Music is My Radar

I’m giving up. I don’t think I’m ever going to go to another concert again. It’s not because of the incessant talking that accompanies nearly every show I’ve seen. (Why pay $20 to stand around and talk with your friends? Could you not do that elsewhere, say at another bar, without that pesky cover charge? Idiots.) It’s not because of a lack of bands playing in Memphis - although since I moved here I’ve often complained about a lack of Memphis appearances by touring bands, even though I’ve only been to two or three concerts here in that time.

No, the reason why I will likely never attend another show again (forgive the hyperbole) is that lately, there appears to be some physical or psychological barrier that prevents me from walking into a venue and seeing a band play. Even when I buy tickets and am very excited about a show, I always find a reason to stay home instead and waste my $20. Within the last month, I’ve passed on an already-purchased ticket to Yo La Tengo (one of my all-time favorite bands) and sold another ticket, to Band of Horses (a recent favorite), to a friend. What’s my problem? How can I bitch about the utter denial of Memphis by many of favorite bands and yet not be bothered to attend a show when one of them actually comes to town? How can I obsessively collect CDs by all manner of artists and yet have little interest in attending a show where that very same music will be played?

I’ve always had a weird relationship with concerts. On one hand, being in the same room with some band I love is amazingly thrilling and intimate, and I certainly have rocked out hard many times in such environs. But inevitably, about two or three songs into a show, I start looking at my watch, secretly wishing the show was over, no matter how excited I was about the show minutes before it began. This doesn’t always happen, and the degree of anxious boredom varies from show to show, but more often than not, I’m ready to leave before the first encore.

Part of it has to with my intense dislike of standing in one place for very long. If you’ve ever seen me lecture, you know that I pace incessantly, standing still only long enough to drink water or write on the board. And as I mentioned earlier, one of biggest pet peeves are people who talk at shows. I mean, fucking shut up, or move to another corner of the venue so you can blab away to your heart’s content. The only way concert-talkers could be more annoying would be if they were talking (on a cell phone indoors, of course), chewing gum loudly, and moshing at the same time. Actually, I’d really like to see that, just to see what it looks like. Then I would kill them all.

Also, I’m rather vomit-phobic, and given that the likelihood of some frat idiot pushing his tolerance a bit too far and barfing all over the crowd is fairly high at many shows, I tend to be antsy to the point of reducing my enjoyment. (I’m not kidding here. At concerts I sometimes scope out people that are doing too many shots or wobbling around and watch them like a hawk, waiting for the familiar retching, so I can bolt for the door like a rat in a spotlight. I still remember this one show, at my high school auditorium, when my school sponsored a multi-band show for the kids, some girl turning around in front of the stage and barfing everywhere. Niiiiiiiiice.)

It doesn’t help that I’m slowly and inexorably moving through my 30s and frequently feel like someone’s dad or a chaperone at concerts. No one likes seeing the aging hipster who can’t accept that his 20s are well behind him. Then again, there was the Professor, a staple (and bell-weather of good music) of the Atlanta concert scene, and that dude was in his 40s.

I guess I’ve reached the point in my life where on any given, I’d rather be at one with my wife, reading, watching a movie, maybe playing a board game. I still love music and listen to it nearly all time. And now that I’m out of school and earning decent money, I can afford to buy millions of CDs a week. And again, Memphis is woefully underrepresented as a performance destination - something that, given our claim as the birthplace of rock and roll, is more than a little baffling.

So go on hipsters, enjoy your sweaty music shows and cheap beer. I’ll be at home, being old but hopefully not in the way.