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I'm younger than my chronological age (mid-40s), but I've been going to shows for nearly 30 years, and having seen enough live music to be a flat-out snob about it, I wouldn't care if I ever went to a big-box concert again. The promoters (and artists, to some extent) have totally sucked the life out of the experience: Ticketmaster "service" charges; excess ticket prices, period; ripoff parking charges; being herded like cattle through pens and searched like criminals; lameass opening acts; ripoff concessions and souvenirs; sitting so far away that you need a damned video screen to see; the obligatory 1-or-2-song encore and back out on the streets. The positive energy has been dissipated, if there was any to start with. Fuck all that. I can save hundreds (unless I'm playing hold 'em) by sitting at home or doing something constructive while listening to the CD.
I can only think of a handful of major concerts I've been to that have been memorable: Elton John in Central Park with a half-million of my closest friends in September 1980; a four-hour Springsteen Christmas show 12/18/80 at Madison Square Garden; seeing Bowie from the 10th row on his '83 tour in Hartford; seeing the Dead from the 9th row in Hartford that fall (it's Vol. 6 of "Dick's Picks"); Neil Young & Crazy Horse raising the Hartford Civic Center crowd to fever pitch in the early days of the Gulf War; and Brian Wilson doing three sets in July 2000 under a tent at Mohegan Sun Casino -- the second set being "Pet Sounds" front-to-back, plus "Good Vibrations," backed by a 54-piece orchestra. Five or six shows out of dozens. To be put it in crass corporate terms, not a good return on my investment.
I've had a much, much better time in clubs. They're cheaper (well, most of the time), the energy often isn't dissipated in close quarters, and it's a show, not a concert, meaning you're not sitting there on your hands most of the time -- you're drinking (or maybe not) and just plain moving your ass, sweating like swine, bobbing your head until you suffer whiplash. I've done that more than enough times to make me a spoiled musical brat -- The Fleshtones (my favorites, woefully undernoticed since 1976), The Reducers (the Connecticut band that's been together, and criminally undernoticed, since 1978), NRBQ, Black 47, The Swingin' Neckbreakers, The Lyres, The A-Bones and a truckload of other bands over the years. That time we left New Haven in a blizzard to see The Mummies' raucous farewell show at CBGB in February '93 comes to mind, too. So does U2 at Toad's Place in New Haven in May '81, just after "Boy" came out -- they were really full of fire and sweat then, without the pomp, as most of us from album-rock suburbia were having our new wave debutante ball of sorts. (Plus, I stood from here to my monitor in front of Adam Clayton.) Or Dead Kennedys shows in the early '80s where the intensity in the pit reached tornado level as Biafra egged them on. Or Dick Dale on his first tour, at Maxwell's in Hoboken, N.J., 10/8/93, making me rethink the way I viewed rock. (After 15 years of loudhardfast and sloppy, Dick was much louder, just as fast and white-tornado clean.) Or Beau Jocque (RIP) & the Zydeco Hi-Rollers on a frantic, mad-sweaty Tuesday night in the summer of '95 at the Rock'n'Bowl in New Orleans. Or the electric thrill of not only seeing '60s bands reunite successfully over the years (Richard & the Young Lions, The Remains, The Monks, ? and the Mysterians), but being close enough to touch them. Well, at least shake hands and chat with them.
But there's something to be said about intimacy and quiet moments in clubs, too; numerous Jonathan Richman shows attest to that. So does a Graham Parker solo show at Toad's in March '89. And one of the greatest shows of all time, in terms of chemistry between artist and audience, was Ray Davies at Toad's 10/22/95. It was the final show of his first storyteller tour -- a sit-down show, which was rare there -- and he was met with a barrage of love from a hardcore Kinks kontingent. He sensed the mood of the crowd (korrektly), and since it was the final show of the tour, he returned the love by pulling out a bunch of songs he hadn't played in probably 30 years ("Animal Farm," "Rosie Won't You Please Come Home.") It became a legendary show among Kinks faithful; some of us who were there still tingle and start smiling warm smiles over that one. Nothing pre-fab, over-rehearsed, overpriced, overamped or lethargic about that show. THAT was a night I'd gladly pay big-box ripoff prices to see again ...
