Is anyone here still into live concerts these days?

I rarely go to large venue (20,000 seat and larger) shows. The disconnect between seeing the band playing is just too much. Don’t get me wrong, I went to plenty of them in the decades past, from Pink Floyd, many Grateful Dead shows, Phish, Widespread Panic, Paul McCartney, The Police, Sting, Neil Young, Steely Dan, and more recently, Goose.

But always for more bang for my bucks, I loved going to smaller "bar" or "warehouse" shows, venues holding between 150 and 5000 people. They were always cheaper and now, a LOT cheaper, and you felt like you were actually seeing the band and had some interaction with them.

My favorite venues are the Ramkat in Winston-Salem, the Orange Peel in Asheville, The Visulite in Charlotte, The Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, and Pisgah Brewing Co, in Black Mountain. All these venues are open to audience recording too, which is a hobby of mine.

Prices for seeing bands at these venues ranges from $30 to $50 and are well worth it. I mainly go to see rock jam bands (think Spafford, Eggy, moe, lespecial, Aqueous), Americana, or jazz, and a few singer-songwriters. These places have the sound quality dialed in very well, and most don’t blow your ears out either.

I won’t say I’ll never go to a "large, expensive" show again, but it would have to be someone I really, really liked.

I haven’t been lately, but I went for about 20 years to a 4-day Americana festival called Merlefest, that has about 10 stages going, and everything from straight ahead bluegrass to rock. For the price, you get to see many, many artists.

To show the disconnect at large shows, some YouTubers recorded some of the songs as presented in commercials or videos from Taylor Swift’s recent live tour. They found that on most of the songs, she wasn’t even singing live. They were canned "prerecorded" vocals. No thanks. I mean I guess her fans don’t care and they just want to see her dance around the stage, but I can listen to a record for nearly free via Tidal and pop my own popcorn and get beers a lot cheaper.

@allenf1963 I live north of Charlotte, near Statesville. We are indeed blessed with several good sounding venues for live music in this area within 2- or 3-hours driving distance. Not bad. MSG in NYC was always special. Would love to see Radio City. Have fun and keep supporting these local venues. I’m glad they survived the Covid-19 years. Many just barely did.

Ah, Ziggy's will always be a special venue. I really miss it in its old location. Saw a ton of shows there and recorded some. They had a killer sound system. Saw Medeski, Martin, and Wood there for the first time. Wow. 

@goodlistening64 nope. I’m not talking about background vocals but rather the main vocals supposedly being sung by Taylor Swift during her shows.

Look, I don’t have a dog in this hunt. She is not my cup of tea and I haven’t bought any of her albums but one since she went "pop" and became more of a cult figure than a singer.

But Youtubers like this guy, Wings of Pegasus, have analyzed several of her songs and shows and found that yes, the vocals were canned.

Now, her fans don’t really seem to care, and if they are willing to pay $500 or more to see her, whatever. At least she is generating economic activity and helping support the other singers and performers, the road crew, local hotels and restaurants, etc., so good for her.

This guy’s video channel isn’t devoted to trashing Taylor, but rather for trying to scream to the industry that it is time to stop it with all the perfect pitch mods they do in the studio and live, and let the music breathe with reality.

Artificial perfection is boring. Might as well be listening to an A.I. generated song, and apparently soon we will be. Ugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rMNMURShM