What makes a concert great for you?
What makes a concert great for you?
Back in 2014 I got to see Rise Against play at the House of Blues in Boston, which was amazing, and just recently I went to see grandson and K. Flay perform together.
I think these are my two favorite concerts I've been to, and the key factor seems to be the energy between the crowd and the band. It's a thing that's kinda hard to express in words, but for me that's definitely what makes a concert go from good to great. It doesn't need to be a high-energy thing necessarily, either: one of the best moments from grandson's set was actually a really somber, lower energy song that he came down onto the floor to perform, and you could just tell that everyone was really invested in that moment.
What about you all? What takes a concert to the next level for you?
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Not at all mainstream, but the most enjoyable show I've been to was The Protomen. They have a Megaman-themed rock opera and a good portion of the story takes the form of a few characters interacting in front of a crowd of onlookers. At their shows, they do an absolutely fantastic job of making the audience feel like they are the crowd in the songs. They're not just performing songs, they're singing to you, and about you. The audience gets to be active participants in their songs, and the energy and adrenaline is incredible.
They typically play smaller venues, which helps, because you're generally no more than 20-30 feet from the band. Being part of a crowd pumping fists into the air and chanting "We have con-trol, we keep you safe, we are your hope" has never felt so great. For a smaller band without the budget for huge screens and special effects and everything else you might see at a more mainstream show, they really manage to put on an amazing performance.
'The Will of One' from one of their live shows a few years ago.
Yo I love the Protomen! I own a physical CD copy of Act II: The Father of Death, and I've got an Act II t-shirt that I still wear pretty frequently. I think I know most of the words to that album, lol.
I actually got to seem them in person, too, back in 2017 in Massachusetts! They were playing with several other game-themed bands: Powerglove, MC Frontalot, and Bit Brigade (thanks to concertarchives.org for reminding me who else was there). Really cool show, I had a lot of fun! When I went to see them they didn't perform the whole rock opera, they just played a handful of their more well-known songs, probably because there were so many different bands playing that night. I'd love to go to another one of their shows where it's just them playing, it would be amazing to see them perform the whole thing in order. I can imagine that being directly addressed as the audience in a song like The Hounds would be next-level.
That is absolutely wild - I was at that same show in Massachusetts!
I jumped right down the fanboy rabbit hole after the first show we went to... bought both albums and a shirt, and they even signed them. Felt like I owed it to them to buy the merchandise, to be honest - admission was something like $12, but I had way more than $12 worth of good time.
I've been to four of their shows; they've always performed a subset of the songs from the albums, but I absolutely agree - especially after Act III is released, I'd travel quite a ways to see them perform all 3 albums in story order.
Haha that's amazing! Small world!
I'll be honest I've been out of the loop on news about them for a while, and just kinda assumed they'd stopped working on Act III for one reason or another; a little googling tells me I'm wrong and that they're actually performing songs from Act III at their shows now! I will definitely be keeping an ear to the ground for when that album drops!
Went to grab a few links to some of the Act III songs they've got studio versions of, and found that they're 7 years old at this point... felt like they were a lot more recent than that. Covid kind of just removed 3ish years from my perception of time. As such, I assume you're fully aware of them, but in case you aren't, Hold Back The Night and This City Made Us are absolute bangers.
I'm subscribed to their newsletter (which is mostly just tour announcements), but it occasionally contains Act III info. They're certainly not being speedy about it, but hopefully we'll get to hear it someday. :)
I do know them, although I didn't realize that they're going to be a part of Act III until I started googling just now! I only knew them from the EP that came out... yeah, almost 8 years ago. Time is nuts.