me perplexed for numerous reasons.

My daughter, a young teenager, is similarly at a betwixt and between life stage: reading Sense and Sensibility one moment; watching Twilight memes online the next.

This confusing backdrop can lead to parental misjudgements. Earlier this year, I noticed that Busted – those jumpy pop-punk stars of the early Noughties – were back out on tour and were playing dates at the O2. Thinking that my daughter might like a trip to a big concert venue and would surely enjoy a bit of easy-access pop from a band that has maintained a radio presence for two decades, I bagged a couple of tickets.

But when I announced the news of our impending evening out, it was met with about as much enthusiasm as Gillian Keegan’s arrival at a Raac-infested secondary school.

While Radio 2 might burble away as background noise in the kitchen for much of the time, it turns out that my daughter had never in fact heard of Busted, and wasn’t won over when I played her “That’s What I Go To School For.”

It’s also conceivable that my daughter realised my invitation wasn’t entirely selfless. Despite the fact that the Busted boys are themselves meandering towards or into their fourth decade, I wasn’t sure I was their primary target market. Taking my daughter would have made my own attendance somehow more reasonable.

My soft spot for the group is long-standing. The music might not have been exactly groundbreaking back in the day, but it was fun – and a little bit edgier than boybands of the Nineties, even if the three members were hardly from the mean streets.

Charlie Busted particularly confuses me, because although he looks more or less like a pop star, he has the same voice as a posh man I knew who used to work for Foxton’s estate agency. I worry that in the “Year 3000”, we won’t all be living under water, as their hit song has it, but in overpriced two-bed flats in Clapham.

Nevertheless, I love those lads. Charlie, along with James Busted and Matt Busted, seem like nice fellas who write ear-worm pop tunes. My daughter’s indifference is, like so many aspects of my children’s lives, frankly inexplicable.

Ironically, my son might have been up for the trip, not because he knows anything about Busted, but simply to have an excuse for a late bedtime. An age restriction on the gig precluded the possibility, and since it’s on a school night, I suspect that’s for the best.

The upshot of all this is that I will not be heading to the O2 as the apparently long-suffering father of a youthful pop fan.

Instead, I will be going with a similarly-aged friend and will be there as a loud and proud fan myself. I will sing along to “Year 3000”, chuckle at the memories of 20 years ago that the gig will bring back, and maybe shed a nostalgic tear when Hanson – the support act for whom I have equal fondness – take to the stage.

My daughter doesn’t know what she’s missing; although, having busted my real motive for inviting her, she may be relieved at not having to hang out with her embarrassing dad.