Is anyone here still into live concerts these days?

You betcha ….but, very selectively for class acts only.

in March 2024, I paid the StubHub asking price for killer floor tix - front and centre ninth row from the stage- to see THE EAGLES live.

In August, it was BLUE RODEO in an outside venue,

In November, it was for great tickets to see DIANA KRALL live.

I now have CHRIS BOTTI live in concert tickets coming up in a couple of months.

TAKEAWAY:

” Price is what you pay….. Value is what you get …”

- Warren Buffett,

I rarely go to large venue (20,000 seat and larger) shows. The disconnect between seeing the band playing is just too much. Don’t get me wrong, I went to plenty of them in the decades past, from Pink Floyd, many Grateful Dead shows, Phish, Widespread Panic, Paul McCartney, The Police, Sting, Neil Young, Steely Dan, and more recently, Goose.

But always for more bang for my bucks, I loved going to smaller "bar" or "warehouse" shows, venues holding between 150 and 5000 people. They were always cheaper and now, a LOT cheaper, and you felt like you were actually seeing the band and had some interaction with them.

My favorite venues are the Ramkat in Winston-Salem, the Orange Peel in Asheville, The Visulite in Charlotte, The Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, and Pisgah Brewing Co, in Black Mountain. All these venues are open to audience recording too, which is a hobby of mine.

Prices for seeing bands at these venues ranges from $30 to $50 and are well worth it. I mainly go to see rock jam bands (think Spafford, Eggy, moe, lespecial, Aqueous), Americana, or jazz, and a few singer-songwriters. These places have the sound quality dialed in very well, and most don’t blow your ears out either.

I won’t say I’ll never go to a "large, expensive" show again, but it would have to be someone I really, really liked.

I haven’t been lately, but I went for about 20 years to a 4-day Americana festival called Merlefest, that has about 10 stages going, and everything from straight ahead bluegrass to rock. For the price, you get to see many, many artists.

To show the disconnect at large shows, some YouTubers recorded some of the songs as presented in commercials or videos from Taylor Swift’s recent live tour. They found that on most of the songs, she wasn’t even singing live. They were canned "prerecorded" vocals. No thanks. I mean I guess her fans don’t care and they just want to see her dance around the stage, but I can listen to a record for nearly free via Tidal and pop my own popcorn and get beers a lot cheaper.

I’m 62, and I’ve been attending shows since I was 10 years old (had a sibling 11 years older than me). Throughout the 1970’s and 1990’s, most shows were in venues under 10,000 seats, with an occasional large stadium show. Starting in the 2000’s, I started throwing in a few Multi-Day Festival shows where crowds of 80,000 fans a day were common. I quickly learned those events were not for me -- from the ticket prices to hotel costs to concessions cost, they just became ridiculously expensive.

Also in that early 2000’s time frame, I began attending shows at independent clubs -- venues that held a maximum of 500 to 1,000 fans, and quickly fell in love with these shows. The sound was much better, the prices were very low, you had the ability to see a vast variety of niche genre bands, and get to see them up close and personal. I began befriending the club managers and sticking around after shows in the loading area or in the clubs (with permission from the management), and I got to meet and party with numerous now famous musicians who enjoyed having a dinner or drinks bought for them. My primary music is Progressive Rock and Prog Metal, and I have been fortunate to hang out with the members of Haken, Porcupine Tree, Sons of Apollo, Dream Theater, Fates Warning, The Pineapple Thief, Leprous, Riverside, along with Mott The Hoople, Opeth, King Buffalo, Warren Zevon, Killing Joke, Dixie Dregs, Zakk Wylde, Black Label Society, Pantera, GodspeedYou! Black Emperor...just to name a few.

Give me the under 1,000 seat venues all day long. I’ll keep rocking out live as long as I can!

@allenf1963 ,

What was Warren Zevon like??

@moonwatcher -- When I saw the venues you named, I realized we must live near each other. I’m in Winston-Salem. I am at The RamKat, Cat’s Cradle, Motorco, Filmore, Neighborhood Theater, Hanger 1819, The Underground, Orange Peel, and Monstercade VERY OFTEN. I also fly to NYC to catch shows at Radio City, Irving Plaza, St. Vitus, Brooklyn Steel, and others.

Before I retired, I handled Jay’s insurance at Ziggy’s for 20 years. My office was on Deacon Boulevard, right in front of Ziggy’s. I saw hundreds of shows there before he had to close. I had free reign to sit in on sound checks. I’d walk in around 2:00 p.m. wearing a suit and tie, grab a PBR beer, and sit dead center answering questions from the bands on how it sounded. Great memories!