Alright, technically I have been to many many stadium shows, but always when I was working them, so that means seeing the show from backstage, or more precisely, kind of onstage but just off to the side, like on the stairs or something. And that is pretty good. Sometimes really good (Pearl Jam hour-long encore of only songs from the 90s when I used to listen to them all of the time because my friend Oleana loved them more than air... definitely one of those 'How am I getting paid to be here!?!' moments). But seeing a stadium show from the audience is.... weird.
Most of the bands I like are Canadian. Some of them are respectably popular, Massey Hall type bands (Sam Roberts, Arcade Fire... ok maybe just those two) but most of them are still wee, with smaller, albeit fiercely loyal fans (Library Voices, Elliot Brood, Old Man Luedecke, Said The Whale, Cuff the Duke, B.A. Johnson, Karkwa, Final Fantasy, The Wooden Sky, the list goes on...). Most of the venues I frequent are small. Some very small. We're talking like 60-70 people here, some of the shows even only have a few dozen people in the crowd- and that usually makes them even better! Not because I have some big thing about not liking popular bands, but because it means you actually get to be close! You get to feel the bass pumping in your chest, you get the guitarist's sweat all over you, you get to be in the mosh pit, dancing and jumping along with everyone else there. You get to feel like a part of something. And thats what I love about seeing music live, feeling like a part of something.
In a stadium that feeling is just not there. You would think that having so many more people share in the experience would feel like even more of being a part of something. I went to my first NHL game a few weeks ago and definitely felt like a part of something, but for some reason the concert-going stadium just isn't the same. Maybe its because they're putting on a show. They're not playing [a game of hockey or a song] they're putting on a show. And its kinda weird.
Having said that, Mumford and Sons did impress me... I imagine that had something to do with there being a banjo played to thousands of people ;o) but really it was the way they managed to make it feel like a small venue. Now don't get me wrong, I would have obviously much rather seen them in a club that holds a hundred people, but when they started playing, it was almost as if the entire stadium shrank. I didn't know that could happen. Apparently it can.
Of course I would have preferred to see them here...
Besides being an interesting experience (my foray into non-Canadian, non-small-time concert going), it made clear to me that I am not one of those people who is in it for the lights and the pyro and the fifty foot tall speaker racks (ok, ok, fifty foot tall speaker racks in a small place would make for some pretty excellent bass...)- I'm in it for the music, man! Well that and the jumping around getting covered in boy-sweat and feeling the bass drum in your stomach... but yeah, the music, man!
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