Music and growing older... • Page 5

Hey, I am on LI and am curious where the best spots are to see shows, in your opinion. It's been 5 years since I have lived on the island, and I am not really sure where things go down anymore (RIP The Downtown, The Crazy Donkey).

 

I'm 34 and I still discover new music all the time. I don't go to as many shows, but that's because I've got kids on the way and my wife no longer works for a large concert promoter/producer so we don't get free tickets anymore

 

man, no one gets more undeserved shit when it comes to shows / music than teenage girls

 

At 33, I've found it harder to find people to go to shows with than to find shows I want to go to. I recently managed to get over the stigma of going solo to a show and actually really enjoyed it. I was able to shift around the venue throughout the night without having to drag a group of people around, which helped keep things interesting. It does seem to get tougher to find new music that I like, but I refuse to become like everyone in my parent's generation who will tell you the last great rock album came out the year they graduated high school or college.

 

we're all teenage girls at heart and that's a beautiful thing

 

preach it dude! besides, you never know who you could meet!

 

I'm 30 and probably go to the same amount of shows I did ten years ago. I am, however, much more selective now and get something very different out of the experience these days than I did back then. I grew up in a small town in the middle of Illinois and usually had to make a 3ish hour drive to Chicago for any band that wasn't local. Back then, my friends and I would make either an all day event or weekend out of it, and the show would be almost secondary. But still, because we were together and in the big city feeling awesome about ourselves, we had a blast even if whatever bands we were seeing didn't sound that great.

Now that I live in the city, when I do go to a show, I make damn sure it's a band I know is going to kill it. It's much more of a personal experience than a shared one now, and that's okay. I thoroughly enjoy going to shows in groups as well as alone-- I get very different things out of each circumstance, but it's all positivity.

 

Philly is a decent city for music, but Chicago is even better! I'm jealous!

 

My musical tastes don't really align with my friends' tastes (with some exceptions), so I go to most shows alone. When I was younger it used to bug me a bit, but now I don't even think twice about buying a ticket to a show I want to go to. And I enjoy it, for the reasons you mentioned. I can just do whatever I want.

 

Oh, I'm spoiled rotten. That's partially why I try to hit as many shows as possible, so as not become complacent with my wonderful situation. Philly definitely has one of my favorite scenes in the country right now though-- The Menzingers, Tigers Jaw, Restorations etc... all in the area. Count me in.

 

Right there with ya. These days, if it's a band I'm super passionate about, I actually prefer going alone. Convincing someone to go even if they aren't into the band just so you can have someone stand next to you the whole time can make the show a miserable experience.

 

I have gone to some shows alone and some I've forced my gf to go. I went to Fallon without her and it wasn't nearly as good without her. I went to After the Burial alone and it was fine, haha.

I am making her come with me to Underoath though. So I just prefer being with her I think even if she is just being nice

 

Hi!! Amityville Music Hall is my favorite place and where most shows happen frequently. I would follow East Coast Collective on Facebook since they book the majority of the shows on LI right now. There's a big lack of venues here at the moment so the only other places that hold things are The Paramount(super over priced, but good sound), Revolution(meh), Emporium(okay spot, but it's a nightclub as well), and random bars. I find myself going to the city/Brooklyn a lot more for better tours.

 

My musical evolution kind of went full circle. I was hugely into pop music until 7th or 8th grade. Once I started getting into hardcore and metal, I just went deeper and deeper into indie stuff. In about 07 or 08 I discovered St. Vincent and finally started listening to a lot of female fronted bands. Now I basically just listen to pop music again. Charli XCX, Little Boots, etc. Last.fm is still my biggest source of recs but I usually dismiss most things that are pop. I guess I'll find a new noodley band every now and again. The last few bands I can remember hearing and loving are Turnover and Daughter.

In terms of concerts, I mostly just go to older bands that I still love from like 06. lol. It's mostly just too expensive to go into the city or drive to Philly. If someone is playing in Asbury I'll usually do what I can to make it down.

 

I still listen to most of the same bands I've been listening to since college, but my tolerance for shows (people at shows, anyway) has gone way down since I was younger. At this point, if there's no upgraded/VIP/semi-secluded ticket option, I'm not going.

 

Yeah, I've essentially become the "Hey, can we just go to the balcony?" guy. The fact that there are people our age that still get involved baffles me.

Though I did freak out for Poison the Well a little bit last year.

 

I won't lie, when I saw Swans I listened to them from the outside smoking area because it was so loud and chaotic I could enjoy it more outside the venue.

 

Swans live sounds like my nightmares.

I have a pair of ear plugs in my car that I ALWAYS forget. Need to start remembering those.

 

It was the greatest performance though cuz Xiu Xiu (one of my favorites for some reason) opened and played the worst set in the history of music and set the bar so low for Swans.

 

I was tempted to go to that cover set Xiu Xiu was doing in the city but wasn't sure how it would turn out. At this point I'm not even sure if it happened already. lol

 

He'd probably be cool at something like that, Stewart literally did not play a song when I saw him. Not a single song. Just made drone noises with no rhythm in place and literally barked in the microphone.

 

Yeah, I mean, I've been strongly considering getting Taste of Chaos tickets (because Dashboard, TBS, Saosin), and I figure it'll be a decent number of old farts like us who've been into them for 10-15 years. And they do have VIP packages, so...