I used to go see the odd band play when I was at university, but I never really got into the scene. There were a bunch of reasons, all minor, but taken in combination they made the whole thing kind of “meh” for me. Since then, I’ve probably gone to see a couple of live shows a year, at most.
Just recently I realised that most of my reasons for not going to see many bands were no longer applicable. The result? I’ve been going to see bands almost weekly. It seems almost life-changing.
My reasons for not seeing bands, and how things changed:
It used to be time-consuming and difficult to keep up with who was playing where and find out about shows. You’d have to listen to local radio with a pen ready, or pick up weekly free newspapers from record stores and scour through the gig listings. This is no longer the case. A friend at work put me on to SonicLiving, a site which not only lists live music events, but also scours your iTunes, last.fm, or pandora playlists to determine what you’d be interested in seeing. The first email it sends you is a revelation. I was amazed, and I’ve seen at least three friends have the same “wow” moment of realising that a bunch of bands they’re interested are playing nearby in the near future. Right now I have dozens of shows on my wishlist, all exported to my Google Calendar, and the site sends me email reminders as well.
TurbonegrA playing at The Bottom of the Hill, December 2010
It used to be hard to research bands you didn’t know well. Perhaps you’d heard a couple of songs on the radio and liked them, but you didn’t know any of their other stuff, nor have any idea what they were like live. Well, now I have iTunes, Youtube, and plenty of other mechanisms to find this stuff out. Half an hour online and I can have a good idea of whether I want to see the band perform. An hour or more, and perhaps a little money spent, and I can have the band’s albums, listen to them, and even find the lyrics so I can sing along at the show. All without leaving my house.
I didn’t used to be able to afford shows. Or rather, the shows I could afford were not very good ones. I’m no longer as impoverished as I used to be, so that’s not a problem any more.
Venues were smoky. I don’t really mind it all that much, but it was one little thing to add to all the rest. Now, of course, most cities (or at least those I’ve lived in) don’t allow smoking in venues.
Black Fag playing at 924 Gilman St, December 2010
Things always ran really late, and I had work in the morning. San Francisco’s a pretty early city, and most venues only have 2am licenses at the latest. Plus I can go to work late, or work from home when I want to. No longer a problem!
I hate all the waiting around. Why do they say “doors at 8, show at 9” when the first opener’s not going to come on until 10:30? And why all the long waits between sets? (Yes, I know it’s so you buy more drinks. It still annoys me.) But this is one area where I’ve found the iPhone to be a really life-changing technology. The knowledge that I have the Internet in my pocket — even if I don’t take it out — makes the wait more bearable. And as one astute friend said to me, a phone is like a portable bubble of introversion. When you pull it out, you’re in your own world, and can ignore the crowd. As a borderline introvert/extrovert, sometimes I need that.
All this is to say, I’ve been going to see live music lately and loving it. And I highly recommend SonicLiving. If you sign up and would like to go see shows with me, I’m on there under my infotrope email address.