Concert Chaos

Concerts; Fun and yet riddled with chaos. I am definitely a music lover, but I am also very cheap which means that I don’t go to concerts very often. Last week was the first time in a few years that I have gone to a concert. Actually I went to two in one week, which never happens. I had a lot of fun, but there were also many things that irked me about the concert atmosphere. It was one of those moments when I tangibly felt “I’m too old for this” and marveled at the attendees younger than me who seemed unperturbed by what I categorized as major annoyances.

For one thing, there is the lack of proper food. At the first concert I went to, outside food was strictly prohibited. So prohibited in fact, that they made everyone in line go through the ridiculous act of turning out their pockets to make sure no one was hiding anything! My friend even had to take his wallet out of his jeans pocket because “it looked suspicious” to the staff. Now, because I was overly cautious to begin with, I actually was able to smuggle some granola bars into the arena via secret inside pockets, but the whole thing was still ridiculous. And the first concert I went to was a whole day event with multiple acts, meaning I had to survive for about 9 hours solely on a few granola bars. Sure, I could have paid 7 bucks for a stupid pretzel, but I refused to give in on principal, and all of the food they offered would not have resulted in happy digestion anyway.

Secondly, the noise level was completely insane.  Now, I can see all of you rolling your eyes and thinking, she really is a grandma complaining about rock music being too loud, but hear me out. I have nothing against loud music. But when the AV people have turned up the amps so loud, that from my spot in the nosebleed section of the very back of the arena I have to plug my ears—it’s too loud! My friend who was up by the stage informed me later that she couldn’t get to sleep when she went home that night because her ears wouldn’t stop ringing.  It was upsetting because I was listening to music that I enjoy, but it was so painfully loud that I had to plug my ears to stem the suffering. Loud is good. Loud is fun. Earsplitting is just plain stupid.

My final annoyance comes from the second concert I attended. This concert was standing room only, and we wanted to be close to the action, so we got up as close as we could to the stage. I am glad that we got to be so close, but let me just say one thing. I HATE MOSH PITS! I have no desire to be shoved around by sweaty strangers and have my toes stepped on 100 times. The funny thing is that this band was not even really mosh inducing, but the crowd was still annoying. I legitimately had about 5 inches of space between me and the person in front of me, and yet there were numerous people who kept trying to weasel their way into that 5 inches to get closer. It was completely absurd. I literally kept stiff arming people so that they would stay the hell back. I understand that you want to be by the stage, but guess what? So does everyone and if you actually took two seconds to access the situation you would realize that you are shit out of luck because there is no room for you to go anywhere, so stop trying!! 

Ok, my rant is over. I don’t want anyone to finish this post thinking that I had a miserable time at these concerts. Of course, the good music made the whole experience worth it. I just wish that some things could be different. I want to enjoy live music, but I want to enjoy it with some breathing room, an adequate food source, and without going deaf. Is that really too much to ask? 

(Also, I just have to add a small post script inquiring why a sport/concert arena that has a capacity for 20,000 people thinks it’s a good idea for the women’s bathrooms to only have 4 stalls?? Seriously—WHY?)