Concerts

This post kind of goes along with my last post where I talked about music, but this one focuses on concerts rather than albums. I just got back from seeing the Bouncing Souls in concert and I started thinking about how many bands I have seen and met. This was the 10th time I have seen the Bouncing Souls in concert. That is tied with Bad Religion, and after next week, Coheed & Cambria for the most times I have seen a band. Also up there is Jimmy Eat World (7 times), Ignite (6 times), the Street Dogs (6 times), and interestingly enough, New Found Glory (6 times), though most of the times I saw NFG were when they were supporting another band that I had gone to see.

Yes, I go to concerts all the time. My very first concert was when I was 16 and living in Arizona. I drove down to Phoenix to see Fenix TX and Blink-182. Bad Religion played in between them, and that was a defining moment of my musical life. After Bad Religion played, I remember thinking, "this is what a real band is like." They totally put Fenix TX and Blink-182 to shame. My very next concert was later that year in Reno, and it was Bad Religion with Ignite and the Promise Ring. I felt bad for the Promise Ring because they didn't play the same type of music and some people didn't like it, but they were awesome. Ignite totally blew me away, and I became an instant fan. Bad Religion, of course, was amazing.

Along the way, I have had some interesting experiences. I have gotten in a few fist fights at concerts, I have had tons of beer spilled on me, I have had random girls cling onto me and hold me for the whole show, and I even rode in a cop car and spent most of the night in the Yuba County police station holding cell in Sacramento, CA. I have seen the transition from when you had to be very sneaky with a film camera to get photos, to everybody having cell phone cameras that you don't have to hide. The same goes for the transition from waving lighters during ballads, to now waving lit-up cell phones (which is incredibly lame, by the way, and I refuse to participate). I have met most of my musical idols, and I have even got to have extended conversations with some of them.

If you read my last post, I mentioned the Gin Blossoms being a big influence. Well, I got to chat with them for a good 30 minutes one time. Coheed is another huge influence, and I have been able to meet them many times. In September of 2010, I went up to Boise to see them, and I had a backstage pass. As it turns out, I was one of only 5 people on the list, so I got to sit down and chat with them for about 45 minutes. I had already had the chance to meet them and get autographs twice in two different cities on the 2007 Warped Tour. Then I met them twice in May 2010, and got autographs again at a meet-and-greet. So when I saw them in September of 2010, they knew who I was. Travis even mentioned how I looked like I could be his brother. I thought that was cool. Just recently I got to talk with all the guys from Ignite and they signed an album for me. I kind of stuck out because my arm was in a sling and I had the whole Grizzly Adams thing going on (plus the crowd was tiny). Then I saw Pennywise with Zoli from Ignite on vocals a few weeks later in Salt Lake. He recognized me and said, "Hey man, I just saw you in Vegas a couple weeks ago with Ignite." I know it is kind of silly, but that was so great to me.

Something that always interests me about live performances is how songs that didn't particularly stand out to me on an album will really hit me when they are performed live. I think that has a lot to do with my own emotional response, but also seeing the emotion in the performance. When I saw the Gaslight Anthem, the song that hit me the hardest was "Only Cowgirls Get the Blues," which was toward the bottom of my list of favorites of their songs from the albums. But when I saw Brian singing with such emotion, it really struck me. The same thing happened when I saw Weezer one time in Tucson. It was weird, but during one of their songs that usually doesn't do much for me emotionally, I was just struck by this feeling. It was a combination of memories of the things I was doing when I had heard the song in the past, and also the fact that I was with my best friends on a beautiful night outdoors listening to one of my favorite bands. I think hearing the artists explain the backstory of songs can add a lot of emotion too. Again with Weezer, they did a show in Vegas where they played all of the Blue Album and then all of Pinkerton. In between albums, they took a break and did a slideshow with Karl explaining everything that was going on at the time when they were working on the albums. It added a lot of depth.

Since my first show over 12 years ago, I have been to hundreds of shows and seen tons of different bands. People always ask me what concert was my favorite, or who is best in concert. To me, that is kind of like asking a mother which of her children is her favorite. However, I do think one concert in particular was so incredibly amazing that I might be able to pick it as my favorite. Back in 2009, I saw Jimmy Eat World play Clarity in its entirety, plus a huge encore of all of their best songs. There are number of reasons it was amazing. 1) It was in their hometown of Tempe, AZ, and I spent many years of my childhood in AZ. 2) It was the 10 year anniversary of Clarity. 3) They had practiced a ton, and included every little nuance that is found on the album in their live performance. It was seriously the best sounding and best performed concert I have ever seen. They even played all 16 minutes of "Goodbye Sky Harbor" with Jim looping his voice to do all of the harmony parts at the end. 4) I have extreme emotional connections to the album Clarity. 5) I was with my brothers and my best friend, and we were having the time of our lives. 6) I have a high-quality recording of the concert that I can always listen to, and one day I can show it to my kids and say, "I was there."