Holding A Grudge or Just Paying Attention?

After the Snarky Puppy misadventure, my wife (Elvy) and I had a couple of long conversations about concerts we’ve seen and loved or hated and the end results. Turns out, my Geezer with A Grudge habits apply to music, too. I have never been punished by an artist twice and we have made a habit of seeing the people who exceed my expectations at every opportunity. The last bit has slowed up considerably now that I am no longer in the business and live some distance from where most of the action happens. Because of the expense and hassle, I probably won’t be seeing many artists twice from here out.

For example, I’ve seen Pat Metheny almost a dozen times at a dozen different venues and never once felt betrayed, abused, or let down by his band’s performances. After that many shows, I am still willing to go a long distance to see him again. A small part of my motivation for moving to L.A. in the 80’s was to see the Crusaders in their native element; especially since that was the only way to see them by that late period in their careers. I saw them as the headlines for the 1983 Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Forum, at our local club (The Golden Bear) in Huntington Beach, and at a couple of outdoor shows in the South Beach area. Every show was knocked out and amazingly close to their recordings, quality-wise. Same for Jeff Beck; who I have seen 3 times and 4 if you count a 1960’s Yardbirds concert in a Denver bar. Jeff is often loud, but always musical and the sound quality has been close to state-of-the-art every time I’ve seen him play. Elvy isn’t as much of a jazz fan as me, so many of the above shows were my experience alone. On the other hand, we’ve been to more than a few pop music concerts because of her interests; Queen, for example.

An example of the other spectrum would be Robert Randolph and the Family Band. I bought 2003's Unclassified and 2006's Colorblind the moment they arrived. I used to intro my auditorium lecture classes with Squeeze or Ain’t Nothing Wrong with That. Like Snarky Puppy, I missed my first opportunity bto see RR when the band was at First Ave because I was working a gig, out of town, that evening. Then I saw Robert and his band at the Minnesota State Fair. The sound was terrible and, being an outdoor concert in a facility where I’ve heard some terrific shows, all of the blame landed on the band (and the FOH nitwit). I tried that show twice and the 2nd time was worse than the 1st. I haven’t paid a moment of attention to Robert Randolph since; nor bought any of the band’s newer music. I still think they are a good recording act, but as a live band they suck and I wouldn’t cross the street to see them for free.

To be clear, what I’m expecting in a live concert is at least the sound quality of a decent car stereo (sans hip-hop sub-woofer mess); at the dead minimum. There is no point in spending tens of thousands of dollars on a sound system that is worse than a car stereo; and that is not a high bar. A better goal would be to match the fidelity of a good home entertainment system. Still not a stretch, but an improvement over a car stereo. Excuses from FOH goobers for room acoustics, audience behavior, and the band’s stage excesses don’t mean a thing to me. The band and the FOH engineer are totally responsible for and in control of the concert sound quality. If, as is the usual case, they don’t care one result is either do I.

Even 20-50 years later, I can remember many of the concert moments that blew me away; some as if it were a recent experience. What I remember about the lousy sounding concerts I’ve experienced is “I’ll never do that again.” That, literally, is all I remember of non-musical experiences. That would be my Geezer reflex: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I had thought about doing a chart of a few of my concert experiences, but it would be a lot of one-time experiences and my HTML charting capabilities suck. Put it simply, there are far more “artists” who I have seen once and wouldn’t cross the street to see again. Too many musicians are more concerned with their egos than with their music. This is not a new thing, but a long-established tradition; especially with jazz and pop musicians.

The conversation Elvy and I had about our 50+ years of going to concerts together was a little surprising. She was even more adamant in her “I’ll never do that again” response. We did remember many of the same great shows close to exactly the same. For both of us, the memory of the sonically disappointing-to-awful shows was limited and a little irritating. We’re not rich and wasting money is something we’ve tried to avoid for all of our adult lives.