Your Ideal Music Listening Experience - Club, Gig or Bedroom?

Different kinds of music call for different kinds of live experiences. We saw Lambchop at a seated venue and it was great. We saw Patrick Wolf at a big seated gig and it was a bit stiffling initially but then he did a fast song, EVERYBODY stood up and moved to the front, he responded by playing more fast songs that he hadn't planned, and it was bloody amazing. We'd seen him at a little seated venue years before and it had been intimate and entrancing and magical.

I think it depends on the act, I'd never go and see a dance act or a punk band at a venue if I had to sit, but if I was going to see, I dunno, Low or someone, what extra enjoyment are you going to get out of the gig if you're standing?

Maybe you should just accept that seated gigs are not for you, and not try to tell other people what they should have access to.

Except I didn't do this. I was responding to the tone of the conversation which was 'gigs are horrible, they should all be like classical music concerts'. I didn't say you can't go to seated gigs, I said that I hate them. And that if things like seating are your primary concerns, perhaps you don't really dig the things that make gigs gigs. And that instead of going 'gigs are horrible, they should all be like classical music concerts' you should just be cool with the fact that you don't really like gigs. But this is ilx, of course, you don't get to ask anybody to be cool with anything, and as soon as you do you get jumped on and treated like an asshole. Woo.

And really, if you don't want to be jumped on and treated like an asshole for something innocuous, maybe ILX just isn't for you? And that's all cool, you know. Just don't whine about it.

Well, certainly this thread isn't for me. I do always wonder why people who think ilx is a horrible place where people should be allowed to be awful to each other stick around, though. Because I don't think of it like that at all.

Wow, OK, your reading of what you think has happened in this thread is so different so what I think just happened in this thread that I don't think we're even posting on the same board.

I have no doubt that my enjoyment of gigs is closely related to being 6'3" and always being able to see. I often wonder what anyone under, say, 5'10" gets out of being at a standing-only gig.

strong calf muscles from constantly having to tiptoe :(

if it's music i want to dance to, standing gigs are fine, but even then my buzz will usually be harshed a little by the utter weirdos whose reaction to, say, grace jones is to stand STOCK STILL, and to glare at anyone with the temerity to move their bodies to disco beats

I've spent the last, like, 2 or 3 years going to gigs where I try to find a perch, high up, where I can sit down and watch from afar. But it's probably because since getting old, my reaction to music that moves me is to draw, rather than to dance.

Dancing is something that I really miss in my life, but it unfortunately went when I stopped drinking at gigs/clubs.

Dancing went when I started getting knee problems.

i'm with emily, not a fan of seated gigs. you're supposed to jump and dance and get stepped on and feel like shit and want to pay $4 for a bottle of water afterwards. if you have a problem with that, maybe being alive on this Earth isn't for you.

With some music I think the setting will never be achieved. It's gonna be a while till I get to listen to dub reggae playing on a beat up soundsystem in the middle of a Jamaican blues party. Similarly, I'll never get to become a white hot ball of mercury and go zinging around a futuristic neon city while listening to Orbital. I just have to imagine it.

you have to sustain your attention for an hour and a half or whatever

i dont have a problem with that - its more that it abruptly starts at a particular time and abruptly ends at a particular time and there is nothing before or after - i can easily lose self in music in a club for longer stretches than that, its more that i like the idea of music just being kind of continuous and just kind of coming in and out as and when

― coal, Monday, 16 April 2012 15:21 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm gonna bang on about the smoking ban again... I think since smoking became an outdoor pursuit, it's harder for performances to keep audiences completely rapt as those with itchy feet will start looking at the door as people go in and out.

as a non-driver I'm starting to wonder what I'm missing out on by not driving around listening to music.

I saw Madness at a seated gig. Suggs thanked the three people who'd managed to stay sat down and not pushed their way to the front.

the smoking ban is the single greatest piece of english legislation of the past decade

It should have gone further.

The is no right or wrong way to listen, of course, there's just a multitude of pragmatic best ways "right now" which depend on infinite circumstances.

I find most gigs either a bit boring or annoying. Boring because I'd rather be listening to music at home because the act can't really pull it off live or the live experience doesn't really add anything. Annoying because there are annoying people there who either talk incessantly or get in the way. I tend to give up and hang near the bar, which is easier to do if it's not seated.

