What I Learned Going to 100s of Concerts - Part V
Recounting my trips to see Taylor Swift, The Rolling Stones, Vampire Weekend, and so many more.
In addition to recounting memories from every concert that I’ve seen, this series has allowed me to espouse my endless beliefs about live music. As this is the final part of this series — at least until I go to 100 more shows — I thought it would be nice to summarize my live music commandments that we mentioned throughout this series.
If you have a good time at a small show, you should buy merch or music.
If someone invites you to see an artist you’ve never listened to and it is cheap, you should go.
When in Denver, go to a show at Red Rocks.
When in New York, don’t go to Terminal 5.
If you get a chance to see a legend, you should go whether you know their music or not.
Don’t be scared to go to a concert alone.
Never leave a concert early unless the performer is berating the audience
If there is an opener, you should see them too.
Don’t pick fights at concerts, especially if you’ve been drinking.
If you ever put someone on your shoulders at a show, know that getting them up is much easier than getting them down.
In case you missed the earlier editions of this series, feel free to go back to Part I (AC/DC - The Bouncing Souls), Part II (Brandi Carlile - FLETCHER), Part III (Florence + the Machine - Lil Wayne), and Part IV (Lionel Richie - The Postal Service).
Every Concert I’ve Seen: Prince Daddy - X Ambassadors
Prince Daddy & the Hyena
5/27/2022 (Music Hall of Williamsburg)
Beyond their name, the craziest thing about Prince Daddy & the Hyena is that they played in front of a giant banner depicting Ronald McDonald being crucified, an image you can also buy on a sweatshirt at their merch table.
Railroad Earth
7/4/2023 (Red Rocks Amphitheatre)
In Part I of this series, I recounted an apocalyptic Blues Traveler show that I saw at Red Rocks where people ran for cover as hail rained down from the sky. Railroad Earth was literally and metaphorically the calm before the storm. As they played their gentle progressive bluegrass, the weather began to change. If only we’d known what was coming.
Real Estate
6/12/2014 (Bonnaroo)
Real Estate, described in their Spotify biography as making a “warm, hazy style of indie rock,” are one of many bands that I was exposed to while working at my college’s radio station. That warm, hazy sound makes for a show you don’t need to be smashed up against the stage to enjoy. You can just sit back and relax.
rensforshort
5/2/2022 (Irving Plaza)
If you are going to a concert and there is an opener, I’ll always suggest you go for the opener. All of your favorite artists were an opener at some point. In this case, rensforshort was opening for Tai Verdes (see below). I was already familiar with her music, but I didn’t know she was on the bill. It was a pleasant surprise when she took the stage. Had we not gone early enough, we would have missed that.
Retirement Party
5/23/2023 (Saint Vitus)
I remember enjoying this three-band punk show in Brooklyn. I remember absolutely nothing about Retirement Party, though. That’s not necessarily their fault. All three bands sort of blended together.
The Rolling Stones
9/27/2006 (Giants Stadium)
Over a single week in 2006, I saw my first two concerts: The Who (see below) and The Rolling Stones. As a 6th grade classic rock junkie, I was in heaven. I also remember very little about the music of this show.
When you go to your first concerts, you are often so overwhelmed by the atmosphere that the music is almost an afterthought. There was a lot going on at this show to draw my attention from the stage. We went with four other families. There were rowdy high school students sitting in front of us smoking weed. My friend’s brother got in an altercation with some drunk guy sitting next to him. This all made it very hard to concentrate.
When I asked my mom about this show recently, she said that all she remembered was that the band went on extremely late and that Keith Richards could barely stand up. What I was surprised to discover when researching this show was that there was an insane array of openers on this tour, including The Black Eyed Peas, Maroon 5, Metallica, Nickelback, and Merle Haggard. The night we went, a young Kanye West opened. We did not go in. To reiterate a reiterated point, it’s usually worth checking out the opener.
Sabrina Carpenter
5/11/2023 (Terminal 5)
While I enjoy some of Sabrina Carpenter’s glitzy pop music, I certainly would not have gone to see her perform had my girlfriend not requested it. The show itself was fine, but I couldn’t take my level of enjoyment to the next level because of where it was: Terminal 5. I’ve played shows in the crustiest basements you could imagine, but I continue to believe that Terminal 5 is the worst venue on the planet. And I’m not the only one who thinks that. A few months ago, there was a viral tweet asking people about horrible venues. Terminal 5 was the response thousands of times over. In short, don’t go to Terminal 5 unless you have to.
