Jonathan Franzen Calls It Like He Sees It

In my experience, there are 3 different kinds of concerts (not including festivals).

1) The Arena
Fairly self-explanatory, these are the over-the-top, extremely popular stadium and arena shows that are the realm of the world's biggest performers. These are concerts that put spectacle above music, lights over sound. The only remaining enabler of the status quo in our current marketplace. They're also really fun, although not very cost effective for show-goers.

2) The mid-sized venue
More and more, bands are outgrowing small club shows but they aren't achieving enough success to go all the way to an arena or stadium. These mid-sized shows are the perfect fit. Many people who would never be caught dead at a category 1 show (read: hipsters) can settle for a category 2. They can be really fun, though they tend to house the most tiresome form of music fan, the kind who only go to category 2 shows. They only see band live that are trendy, but command sincere ownership of their fandom.

3) The Local Band
At the bottom end, we have the "local band" or bar/club show. These aren't always the forum for strictly local bands. Any band that has instruments and will travel is welcome to try their hand at a tour of these venues. In the audience, you will often see people (read: hardcore hipsters) you will never see at either category 2 or category 3 shows. These are the most rough-around-the-edges, most unpredictable concerts of all. However, the crowd can be very hard to impress. The less money on the line for the audience member, the less they have to convince themselves they are having a good time if they, in fact, aren't. On the other hand, the fewer people in the crowd, the more the fervent admirers can congratulate themselves on their own sense of discovery. If the band graduates to category 2 (or even 3!), this is the time that will be cited as the great "before-they-were-popular" period.

I lay this extremely obvious information out simply because the hipster cachet that comes with being in a crowd at the "right" concert, and being the "right" kind of earnest and dedicated fan irks me to no end. There is no need to worry about whether you've heard of the band before seeing them, how many times you've seen them, if you have all their albums (or EP's, or 7 inches), who your favourite band member is, or even why you like them. There is also no need to judge others if they don't experience the show in the same way as you. Our current culture of live music as a way of living was recently observed very succinctly in Jonathan Franzen's book Freedom. The following is an excerpt.

"...and here...all around him, were hundreds of kids...with their sweet yearnings, their innocent entitlement--to what? To emotion. To unadulterated worship of a superspecial band. To being left to themselves to ritually repudiate, for an hour or two on a Saturday night, the cynicism and anger of their elders. They seemed...to bear malice toward nobody. Katz could see it in their clothing, which bespoke none of the rage and disaffection of the crowds he'd been a part of as a youngster. They gathered not in anger but in celebration of their having found, as a generation, a gentler and more respectful way of being. A way, not incidentally, more in harmony with consuming. "