Concert Goer, Going, Gone

Written at 3:28 pm


This morning, I came in at 1:43 am from a concert where some of my favorite hip hop artists were performing. I will exclude their names at this time only because your relationship with your favorite entertainers is much like family and even if you get mad, you just have to get over it eventually because you know you're going to break down and buy their new album.

Anyway, this unusually late return on a school night (read working adult schedule) was not due to the unbelievable rock quality of the talent. No, this event, which started at 8:30pm had dragged on to an intolerable level which require my departure. I left this concert early because it dragged on too long. It broke my heart to do it but I was dead on my feet and had to go to work today. I’m trying to figure out if I have finally and seriously gotten “that old”, whether the standards of entertainment have sunk to all new lows or some of both. Of course I’m sure it’s some of both, but entertainment rituals have got to take some of the blame for this.

My biggest beef with the whole debacle was the four, yes four opening acts that proceeded the main act. As an audience, we were outraged and rightly so. At least 2 of those openers were absolute garbage, one had a hand full of not-making-me-vomit and the last was decent. This of course is only part of the point because I did not pay to see these knuckleheads! Having been a moderate concert-goer, I was of course prepared to put up with some mediocre opening act, perhaps even two. Four of them pushed my tolerance level to a boiling point.

As if that wasn’t enough to make you want to slap the errant teenager that is inevitably rubbing up against you at the venue, the second main act was deliberately late, drawn out and wasted all the hype that the previous acts were designed to maintain. It was an outrage. On the way back to the car, amid several disgruntled concert brethren I might add, I overheard some anonymous individual sum up the final act perfectly—it was like Prince in Purple Rain.

No, the artist did not start humping the floor of the stage and start calling his girlfriend a whore in not so subtle ways. Although I’m sure that was your favorite part of the movie, remember when the club owner was telling the Kid that he was just playing the music for himself? This is the syndrome when the artist acts like s/he is the only one in the room, like all these other people didn’t pay to hear their muse. I thought this random concert attendee was right on—that’s what this hip hop artist sounded like.

And don’t get me wrong, I love the craft so much that I would have listened to the ramblings all night and foregone the several records that I know by heart and hum to myself during the day. I so would have…on a weekend…in a comfortable chair…with undiluted cocktails. More importantly, I would have been down for whateve if I had planned for it. But this little stunt has put me off concert going for a while (as I drag through the rest of my day, hoping I can catch a nap this afternoon).