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Sloan - maligned in the article - did a terrific live show at the tiny TT the Bear's Place in Cambridge, MA last year, and they did the coolest (non-) encore ever. Boston's morality laws mean that bands have to wrap up by a fixed time. Sloan simply announced that, because they would have to finish at midnight, they weren't going to do an encore; they would just play until they weren't allowed to play any more. And then they did precisely that, and when they had to stop playing, they set down their instruments, sat down on the front of the stage, and began to talk with their fans.
In general, I think there is an inverse correlation between what you pay for your ticket and what you get, in terms of the live music experience, but this is contingent on you developing your own musical tastes and seeing smaller bands in small clubs (I recommend TourFilter, if it's in your area, or Pollstar). For less than fifteen dollars, I can stand close enough to the stage to get dripped on, I can hear every note and see every nuance, I can yell at the band and have them respond (although I usually don't), and I can go talk to them afterwards. When you're not dropping a hundred bucks on your mediocre seat, you can afford to be a lot more generous towards the band, in terms of whether it was a 'good' or a 'bad' concert.
