Arena rock no more...

Sonja and I spent a most enjoyable evening together on Tuesday. We traveled down to Boston, as I'd bought us a pair of tickets to see Colin Meloy, frontman for The Decemberists, on his solo tour as a big thank-you for being so patient with me during the thesis-writing process. The past few months have been semi date-free and I was trying to make up for it.

Previously:
S - "Can we go on a date and spend quality time together in a time symbolic of our eternal and undying connection?"
M - "Aieeee! I have 20 more pages due and I haven't started yet! I need to lock myself in, duct tape myself to a chair, stop showering, shun all human contact and subsist on popcorn and beer until I get this done."
(repeat every weekend for four months)

May it be known that, not once, did Sonja complain about me ignoring her. She rocks. I suck.

Anyways, Meloy is out on tour and promoting a new solo album while the band takes a break in between its last tour and next release. The show in Boston was at the Somerville Theater, which is a terrific venue. It's small without being crowded, atmospheric without being contrived and old without being smelly. They also serve beer for $5, so they've got that going for them, too.

It was a terrific concert. I always go into solo shows wondering if the artist can pull it off without a band to interact with, but Meloy is a consummate performer. Any worries I had were laid to rest after the first song when he held the following banter with the audience:

"Freebird!" screamed some annoying high schooler who no doubt has never heard that song in her life.
"Sorry, not going to play Freebird," replied a wry Meloy. "You see, I'm a charter member of MACOF - Musicians Against the Calling Out of Freebird... Incidentally, there's also a committee in MACOF that promotes the writing of more songs about gypsies, which I chair."

The whole night was like that - Meloy playing songs, joking with the crowd and interrupting his own train of thought to tell stories or recall forgotten words/chords to songs. Hands down, it was a blast - particularly his performances of "Perfect Crime" and "Shankill Butchers." It was a low-key, intimate and fun concert.

The show highlighted a realization that I've been coming to for a while now. I don't know if it's out of snobbery or that I'm getting old (or a combination of the two), but I can't do arena shows anymore. I'm just not into getting sweaty with big crowds, being a mile away from the stage, waiting in line for hours to get in and paying hundreds of dollars for tickets the way I used to be. That's ceased to be fun.

In the past five years, I can only think of one, maybe two, bands that I would see again in an arena. The first is Tool, because it's a band that needs to be seen to be fully appreciated and they put an enormous amount effort into putting on a show and not just a concert. The other band would be U2, just for the experience - but the amount of annoying people there and the prohibitive cost of tickets probably would discount me from every seeing them again.

The other bands I've seen in arenas over that span include Death Cab for Cutie (one of my favorites, but I am never, ever going to see them in a place that holds more than 800), Franz Ferdinand (you can't dance in bleachers), Stone Temple Pilots (uh, don't ask), P.O.D. (again, don't ask), the Darkness, Dashboard Confessional (from days as a 15-year-old girl), Incubus (several times - it was a phase), Wilco (awesome group), Kings of Leon (opened for U2 and were terrific, but no one cared because it was a 40,000-seat arena), the Flaming Lips (great performance, but again, not an arena band) and Justin Timberlake (eeeeeeeeeeek! Justin! marry me!).

Live music is meant to be soaked in and appreciated. At its best, it's a deep emotional connection and a touching experience that feels as if it's potentially life-altering (Although, it's not, but for an evening, you think it might be). It's hard to sense that, however, if the periphery of your mind and senses are being bombarded by a huge crowd and an echoing venue. In thinking back to the 15 best live performances I've seen, only two were in arenas (the aforementioned U2 and Paul McCartney playing 95% Beatles songs for 3 hours).

So, unless something huge rolls around, I think I'm calling off all future arena shows. If the venue is bigger than 1,000 people, I'm not going - unless it's a festival, and then I may reconsider.

I want the intimacy. I want the lead guitarist to sweat on me. I want to have the bar and the stage no more than 15 feet from me at all times. Is that too much to ask? I don't think it is.