Are concerts the new super club?

People seem less concerned about the listening experience, and more concerned about the Instagram experience. It’s all about the brand, as if concerts have become the super club of this generation.

I attended the Phoenix concert last week expecting to be blown away and  shed a few tears of joy. This was a band that had meant a lot to me. My senior high school ball date played Too Young on a CD mix en route to the ball, and told me about its quiet but significant cameo in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. I was listening to them on a second-generation iPod that I bought with my own savings, every day during my first year of college, as a sort of transitioning soundtrack. I was pretty sentimental about their coming to the Philippines. And yet standing there that Tuesday night, already merry from a few Russian vodka shots we had swigged along the way, my brow furrowed, and I found myself rather underwhelmed. I couldn’t put my finger on it, though. Did I just have too much Russian vodka? No, the quality of sound was quite dull.

Even my brother was surprised to hear that I was indifferent about the show. “You’re the only who said it was so-so.” He was comparing me, of course, to his Facebook news feed, in which everyone he knew had thought the show was spectacular, fantastical, and other overblown words about how good it was. Well, of course they would. They had paid a hefty amount to see it (a ticket in the front section costs P5,000). I would never pay that kind of money to see a show and then admit to myself that it was substandard. That’s almost like admitting to yourself that you flushed P5,000 down a toilet. I wouldn’t pay that kind of money for an Instagram caption that reads “meh.”

But if the prices to these things are so ridiculous, the least that we can do is demand a good-sounding show. We should demand that the acoustics of a venue are always considered, that the sound system is of high quality, and that the logistics are well thought-out.

Perhaps the disturbing reality of this concert craze is the possibility that, for these things, music seems to be the least important consideration for avid concertgoers. People seem less concerned about the listening experience, and more concerned about the Instagram experience. It’s all about the brand, as though concerts have become the new age super club of this generation, a place to be seen with the who’s who. I mean, the section isn’t aptly called “VIP” for nothing. It was marketed this way to make you feel like you are paying to be considered a very important person. There’s a growing number of alta sociedad in the front of the house who are only pretending to give a sh*t about the music. The Tegan and Sara concert literally had a VIP section: two isolated and elevated islands on the side of the tent with a couch and a personal butler. Really?

In the name of good music, though, I am begging you, Millennials, as consumers with an incredible amount of spending power, to scrutinize these concerts well. It’s easy: please only attend concerts that you genuinely want to go to; and make an honest review about whether it was a good or a bad one — which is only possible if you actually listen to the show, and not watch it through playback on your phone.