Last week, a Facebook meme made the rounds asking users to list “10 Concerts I’ve Been To, One is a Lie.” While I’m game for almost any music list meme, I didn’t participate because I got sucked into into a smaller one on Instagram created by an old punk rocker @bookishlife: the #aprilconcertchallenge.
I think you were supposed to take pictures of your old ticket stubs, a level of collecting obsessiveness I never succumbed to. But I do collect memories about concerts I’ve gone to, which of course are never just about concerts. As I wrote in one of these posts,
Concerts are where I re-imagine who I am, where I came from, and what I aspire toward. Concerts are how I connect with strangers, engage with places, and create a common history with friends. At even the most dull events, concerts are where I create the stories to share with friends, family, and strangers, and in that way help me narrate the arc of my biographical narrative. Even when those stories seem to be just about the music.
Since I’ve written here previously about concerts and even concert flyers that in some way changed my life, I’m compiling my #aprilconcertchallenge responses here for possible future development and inspiration. Long-time readers might recognize a couple of these photos from previous blogs. I invite you to click on this blog’s “performance” tag for more I’ve written about on this subject. Thanks again to Andrea Thorson for a very stimulating set of questions and a wonderful occasion to hear some memorable, often funny, and occasionally moving stories from strangers.
[Click below on Part one, Part two, or Part three to begin.]
Part one
1. First show
2. Most recent
3. Festival
4. Favorite venue
5. Band you’ve seen the most
6. Road-tripped to the show
7. Met the band
8. Hard to score tickets
9. Went solo
10. Went with someone special
Part two
11. Awesome opening band
12. Mellow show/crowd
13. Wild show/crowd
14. Bought tickets but didn’t go
15. Friend’s band
16. Best band to sing along with
17. Auditorium/big show
18. Story from the pit
19. Basement show
20. Show you traveled farthest for
Part three
21. Not what you expected
22. Exactly what you expected
23. Saw them before they were big
24. Got an autograph
25. Once was enough
26. Reunion
27. Saw them before they broke up
28. Memorable for a reason unrelated to the music
29. Solo artist
30. One show you would go back to see again if you could time travel