Live Music is a Terrible Thing

There are very few benefits to being an old man in your twenties. You get to yell a lot, which is nice. But the biggest advantage is knowing ahead of time just what youthful activities to avoid, for you know the difference between fun and carnage.

My friends, for instance, love live music - and I love my friends - but their deeply-help, almost religious belief in the transformative power of a concert or a really good gig is something with which I could never agree. Put simply, live music sucks.

Let’s start with the music. When a band releases a song and puts it out into the world, it’s a beautiful thing that’s taken years of practice and an untold amount of work to produce. Every beat and every note has been examined, pulled apart, and reconstructed - all so that each song can arrive to you, dear reader, in its optimal form, striking that impossible balance between sustained discipline and boundless creativity. To ask any artist and some of their buddies to then rip it out - half-drunk - right in front of us then seems (to me at least) an inappropriate ask. And to be honest, I don’t think they like it either. They’ve got to leave their families and friends for months on end to play the same songs over and over and over again. For their own sanity, they’re forced to mix it up by reworking their tunes and adding all kinds of solos and lasers. And that’s a problem.

Have you ever been to a concert and spent the whole time waiting for your song? Have you bought a ticket, waited hours in line, and sat through the act’s new album just to hear the song that honestly gives you life? Have you then watched in horror as the artist, unable to play their hit just one more time, throw it to the crowd? I have - and I’ve learned my lesson.

At best, when you go to a concert, you’re going to hear songs that sound a lot like the ones you came to hear.

Now I’m aware I could be missing the point of live music in that it’s not really about the music - it’s the experience. When else are you allowed to pour into a stadium and scream for several hours? You could go to the football but at a concert there’s no risk of half the stadium turning on you in a fit of rage. You’re all on the same team - which again is a huge problem for me. I mean, sure, we’re all wearing the same t-shirt and facing the same way but that’s where the commonality ends. If anything, the crowds at these places lead me to suspect that I’m not even a fan. After all, if I’m such a fan, then why don’t I know all the words? Why aren’t I crying? And why do I resent the frontman asking if I’m “ready to rock”? Of course I am, I bought this ticket 6 months ago - and he’s two hours late.

I’ve never been in a stampede but I don’t trust crowds. And this isn’t some vague fear, but a genuine observation that these people are untrustworthy. The way everyone nervously edges to the front, the way they scream, and climb on top of each other with no regard for anyone else’s view… they’re animals!

Now I know all that stands between me and enjoying myself is letting go, surrendering myself to the madness of the crowd and the music and the booze-rattled genius onstage. I’m just a little suspicious as to why every activity on offer to young people must involve relinquishing all control - as if we had any to begin with. Is this something we like? Or is it fear that takes us to these places? Maybe we go to concerts because the only thing we fear more than getting trampled is a quiet Saturday night.

A lot of people have suggested that I just haven’t found the right kind of event. Go for something smaller, they say. A smaller, more intimate gig. But these are what I fear the most.

My girlfriend and I were in the alps last year. After several days of falling down entire mountains, we thought it would be nice to ease our joints by visiting a bar recommended to us by a friendly lift-operator. Getting there involved catching a bus to the edge of a dimly lit village that was cradled between two great cliffs. If it weren’t for the constant threat of death by avalanche, you’d think it the most charming place on Earth. At the bus-stop, waiting for us was a man who, without ever having met us, knew where we wanted to go.

“Uh, ‘ello! You are looking to drink?”

We nodded and without another word, he turned to lead us through a field of snow and into the frozen wilderness that lay beyond. Past the tree line, there was a path and we were told to follow our leader closely as we trekked further in. After some time, we saw some lights, flickering up ahead. As we approached, they grew and came to reveal the yurt around which they stood – a singular, Mongolian tent in the centre of the woods. I’d never seen a yurt before but as it turns out they’re pretty easy to name. When you see your first yurt, I think you’ll come to understand. Our leader paused, pointed at the entrance and said he’d return for us in an hour. Before we could say thank you, he was gone. Unsure of our ability to find the path without our guide, we approached the tent and poked our heads through the opening to discover a warm, carpeted interior. Small coffee tables littered the space and around each of them were young couples like Chloe and I, eating cured meats and sipping at oversized beers.

A young, Scandinavian woman greeted us and pointed to the last remaining table. As we sat down, she assured us that our own oversized beers would be with us shortly and then we could “begin”. I wasn’t sure what she meant by this, but the ambience was so intoxicating that I never thought to at least scan the room for any obvious signs of murder or ritualistic sacrifice. It was just too nice.

So we took our place on the floor, nodding congenially at the other couples in the yurt. Almost all of our knees were touching. When I saw the young lady return with our beers in hand, I smiled. But this smile vanished when she kneeled to set them down and revealed the ukulele slung across her back.

“Oh shit.”

The whole yurt turned to me – as Chloe punched my leg and told me to relax. The young lady then took her place right in front of the tent’s sole exit, effectively removing any chance of escape. Her smile – once a kind, reassuring sight – now seemed cruel and I came to notice that since our arrival, she had yet to blink. Her eyes, crazed and hungry, stared through each of us. I could almost see the crowd within her mind – the rabid cheering mass, begging her to play, to gift us all with her music.

“Hello, everyone! Good evening and thank you for joining us here. Don’t mind me, enjoy your drinks. But if you do know the words, you must join in.”

She then looked down at her ukulele – that instrument of pain – as if it were her child. She then plucked at the opening chords of Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours”. You’re mine, more like it. Her expression, whilst pleasant, upset me the most. There was an air of pity to it, like our great misfortune was not coming to this yurt, but that it had taken so many years for us to get there.

What had at first appeared cosy, now seemed deathly small and suffocating. Much like that nearby village, cradled precariously between those two load-bearing mountains, this tent and this lady’s charm had obscured the very real threat of entrapment and a very quiet kind of carnage. Our fellow guests giggled in delight as our captor rolled into “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. The man next to me started an off-beat clap and I pushed at the canvas wall behind me, wondering if my teeth might be able to begin a hole through which I could escape.

Live music – and I’ll never say otherwise – is unrivalled in its ability to make the world seem a smaller, more connected place. But for all the people in this life whose only want is for peace and quiet and just a little space, I’ll say this: live music is a terrible thing.