2023: The Year In Concerts!

rocknyc was born in April 2009 and by 2010 I was on the town three or four nights a week covering live concerts, I reckon that I probably averaged 120 a year and triple that in sets. But since the pandemic not only closed down concerts but it ended 40 years of office life as I knew it and sent me working from home, which I still do.

In other words from being two blocks away from MSG I was suddenly 45 minutes away, Barclay Center is 90 minutes and at the age of 66 I found myself without the energy to actually make the show at the end of a hard day of work.

I might have pushed myself harder and though I might have pushed myself if I was enjoying the experience but I wasn’t: my friend Rob O’Connor told me a coupla years ago that he was done with the live music experience and I thought he was bonkers but I see what he means in 23

1 – a horrendous nightmare to get tickets online, Taylor Swift compared it to going coupla rounds with a bear and it is hard to deny it. While it is easy to blame Ticketmaster I don’t believe you can blame them for the prices exactly, you can entirely blame them for never having control of the bots and the inventory. You can go further, remember the expose 9see the video above if you don’t. This is Ticketmasters fault and it is to the AG to finally fix it. Anyway, the net result was it cost me $400 for the last row at Metlife for Taylor Swift: a price so significant I was going hold off and it is lucky I didn’t as the lowest price I can see today is $650 for an equivalent seat.

2 – there is so much sitting around waiting it is insane. An 8pm start can drag to 1030pm (the Haims gig for instance),

3 – Everything is expensive at a concert $25 for a burger, fries and a coke is average! $40 for a simple tee-shirt is the norm.

4 – It is a nightmare of checkpoints to get in and a herd of cattle to leave.

Forget about the quality of the shows themselves (though I saw maybe four great SETS in 2022) and it just makes it impossible to get out!

In 1979, I went out to nightclubs five days week but then live music was a lifestyle choice and all my closest friends were at the same handful of clubs (CBGBs, Max’s, Hurrahs were standouts. In 2009 I returned to clubs but it wasn’t the same and it isn’t today. If Bowery Electric is the standard bearer we have a problem.

But I digress, for 23 I have tix to SZA, Springsteen and Swift but that’s it. Will I get more? Maybe, Beyonce should be ouring (but for fuck’s sake save me from a stadium tour). Might I get more before the year is over? Definitely. But it will still be quiet year for this old man