An Argument for Blind Concerts
This is a post that’s been a long time in the making. Let’s rewind somewhat, to the ancient-seeming times of November 2019. It was a simpler age; we roamed where we pleased, ambling around this planet in blissful ignorance of what was to come in mere months. I was a moderately stressed student in college, trying to survive the final few weeks before winter break. There was a concert in Greenville, South Carolina calling my name.
It all started in a class of mine, Writing for Electronic Media, when a fellow student of mine mentioned a concert scheduled two or three days in the future. The band was The 1975, a group I’d heard of somewhat and read a thing or two about online. My first reaction was minimal. I considered it for a second, almost as a silent formality, just for myself, before thinking, “No. That’d be ridiculous.” And then, eventually, I got up and left class along with everyone else. I went on with my day.
You see, I had something of a history with this band in particular. Their album, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships, had come out about a year earlier. I’d tried to listen to it. It just didn’t click with me. I thought the first track was weird, the second was acceptable, the third was confusing, and then I turned the album off. I couldn’t hum a tune. I couldn’t name a lyric. By all means, this band and this concert were two things that I had every right to forget. It should have been in one ear and out the other.
But I hadn’t forgotten. For the rest of that day, I couldn’t shake the idea from my head that there was a potentially moderately interesting concert happening only 40 minutes away from my place of residence and I could be there. But there was no reason for me to go! I listened to one decent song and two dubious ones over six months ago! For hours, I wrangled with myself over the question of whether I really wanted to go to this concert for this band that’d I’d hardly heard before, much less seen a picture of or talked to another human about.
That evening, in my apartment, I bought the ticket.
On November 20, 2019, I walked into Bon Secours Wellness Arena, clueless as to what the next few hours had in store for me. It was wonderous.
The intricacies aren’t important, but I can still attempt to lay them out here from my memory. I was sitting in the upper section of the arena, maybe 100 or 150 yards from the stage. There were two other people sitting relatively nearby. We didn’t talk much. The opener was Laundry Day, if I remember correctly—but that’s a whole other post idea I need to get into at some point. Between the opener and the main show, if I remember correctly, a staff member approached me and asked if I wanted to go down to the main floor in order to be closer to the band. The floor was standing-only, mind you, so I declined his offer and reclined in my seat to take in the show. Sorry for that pun.
Of course, not really knowing the band, I had little idea as to what was going on for a large majority of the concert. I knew a few songs: the opener from A Brief Inquiry…, maybe one or two of the others I’d persevered through before, and the closer, “The Sound”, a song that I’d actually forgotten was theirs, and I’d had on a playlist of mine for some time. I took several videos.
I really did enjoy myself for those few hours. But eventually, the songs stopped and I had to get up and take the 40-minute trip back home, back to a world that felt more grounded, a world where I knew exactly what was happening. It was almost a disappointment.
In the following days, I went back, over and over again, watching and rewatching the clips I’d recorded of the concert—clips that I will absolutely not be sharing here for fear of copyright issues. You shouldn’t have any difficulty finding others’ videos of the concert. But as I watched those videos, I felt more and more compelled to go back and listen to the album again, to attempt once more a task that I had once failed.
You see, I have—or I guess, had—a tradition when I drove from my house to my dorm near Clemson. On that drive, you have about 2 hours and 30-45 minutes to kill, and I figured out pretty quickly that you can fit two albums in that time period, or maybe three if they’re short enough. I decided to insert A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships into the rotation.
I absolutely loved it. It’s almost embarrassing for me to admit that I didn’t fall in love the first time I listened to this album. It felt like I was having a completely different experience than I had originally. What had changed so suddenly? What force was it that made me, out of the blue, come back to this album I’d written off and dive into it?
There was only one possible answer: that concert. Something about being there, seeing the band perform live, it brought the music to life in a way that nothing else ever could have. A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships ended up being, more or less, my favorite album of 2019. And maybe 2020. I’m not ruling out 2021 either. It’s excellent.
So I guess what I’m really trying to say is: seeing a band in concert before you’ve heard their music isn’t a faux pas. What it is is a novel, fascinating way to experience music that I’d never even considered, until one day, it happened to me. I’m so happy to say that I went to that concert. It changed the way I thought about not just music, but live experiences and experiences in general. I almost let fear—of the unknown, of embarrassment, of confusion—dictate my decisions. But in the end, I didn’t, and I had one of the most fun times I’d had in recent memory.
Little did I know, those brief few moments of exhilarating confusion were going to give way to something much worse. At the same time, within weeks or maybe even days, a pandemic was spreading in China and had already begun traveling the world over.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to go to another concert; at this point, over two years. That’s a bummer. But I have some hope, seeing major artists start to travel again, that I’ll be there very, very soon. And whether I know the artist, or the song, or the words, or not, believe me…it’ll be worth it.
Image credit: “Audience at Gossip, Main Stage @ExitFestival 2012” by Exit Festival is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. Modifications were made by myself, and the resulting image—seen above—is under the same license.
