Concerts Are Different. You're Not Crazy...Or Old

Photo courtesy of Niamh Mayhew

I’ve been going to concerts since I was 8 years old. It’s been something I absolutely love to do since I was a child sitting in those seats watching my idol at the time, Paul McCartney (I was, and still am, a die hard Beatles fan). Ever since I turned about twelve years old, I’d try to go to at least one concert a year. It didn’t have to be a big stadium concert; in fact, I’d opt for smaller venues and smaller artists since they were easier to access than a stadium concert once a year.

The last concert I had attended before the Covid-19 Pandemic was a pop-up concert in Costa Mesa hosted by the SWMRS. Destroy Boys had also performed, and it was overall an amazing little concert with only about a hundred or so people there. I had been to about fifteen concerts in my little seventeen year old life at that point, so I felt as though I was some-what a professional for my age and demographic (punk rock and alternative rock).

The world continued to suffer, but then started to heal. Restrictions were being lifted, and concerts became a recurring event that became consistent after a turbulent first year ‘post-pandemic’. That first year, concerts were being postponed left and right, artists and venues contracting and spreading Covid-19 causing backlash at an industry not ready to remerge from the pandemic.

The first concert I attended ‘post-pandemic’ was TV Girl at O2 Shepherd’s Bush London. The first thing that set alarm bells was the demographic. My childhood friend and I felt extremely out of place, even felt too old to be there even though we were only twenty years old. We were surrounded by poorly behaved teenagers who had flocked to the venue to hear the viral TikTok songs that had gained popularity not that long before. My coworker, who was sixteen, groaned in jealousy that I got to see TV Girl and she didn’t, something that didn’t sit well in my stomach. How did an artist known to speak very poorly about his own relationships and women, a character or not, resonate so much with young teenagers? So much so that a young girl, who couldn’t have been older than sixteen, held up a sign that said “SMASH?” It felt gross. It felt as though we couldn’t actually sing and enjoy the concert as some teenager was doing something at all times to get the artist’s attention. We left as soon as we could, feeling unsure if we even enjoyed the concert in a whole.

The following concert I attended was a much bigger occasion: Arctic Monkeys’ hometown show in Hillsborough Park. Sold out. My partner and I showed up pretty early, securing a good viewing point in the pit closest to the stage. The place was packed. People of all ages showed up. It was madness. It felt anxiety inducing. It felt as though one wrong move could cost us our safety. We were packed like sardines, and the group of eighteen year old boys behind us found any and every opportunity to mosh; even to somber songs such as ‘505’ and ‘Mardy Bum’. My partner kept his arms around me, protecting me from being sucked into the mosh pit that seemed to give 0 mercy to anyone. It felt like ‘fuck everyone around’ rather than enjoying a momentous show: the hometown show! I spent more time making sure I didn’t get sucked into a dangerous mosh pit than I did actually enjoying the show.

There’s a sense of uneasiness amongst concert goers, specifically the ones who got to experience concerts pre-pandemic. With the current monopoly on ticket sales held by TicketMaster, it seems as though the main goal is to see how many people can be packed into a venue, and the main question is ‘how much are they willing to pay’? Along with tragedies such as AstroWorld, this only goes to show that concerts are different, and they’re probably never going to feel the same way ever again. Much like older generations describing $8 concert tickets to see legendary bands and experiencing Woodstock ‘69, this is a transitional moment in live music. Whether it’s a permanent change or not is a different story, only time will tell whether the concert will go back to the listener experience, not just a show for some CEO’s pay-check and some schmuck’s viral TikTok.