Is It Weird To Never See Your Favorite Bands In Concert?

Brooklyn – Taking Back Sunday are celebrating their 20th anniversary in 2019 with a career retrospective album called Twenty and a world tour which will see them playing their first three albums in full. Here are details on how the album plays will work:

– In North America if we are playing two nights in your city, we will be playing Tell All Your Friends, other favorites and we will flip a coin on night one for either Where You Want To Be or Louder Now in full as well! Whichever one we play night one, we’ll play the other night two, along with Tell All Your Friends and other favorites.

I’ve been a fan of Taking Back Sunday since I was an angsty teenager. Now I’m still a fan of TBS as an angsty adult. But I’ve never seen them in concert. I’ve had chances, but I’ve never gone. And I’m like that for a lot of my favorite bands, and I’m not sure why. In New York City (and previously Washington DC) there are tons of opportunities to see a ton of bands, but there’s something about going to a concert that gives me anxiety. You have to find someone to go with, and at this age, if it’s not on a Saturday night that eliminates 98% of people I know. Of course I could go by myself in theory, but probably will never happen. And then there’s the whole “if you go to a concert with a guy…what do you do?” aspect of it too. Just a lot of moving pieces. I think I’ve been to three concerts in the last year- The Killers, Taylor Swift, and OAR. All three were awesome. Going to live shows is a hell of an experience. You sing as loud as you can to your favorite tunes, sway back and forth in unison with the crowd during the slower songs, and generally just have a great time. Honestly, when I moved to NYC I told myself I would go to more shows, and I’ve failed big time at that. Some of my favorite bands from my childhood and now have rolled through and I haven’t gone. From bands like RHCP, Foo Fighters and Kings of Leon to guys like Kanye who I’ve been a big fan of forever, I just let them roll through the city and roll out and then I go “dammit, why did I just sack up and go?”. But now that I’m 30 and old as fuck, I don’t want to be full of regret anymore. Trent went to John Mayer by himself and said he had a great time (minus when he played “Slow Dancing In A Burning Room”, Trent said that was a little awkward).

So that’s my goal, try to go to more shows. If I can’t (lol “if”…more like when) find someone to go with, I’ll crack a beer or 2 or 5 and go and enjoy listening to the tunes of my favorite bands. A lot easier said than done, but I also don’t want to die never having seen Taking Back Sunday because I was too big of a pussy. But I’ll definitely be in the back. Baby steps.

.

.

PS: While writing this blog I remembered that when I studied abroad in London during college I went to see Oasis at Wembley Arena by myself. I was down on the floor, and those Brits don’t mess around. It’s not like moshing, but it’s very aggressively swaying and singing and just going nuts. I ended up losing both of my shoes in the crowd. But singing “Don’t Look Back In Anger” with 20,000 Brits was a once in a lifetime experience.