Let me elaborate this and give back ground. My girlfriend and I were knocking another amazing band off the bucket a few Saturday nights ago. I recalled many conversations in the past with music fans about the amount of access you can get either with the band (aka social media) or the tour information, such as who's the opening act, what time are the sets, and what songs they will likely be playing. A fair amount of people I had this discussion with generally like the element of surprise when it comes to their favourite bands. And who could argue? Who doesn't want a touch of magic to sprinkle on the evening when some of your favouite bands grace the stage. So the reason I find a lot of this information is useful is not for the sake of knowledge, but can sometimes be beneficial to your evening.
Take this night for example. A date night filled with delicious food, drink, and sights to view. While the night was ultimately reserved for the boys in 3 Doors Down, we read on our tickets that the show as going to be playing until almost 2am. That had me constantly looking for information to support this theory that they weren't on stage till later in the evening. I have had many encounters where we get in early for bands, and subjected to 3, 4, 5 opening acts. One would argue that's all icing on the cake, but sometimes i can be very time consuming for the evening, especially when you have no interest in the opening acts. Sorry to say it music lovers, but even opening acts can get a little stale at times.
So going back to the show, we decided to forego the hockey game we had planned prior to the concert, simply because we couldn't understand why 3DD was going on so late in the night. Turns out it was for a good reason. I have found that if you are having a hard time finding information on the ticket sales site or the official venue website, social media is a great place to find some of that necessary information you might need. After scouring multiple event pages and official websites, we saw that the show was starting at 8:30pm SHARP. With finally finding out there was no other opening acts except the one listed on the page, we knew this show would not be running till the 2am time like on the tickets we ordered.
(*No photo pass for this concert, so my girlfriend snapped a few shots from her phone.*)
Thankfully we managed to find out this information on our phones as we're having a drink across the street. Bill paid, coats on, and across the street juuuust in time to catch the fourth song of their set. While we were still late to the game, it could have been a lot worse had we followed the information on our tickets.
So what was the reason for this post? Well, to explain that this information you can find online is a double edge sword. I completely understand the need to keep things suspenseful, but can also help if you are in a bind. Places such as Facebook, Twitter, and Setlist.fm serve as great tools for information that you may or may not need. Use at your own discretion.
(*No photo pass for this concert, so my girlfriend snapped a few shots from her phone.*)
As for the concert itself. I turned to my girlfriend, and said to her "you can tell these guys have been playing together for many years", as the sound, timing, tone, and interaction were all top notch. Not necessarily going down in the books as one of the most amazing, but damn did they hold their own. The venue, The Palace Theater, was also a great venue for this show. The intimacy felt like it was a big family all waiting around to sing songs together. The acoustics were great, and got a first hand view of the sound guy doing his thing as we hung around the sound board. I mean, where else in the venue are you going to hear the show the way it was tweaked to be?!
I got to relive a lot of songs I sang in my youth ("Kryptonite", "Here Without You", "When I'm Gone", etc.), and came to many point where fans were drowning out the band from singing. That always makes me feel like it was a successful evening. The energy and happiness in that place couldn't be more apparent!
