My last arena show (as an audience member)

[jfine]

The other night I went to see Brad Paisley, The Band Perry, and Scotty McCreery at a hockey arena in Columbus, Ohio. First time I'd been to a show at a venue that big since I saw Blind Faith at the Oakland Coliseum in 1969. Given the improvements is staging and sound system technology in the last 40+ years, I was expecting a good show, and it probably was, but I couldn't see anything! I was way back in the nosebleed section for the Blind Faith show, and wished I'd brought binoculars, so this time I shelled out some bucks and got seats five rows back from the stage. The view would have been great if everybody had stayed in their seats, but the entire crowd stood up from the first note, and held cel phones over their heads to film the show, so I couldn't even see over their heads. I had polio when I was a kid, and had a knee replacement more recently, and I can't do several hours on my feet, so mostly all I could see was peoples' backs, with an occasional glimpse of the Jumbotron screen--and I got a brief glimpse of Brad Paisley when he got on the runway at the right of the stage. The subwoofers were cranked to the point where you could almost hear the vocals and guitars over the kick drum and the low end of the bass--I think the sound man must have been a bass player! Luckily, Brad's a guitar player, and a killer one at that, so by the time he came on they'd gotten the lead guitar hot enough in the mix. He's calling this one the "Virtual Reality Tour", and there were some creative and spectacular visuals and laser projections going on--I wish I could have seen them better! Everybody sounded good--at that level you don't get any hacks--Scotty McCreery gave a strong performance, especially for as young as he is. Brad Paisley, of course, was incredible--he's a funny guy onstage, and his playing is just killer. But the problem is the audience--people have gotten rude since the days when I was going to concerts. Everybody seems to feel that it's their own private show, and if they want to stand up and block someone's view, they'll do it and not give a second thought, or SCREAM at the top of their lungs like the teenage girls right behind us. I saw Patty Loveless at a county fair in California some years back, and there was a couple a few rows back from me who yelled, "WE LOVE YOU, PATTY!!" over and over at every opportunity--I could tell it was getting to Patty too.
So I think I've been to my last big arena show, unless I get a chance to play one--I'd do that! I've done some smaller ones--the biggest show I've ever done was for 30,000 people at the main grandstand at the California State Fairgrounds with Miko Marks for a 4th of July gig a few years ago. Those can be fun, and I'll bet the big hockey arena gigs can be too, if you're a performer rather than an audience member.

[TerryTNM]

Good critique. Haven't been to a large venue concert for many years, but can imagine that your description is spot on. Especially the part about the people standing up in front of you. I'm getting to old for concerts and don't have the sharp elbows to go along with it. The best seat in the house is in your living room watching on TV. . . you do lose a bit of the atmosphere though. -Terry

[Veenture]

Jon, sorry to hear of your disappointment, I'm cured myself from attending big shows after attending U2's performance in the Amsterdam Arena, 3 years ago. The sound mixer did an overkill on the sub woofers and base drums, drowning out practically all of the pleasing guitar notes. The audience was selfish too.
In the seventies I was at a Beach Boys concert in Amsterdam's "Concert Gebouw" and can remember how well-behaved the audience was, even after the Boys showed up hours later than planned (their plane got delayed due to mist setting in at their point of departure, in Belgium). The acoustics of the famous concert hall was a joy and the overall sound was excellent. Similar story when I saw the group Manassas perform in the same concert hall.
It must be a sign of the times. I saw Nokie Edwards perform in Amsterdam in 2002 to a small audience (he prefers audiences not bigger than 300 heads!). There was a group of raucous selfish boozers in the audience but Nokie simply drowned them out. The show was fantastic and luckily it was taped professionally. I still enjoy watching the DVD and as Terry says it...from the best seat in the house in my living room

[BRRanger]

Jfine: I agree, I saw John Fogerty last year at Cash Creek, everyone was standing up, yelling, the guy behind me thought he was a drummer, stamping his feet and yelling "CENTERFIELD" over and over until JCF finally played it. The girls were screaming at the top of their lungs, reminded me of the Beatles concerts/Ed Sullivan appearances. I was very annoyed and my wife asked why I was not smiling...it was very annoying. At least they enjoyed the show I guess, he was excellent!
Scott

[olrocknroller]

I buy the CD...no line-ups, parking tickets, or smelly armpits, and I can have the sound just the way I like it...and enjoy a fine glass of wine as I listen in my favorite easy chair. To me, live concerts have outlived their usefulness.

[BRRanger]

Ol Rocknroller: Agreed!

[jfine]

BRRanger--that's too bad about the Fogerty show at Cache Creek. I played that venue with Buck Ford back in 2010, and we had a great time. That's a pretty small room to have a rowdy crowd in--it's a showroom, not an arena--and a bunch of jacka$$es in there could definitely ruin your night! We didn't have a large crowd--Fogerty's a much bigger draw than we were--but our crowd was what I'd call "small but spirited". They didn't raise heck, they acted like they had a good time, and they let us know about it. A good gig for us, and I hope for the crowd too.
Olrocknroller--I agree with you, especially nowadays when a lot of the acts do their best to duplicate their recordings note-for-note, solos and all. I was so disappointed with the Eagles' live album back in '81--they might as well have overdubbed crowd noise onto the original tracks. "Seven Bridges Road" was cool, though...Back in my day (the late '60's and early '70's), you saw a band live because it was almost a given that they'd improve on their recordings. I want to hear cats play and stretch out, not duplicate the record--I can listen to the recording at home. I guess cats that improvise are called "jam bands", and that seems to be a niche market.

[vetovideo]

Went to a concert for the first time in years last Thursday night. Guess I was a lot luckier than most. It was "Jethro Tull" doing their "Thick as a Brick" set. A smaller arena (Mohegan Sun in Conn.), great stage presentation, near perfect sound and NOT 'note to note' album performance. No one stood up through the entire concert except for the encore "Aqualung". Yet, the crowd was loud, lively and DID NOT scream and yell through each song. Some impressive guitar, bass, piano and accordian rifts and Ian Anderson was superb on the flute. Then again, the average age of the crowd was probably in the 50's. DIFFERENT generations produce different audiences, huh? LOL

[BRRanger]

Jfine: Actually this was outside, kinda in th parking lot on a set-up stage, and the seating was on an angled frame, covered in plywood, which enhanced the "drummer" sitting behind me and my chair went up and down as he pounded out the beat. Probably would have been more intimate inside, but still was pretty close, guess I'm just nit-picking!

[Mr. Bill]

In the past 10 years I've only been to two big arena shows, Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney. Both happened to be at baseball parks.

The sound at Springsteen's show was so loud, we could have been a block away and still heard it perfectly. I'm sure that the entire neighborhood enjoyed the show that night.

McCartney was much better sound wise, but not too far from us there were two younger fans that just wanted to stand during the entire show. Fortunately they were to the left of us and out of our line of sight to the stage. All night long there were a number of people complaining about these two to security, but nothing seemed to get them to sit down. I don't know what I would have done if they were in front of me.

I much prefer shows in smaller rooms, the sound is better and whole vibe much more intimate. And usually you get to see the better acts before they become megastars.