Seasick Steve
6/14/2014 (Bonnaroo)
Seasick Steve gets the award for the strangest instrument I’ve ever seen anyone perform, namely a broom. During one song in this set he had a microphone aimed at the ground so you could hear someone sweeping the stage. I was so distracted by this that I didn’t realize that Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones was playing bass with him.
Shakey Graves
6/14/2015 (Bonnaroo)
After a short acting career where he appeared in Friday Night Lights and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, Alejandro Rose-Garcia took the name Shakey Graves and began making music built around fingerstyle guitar. There are more technically sound fingerstylists around than him, but he is one of my favorites because he manages to thread great vocal melodies over those fingerpicking patterns.
Shawn Mendes
10/14/2018 (Austin City Limits)
Given how young Shawn Mendes was when he had his first hit, I wasn’t shocked that there were many parents with their children at this show. There was one problem, though. This was at a music festival. And you never know what you are going to see at a music festival.
In the middle of his set, I watched a topless woman walk by a father and daughter and fall directly into a puddle of mud. Naturally, the father put his hands over the daughter’s eyes, so she didn’t have to watch a naked woman covered in mud and body paint struggle to pull herself from the ground while Mendes sang some upbeat song about heartbreak.
Soccer Mommy
10/8/2019 (Red Rocks Amphitheatre)
I’ve mentioned earlier that if you are in Denver, you should go to Red Rocks regardless of who is playing. In this case, I went to Denver for the express purpose of seeing this show. And when I say “this show”, I don’t mean Soccer Mommy. They were the opener. Vampire Weekend was the main attraction. But Soccer Mommy’s moody strain of indie rock was a nice addition.
St. Paul & the Broken Bones
3/25/14 (Great Scott), 6/13/2014 (Bonnaroo), 10/21/2014 (Paradise Rock Club), 10/5/2018 (House of Blues)
Freshman year of college, I sign-up for one club: WZBC, my college’s radio station. While I didn’t get a show until my sophomore year, I did get the perks of being a member, which included an automatic invite to a couple parties — a big plus as a freshman — and free tickets to a few small venues around Boston. I decided to take advantage of that second perk during the second semester of my freshman year when St. Paul & the Broken Bones came to town.
St. Paul & the Broken Bones is an Alabama soul band who had just released their debut album Half the City. I was vaguely familiar with the record, so I put my name down for ticket. When I got back to my dorm later that night, I wasn’t sure if I was going to go. It required a bus and a train to make the 40-minute trip to the venue. Plus, the show was sold out, so I would have to go alone. I explained the conundrum to my roommate, and he told me that I should go. I’m glad that I listened.
When I got to the venue, I bellied up to the bar, ordered a Coca-Cola, and then positioned myself near the stage. To be clear, the venue, Great Scott, was a small venue, capacity no more than 300 people. And this night it was pushing that capacity to the limits. When the Broken Bones came out and started jamming, the crowd was humming. Then something strange happened.
This short, stocky man in a suit strutted onto the tiny stage. I legitimately thought he was a random man jumping on stage. And this would have been possible. There wasn’t really security at Great Scott. But then he grabbed the mic and allayed my fears. It was Paul Janeway (i.e., St. Paul).
Over the next hour, the band put on an electrifying, soul-stirring performance. Everybody in the room knew that this was the last time the Broken Bones would be playing a bar of this size. In the coming months, they’d open for The Rolling Stones and sell out thousand-seat theaters. I’d continue to see them over the years — in fact, I’d later take online lessons with their guitar player — but no show would be as good as this first one, a show I went to by myself and saw close with a cover of “Try a Little Tenderness” that would leave Otis Redding in awe.
Tai Verdes
5/2/2022 (Irving Plaza)
I have a strange habit of buying multiple tickets to concerts that I haven’t asked anyone to go to. I figure that as long as the tickets are affordable, I’ll be able to get people to come. Sadly, I bought three tickets for this show, but could only find one other person to go with me. It was worth the price of admission plus an extra ticket, though. Verdes blew up on TikTok in 2020 and has a light and breezy sound that almost forces you to sing along.
Taylor Swift
5/28/2023 (MetLife Stadium)
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Can't Get Much Higher to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.