Next month Susan and I are planning on going to see Hellogoodbye and Say Anything, and we may go see Snow Patrol tomorrow (probably not, though...). And we're definately planning on going to Warped Tour.

I've only been to Within Temptation's concerts. >You can blame my friend who's a big fan of them (and made me a fan too). One of the concerts was in Sweden and the other in Finland, they're quite good at live performance. Especially now, 'cause they quality of their music has improved a lot over time, just compare their live performances from 5+ years ago to the newer ones.

I haven't been to a concert in years!

I've been to Jazzfest and Voodoo Music Festival in New Orleans at least twice, but the last time was 4 years ago. Our university would have at least one major concert every year. I've also gone to assorted bars to watch bands, primarily local ones. And then there was the one time I went to Ozzfest. I also saw Cher's farewell tour, on the first run, and I still can't figure out why the hell she came to Shreveport. I tried to go to Big Day Out in Atlanta once, but that was made of epic fail.

But I haven't been to a concert in over 3 years, not since I moved out to Tesas. I live with my aunt, so I can't be out late, plus I ride the bus. It's kinda sucky because I'd love to go see TV on the Radio next week, and there's the tour being sponsored by HRC with Cyndi Lauper, the Dresden Dolls, Margaret Cho, and some other people I don't remember.

Let me think...the only two concerts I've gone to that were anything like expensive were Sisters of Mercy (around $60) and Aretha Franklin (again, something like $60...and we got them almost half price from a scalper)...besides that, everything was around ~$10-$20 tops. So...um...I've also seen The Unicorns (the second to last time they came to Chicago, before disbanding), J+J+J (a happy electro local group that I went to see, briefly befriended, then sort of lost touch with), Joanna Newsom (actually, this was free--a classmate of mine won the tickets, then gave them away), Dave Holland Quintent (except Chris Potter was sick that day so it was actually the Dave Holland, uh, Quartet, I guess), Gravy Train!!!! (this was probably the funnest), and some miscellaneous shows that I can't recall because I didn't enjoy the band and only went because my best friend wanted me to.

Oh! Um...and I sat in the next door record store during Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a few years back, because they were sold out and the buildings shared a side wall so I could hear them almost perfectly. (Then I bought a record. For my dad. With the money I would have used for my ticket.)

Anyway, I haven't actually been to a concert for a really long time, now...haven't really wanted to, for whatever reason. (Or had the money to spare...) Well, me'n some friends went to a jazz club in France, a few weeks ago, but that doesn't really count. (It was actually kind of excruiating, because everyone except me was flaming drunk and being noisy and the quiet people who wanted to hear the music [me being one of them] kept whispering to me [in Franglish] to make my friends shut up.)

Lemme get this straight: you want me to list all the shows I've been to?  That would take a while, and I'd probably forget some.  I average about four shows a year, I'd say.  Concert-going is definitely one of my hobbies.

Let's go bands I've seen often and other memorable shows:

Nine Inch Nails: four times (April 2000; October 2005; February 2006; June 2006 [with Bauhaus!])
Gaelic Storm: four times (July 2003; [spring 2005; I forget the exact date]; May 27, 2006 [my 23rd birthday]; March 16, 2007)
Wilco/Jeff Tweedy: twice (June 2005; October 2006)/once (September 2005)
Fiery Furnaces: twice (March? 2005; June 2006)
Broken Social Scene (November 2006); holy crap, so many people on one stage!  Long show, too--you couldn't get them off the stage.
Soul Coughing: once (March 1999); their last tour before they broke up, and my first-ever concert.

Upcoming shows:

The Tragically Hip: April 12, State Theatre, Detroit (sold out!)
LCD Soundsystem: May 7, Majestic Theatre, Detroit (my second time seeing them)

I am so deprived in this area...but the shows I have gone to have been low cost and really fun.
A Weird Al Yankovic concert a few years ago
A Turquoise Jeep concert a in late 2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mNQX8lUEDI

And this April another Turquoise Jeep concert.

I've been to literally hundreds of shows over the years, starting with Ozzy Osbourne in 1988. Most of the shows have been alt-rock, metal or goth.

The best one in recent memory was Danzig in 2014. He brought Doyle from The Misfits on stage and did about a dozen Misfits songs, and it was amazing. He also had Johnny Kelly from Type O Negative and Tommy Victor from Prong in his band.

In stark contrast, I also went to L.A. to see Hatsune Miku last year. I got hooked on Vocaloid music after playing the Project Diva F video games, and I really wanted to see what a full-service Vocaloid concert would be like. It did not disappoint. The "projections" of the Vocaloids were much more life-like and solid looking in real life than I was expecting. The (all-human) backing band brought a lot of live energy that made up for the fact that the vocals were obviously all pre-recorded. What really made it special was the great response from the fans. We were all issued with green glow-sticks, and every single person there was waving it to the beat. I can understand why people would be sceptical about this kind of "live" show, but it turned out to be a magical experience.

A couple weeks ago I went to NYC to my first ever concert, for They Might Be Giants. It was free (yaay) and mostly kid/family oriented, but fun nonetheless. Really surreal at first because my brain was like "whoa, I've only ever heard these guys' songs recorded, I'm seeing them in person what," but I got used to it. I also saw one guy throw his toddler up in the air and a cute teenage couple slow dancing like they were in a 90's coming of age movie.
I'm not the biggest TMBG fan (that would be my brother) but I still dig their music. ♫ The sun is a mass of incandescent gas... ♫ Er, ♫ the sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma... ♫

I just went to the Die Antwoord concert. They played all my favorites. God I'm so tired right now.


Mosh pits are fun

So last week, I spent $100 to see a sold-out Chelsea Wolfe concert, who's an artist that I'm the only fan of in my circle.  I'm the worst.

The concert was great, though!  I was sitting alone in a parking garage beforehand, hastily applying eye shadow and black nail polish.  I'd never been to a show before where the performers finished a song, the audience applauded, and then TOTAL SILENCE until the next song started.  That kind of crowd, but in the best way possible.  And Chelsea sounded fantastic, so that helped.

Bonus fun fact: At her merch table, they had all her albums, on CD, vinyl... AND CASSETTE.  She had legit cassettes made for all of her albums.  You don't find that kind of attention to detail everywhere.