Is anyone here still into live concerts these days?

@2psyop - there's going to be a deluxe anniversary edition of 'For Earth Below' coming out later this year. One of my photos I took in Oakland in 1975 will be in the included booklet.... 

But to respond to OP’s original post, yes I still love to go to concerts and go whenever I can. In the past year I’ve seen Matthew Sweet, Robert Plant/Alison Krauss, the Psychedelic Furs, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and Superchunk.

I can sympathize with a lot of posters though. I have two bad knees so standing for the entire show is a non-starter. My wife and I got COVID (again) at the Superchunk show in October, so that’s given us some pause too. I too am not willing to pay a huge ticket price for an act that’s in many cases long past its sell-by date, so I choose carefully.

These days, I’m an avid concert video collector. I have two rigs: a 2 channel one upstairs and a 7.2.4 Atmos setup that is all Focal and Anthem in the basement. So I do a lot of my concert watching reclined with a glass of wine and a cool buzz. It’s not quite the same, but waaay easier.

We are members of a small theater in central Ohio. Midland Theater. In the last year we have seen 38 Special, Toto, Kansas, Kenny G, Mike Cambell and the Dirty Knobs (Tom Pettys lead guitar along with Toms hall of fame drummers band) and a KILLER Led Zepplin Tribue band GTLO (Get the Led Out). Since we are members, we get tickets before they go on sale to the public and I usually choose about 4 or 5 rows back. It’s a perfect spot for Sue and me. We take another couple with us. I’m 68 and my wife is 71.

@goodlistening64 nope. I’m not talking about background vocals but rather the main vocals supposedly being sung by Taylor Swift during her shows.

Look, I don’t have a dog in this hunt. She is not my cup of tea and I haven’t bought any of her albums but one since she went "pop" and became more of a cult figure than a singer.

But Youtubers like this guy, Wings of Pegasus, have analyzed several of her songs and shows and found that yes, the vocals were canned.

Now, her fans don’t really seem to care, and if they are willing to pay $500 or more to see her, whatever. At least she is generating economic activity and helping support the other singers and performers, the road crew, local hotels and restaurants, etc., so good for her.

This guy’s video channel isn’t devoted to trashing Taylor, but rather for trying to scream to the industry that it is time to stop it with all the perfect pitch mods they do in the studio and live, and let the music breathe with reality.

Artificial perfection is boring. Might as well be listening to an A.I. generated song, and apparently soon we will be. Ugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rMNMURShM

I still go but only to smaller venues.  Prices at large venues like MSG in NYC are crazy and the sound sucks.  Richard Thompson was great in 2024 and BEAT doing crimson at the Beacon was one of the best shows in Years.  I pray they put out a live album from that tour.