In a club you can find your own space and dance providing the layout and sound system is adequate. I'm not sure if I'm 'experiencing' the music rather than listening to it in a club though.

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Rockists. All of ya. ;-)

no surprises

shut-ins, more like ;)

Headphones while commuting is my favorite.

I'd just like to say that I HATE HATE HATE seated gigs.

The few seated gigs I've been at have been in rows of uncomfortable school assembly chairs, which I don't like, especially when you have to fold your knees up and be jerked out of the ~zone~ every 10 minutes when someone wants to get out, and when there's only one appointed time for getting a drink and so you all have to queue for the entire interval for a lukewarm can of coke and worry about whether the next band's started yet.

But my favourite thing ever about standing up gigs is when the venue is only half full and you can find a chair at the back away from the mad crush and just bliss out and listen to the music. Because I am lazy and short and being somewhere where I can see and moving whenever someone a foot taller stands in front of me etc is physically tiring and, again, distracting from the music.

Obviously the promoter's least favourite thing about running gigs is when the gig is empty enough that I get my cosy bliss-out seat, though, so I felt a bit bad about that when I went to gigs. Now I mainly don't go to gigs, because although gigs can seem really transcendent in ways I don't get from at-home listening, the faff and alienation of the rest of the evening compared to that 20 minutes of possible ecstasy is just too much, too jarring.

PS tl;dr rundown of faff and alienation:

• transport
• worrying that I'll be too late to get in
• actually finding that I'm early and it's running late
• waiting and waiting and intermittently losing my waiting spot by going to check the doors again
• still being vain enough to worry about feeling uncool when surrounded by hip young punx half my age
• shouting myself hoarse at the barman just to get a drink
• paying £2.50 for a cracked plastic thimble of sodastream Pepsi
• losing my spot every time I want a drink or the toilet
• getting walked into every 30 seconds because short people look like gaps in the crowd
• spending the last band's set checking my watch and worrying about when to run for the last bus home instead of being able to enjoy it
• etc

feeling those

plus standing up with no bar to lean on is tiresome plus if i really want to watch somebody play music why must it be a battle royale to get an eye-line plus that was just like your record but worse/more boring/more surrounded by nobs

I think live gigs = classic if <6'.

Although, I can name a bunch of acts who I'd happily watch live again, but not listen to on CD. Someone like Gideon Conn - his live act is so wonderful, charming, witty, interactive, but very little of this shines through on record.

the only answer i can give is that it depends. the live experience of loud, viscerally intense, physically produced music can't be completely captured in a recording, and for some artists it's the entire point. this is especially true when the primary appeal of the music is physical and even brutal, as with metal and punk, spazzy weirdo stuff, noise rock, etc. studio recordings of certain artists or styles can be quite tiresome to listen to, even when the live show is thrilling. context is everything.

if i'm listening in a private space, my choice of album vs mixtape will depend, again, on context. if i want "background music" while my attention is on something else, then a mixtape, radio show, varied playlist or randomizer might be preferable. if i'm listening closely as my primary activity, then i'm slightly more likely to prefer an album or single-artist collection.

i don't go to dance clubs, so i can't really comment on that.

So many options that could be included:

Headphones while working out
Headphones while commuting
Carrying boombox on shoulder
Portable speakers on backpack/bike/motorcycle
Headphones at work
Speakers at work
Headphones at home
Live outdoor concert/festival
Live at small club (< 500 capacity)
Live medium club (> 500 to 1,000 capacity)
Live at large club (> 1,000 capacity)
Live at super large venue/stadium/arena (> 10,000 capacity)

Carrying boombox on shoulder

^only way i listen to music

*boombox option can include walking, rollerblading, rollerblading wearing nothing but thong. Yes, I have seen it. I cannot unsee it.

Ned, were you hanging out with yr box on Chicago's lakefront last summer? ;)

Railway station buskers
Through the wall from the next apartment
Supermarket PA system
In my head
Personally singing and/or playing an instrument
In church
In the style of the Romans

I'm not Ned but I do go rollerblading in my thong sometimes, yes.

Missed this. Car--not even close.