2024 so far

Hello to concert blogging in 2024...

In the past few months, I have spent a lot of my free time writing other things and dreaming about being in other places. Since my last post (which was pre-ACL in October... oops), I have attended a handful of live shows, but it's been a slower progression this year than last. I went to ACL Weekend 2 in October and saw Ab6ix in November, which wrapped up my 2023. So far this year, I have seen Nat & Alex Wolff, Trousdale, and Briston Maroney, one each month of the year. All of those shows were perfect and fun in their own regard, so I am gonna try to write a little baby bit about each one in this post to get us nice and caught up for the year so far.

January 25th, 2024

I found out about the Nat & Alex Wolff concert about a week before the show when browsing Club Dada's website for upcoming events I might want to attend. (Yes, this is my strategy for finding small club shows and discovering new music. I just look at my favorite venues and their calendars and plan around what looks good and cheap for me and my friends. It works every time). My older sister Addi and I used to love to listen to "Rules" together in the beat-up slug bug she drove when she was in high school, which, of course, was also in the era of John Green and the rise of 2013 Tumblr, so this was kind of a bucket list show for us. We went with my friend Emily, whom I magically met on the concrete before an Inhaler show a little over a year ago, and that duo was the ideal company to keep for a show like this one. Both of the Wolff brothers are incredible actors that I have loved and admired for years, but their songwriting and passion for music were what made the concert memorable for me. I knew a few songs before the show, a lot of older stuff, but the songs from their latest album were my favorite parts of the show. That, and when they played "Banana Smoothie" from their Naked Brothers Band days. Though both boys have grown up in the spotlight and they are both outstandingly successful in other fields of the arts, they still came across as very humble and excited to be playing a club show, which I loved as an audience member. The concert was incredible in every regard. I would love to see them again if they tour with the unreleased album they've been teasing a bit lately...

February 12th, 2024

On to Trousdale! One of the very first posts I wrote for this blog was about seeing Trousdale in the Cambridge Room at the House of Blues last Valentine's Day. I loved the girls and the show, but the best part of that experience for me was attending with Addi. Trousdale have been her favorite band for several years, and I do still believe she was the pioneer of their fanbase, following the band account when they had only about a thousand followers a few years ago. They were some of the sweetest people I've ever met after a concert then, and they exceeded all of my expectations built off of last year's experiences by about a million times this time around. This year, Addi saw them in Austin a few days before she saw them again with me and Elli (our youngest sister) in Dallas. Trousdale has released an album in the past year, and they played some of the songs as unreleased tracks on their last tour, so it was exciting to hear those songs again now that we know the words and can sing along. The setlist was amazing, made up of a good range of songs from their discography so far. The harmonies in Trousdale songs always amaze me to hear both in studio versions of songs and live performances, so I have to say their vocal ability as a group is one of the most impressive parts of their collaboration.

We did get the chance to meet them again, which appears to be part of their regular routine as performers. Both the band and their manager recognized Addi on sight. (Elli and I were very humored when they all chanted Addi's name as we approached to take a picture). They were super sweet, as always, and we had a lovely time at the show. I won't ever miss a chance to see Trousdale! I have so much love and admiration for them as both a group and individuals.

March 4th, 2024

Lorna and I have been talking about this show for as long as we've been friends. He has played shows since then, but none ever came close enough for us to go together. We bought our tickets during a shift at work and then managed to get the same day off months later so we could have our first VIP Briston Maroney experience together. I want to start this off by saying this was genuinely one of my favorite shows I've gone to in quite a while. Of course, as I mentioned before, it's been a slow start to my concert-going this year because "concert season" doesn't typically pick back up until late spring/early summer. Regardless, this was an incredible kick-off to getting back into bigger shows for the year. We waited in line for most of the afternoon and made a lot of cute little show friends outside the venue, and it only expanded when we got inside. The crowd for this show was so good. Everyone was so excited to be there and so friendly, and though it has become rare for an entire show experience to be void of some kind of bad concert etiquette post-Covid, this was truly one of the nicest big crowds I have ever been in. I feel like that should have been expected from the fanbase of someone as genuine and wonderful as Briston Maroney, but I was so pleased with all the friends we made and the kindness of the people around us, too. The openers for this show rocked. Both Willow Avalon and Snarls were incredible. I always love when the openers for shows are a little outside the genre of the headlining artist, and I enjoyed both acts so much that I would go out of my way to see either of them perform again.

The VIP package for this show included a short acoustic set with a Q&A session, and I loved the way it was managed. I thought all of Briston's staff, team, and band were super sweet and helpful when we had questions or needed guidance, but I especially loved and appreciated his tour manager. She was very personal and approachable and made the whole experience stress-free for everybody, and I think she was a very valuable asset to my good experience on her own. The only thing I wish had been a little different is the acoustic set was three pre-selected songs that were on the main setlist, and I had been under the impression that they'd be fan-picked songs that would not be played later in the night. However, I really enjoyed his choice of acoustic songs, and I thought that portion of the show was still the perfect level of intimate and entertaining. He was so intentional with answering each of the questions and interacting with the fans who asked for it, which I thought was endearing and a valuable use of the VIP time. I thought the whole experience was worth every bit of money I paid for it.

The show itself was so good. There were a few songs that didn't make the setlist that I missed hearing, but I think that would have been the case regardless of what he chose to play because all of his music is so good. The set was a nice mix of his older and newer work, which was amazing as an older fan who hasn't had the chance to see him live previously. Briston is one of those artists who sounds exactly the same live as he does in recordings, which is always amazing to me, and his team sent out recordings of his live performance in Dallas to the fans who requested it, which was also a nice touch. I have never had an artist offer a personalized recording to their fans before, so I thought that was really cool. I got it just a few short days after the show and enjoyed listening through that quite a bit as well.

March 19th, 2024

This portion of the post is dedicated to a mundane Tuesday spent at work, reading through my previously written segments of this post to make sure I am happy with posting what I have here. (And I am so that rocks). I am a little surprised to see I never posted for either of the big festivals I attended last year, especially since they were both such highlights of my live music experience for 2023, but I suppose those drafts can remain drafts. I think my mind has been in a lot of other places. I honestly would have probably forgotten or given up the blog altogether by now if my parents hadn't informed friends, family members, and total strangers that I started it to begin with, (thanks, Mom and Dad), but I have found writing this post to be enjoyable the way all of my past reflections have been, so I am glad to maintain the page. I think everyone has moments where they need reminders to return to things they once loved so they can rediscover they love them. I am just glad my parents haven't been so willing to let me forget.

Again, I've been writing and working on other things; my heart just wasn't all the way here for a moment. It's still always been in the music, and the shows, and with the people I share those things with, but I did stray from wanting to share that a little bit. I doubt I will ever reach the point of posting about every single show I attend in a year on this page because there are too many for me to properly cater to in a way I deem worthy of a full post. One of my nitpicky writer things is only wanting to post pieces I am ultimately satisfied with. So, of course, just about everything I've ever written stays in a folder on a computer or a cellphone that I only open to edit and pick over late at night as a mindless activity before I go to sleep. BUT! I am pretty happy with this one. I'm happy to share it. Thanks for reading if you read it. That's part of what makes this fun for me. So thanks.