I used to go to a lot more concerts when I was younger than I do now (my heyday was probably age 17-19 or so). I liked getting there early, and standing as close to the stage as possible. I liked staying after the show and trying to meet the band, or at least get a set list off of the stage. It was an exciting ritual.
A lot of the time, at these shows, after standing outside the venue for an hour waiting for the doors to open, then standing in front of the stage for an hour, waiting for the first band to start, I used to look at the crowded floor around me and wonder why they didn't just start the damn show already. Everybody was there, what was the holdup?
Then last week I went to a show at the Electric Factory for the first time since I saw the Flaming Lips there in the spring of 2003, when I was 19. As a 26-year-old, my show-going habits are much different: roll in as late as possible just before the show starts, head straight to the bar, and lurk around the back of the venue, where I can actually see the stage, and I'm not packed in on all sides by sweaty hipster kids. In fact, the bar at the Electric Factory is in a separate upstairs section, which I'd never seen before because I'd never been there as an adult. (And no, 19-year-olds are not adults, and I think the only people who would argue that they are would be either 19 themselves, criminal prosecutors, or a military recruiter, but that's for a different post.)
It was up there, with a couple hundred people waiting over an hour for the show to start, every one of them holding a $7 plastic cup of Yuengling, that I realized the answer to the question that my 19-year-old self could never figure out. It seems obvious now, but I guess I'd never really thought that much about it, since most of the shows I go to now are either at all-ages venues that require pre-gaming at a bar down the street, or are at actual bars.
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