Big Concerts, the promoters of tomorrow's One Direction event at Johannesburg's FNB Stadium, have issued a set of "safety and security rules" for concert-goers. These include the customary warnings about prohibited items - alcohol, food and professional recording equipment.But there are also guidelines that, tellingly, profile the average 1D punter. For example, although "chaperones" will be stationed in the stadium, fans under 14 must nevertheless be accompanied by a parent or guardian.Of more concern, however, are instructions that unaccompanied fans must save emergency numbers under the name "ICE" on their mobile phones. Those without phones must write down these details on a piece of paper and keep it with them.Like soldiers' dog tags, they're going to be needed. As an indication of the tweeny mayhem expected, no one under 13 or shorter than 1.2 metres will be allowed into the "golden circle" or the standing area on the field. This is to avoid the risk of smaller kids being trampled and crushed underfoot in the mass frenzy.Big Concerts have, however, neglected to advise punters to bring spare underwear. This is not a joke. It is a characteristic of boy bands' audiences down through the ages - the girls go large with the "uncontrolled hysteria" and wet themselves."Not just one or two of them," Nik Cohn wrote in Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: Pop from the Beginning, describing a theatre after a 1965 Rolling Stones concert, "but many, so that the floor was sodden and the stench was overwhelming."In her book, Signed, Sealed and Delivered: True Life Stories of Women in Pop, Sheryl Garratt questions the appeal of the boy acts - and her own worship, in 1975, of the Bay City Rollers."Johnny Ray, Sinatra, Billy Fury, Cliff Richard, the Beatles, Bolan, the Osmonds, Duran Duran, Nik Kershaw . . . the names have changed, the process of capitalising on the phenomenon may have become more efficient and calculated, but from my mother to my younger cousin, most women go through 'that phase'," she revealed."Most of us scream ourselves silly at a concert at least once, although many refuse to admit it later because, like a lot of female experience, our teen infatuations have been trivialised, dismissed and, so, silenced."Wetting your knickers over a pop group just isn't a 'hip' thing to have done - rather pretend you spent the formative years listening to Northern Soul or Billie Holiday."Garratt is spot-on regarding the "calculated" cashing-in; behind every modern boy band there's invariably a cynical old bastard with an eye on the money.In 1D's case, it was X Factor judge Simon Cowell, who boasted that it took him 10 minutes to put the group together from solo candidates who auditioned for the show in 2010. After signing with Cowell's Syco Records, well, it was a case of history repeating itself.New Kids On The Block, Backstreet Boys, N Sync, Take That, Boyzone, Westlife.There's a dire homogeneity about them all; safe, mostly whiter-than-white, middle-class, parent-friendly, assembly-line groups who shift a ton of units.Then they grow up and the acts disintegrate, which is what's happening with 1D at the moment now Zayn Malik has said he's left to be "a normal 22-year-old" away from the spotlight.Not a bad thing, choosing a life away from all that hysteria. The Beatles did it in 1966 and never performed in public again. They went on to make their best music after that.Some members of the "manufactured" acts - like Take That's Robbie Williams - do go on to be successful solo artists. If that's what Malik wants, he should perhaps not spend too much time out of the limelight. Those girl fans grow up fast.One Direction perform at FNB Stadium tomorrow night and Sunday and in Cape Town on April 1..