Tuesday, December 31, 2013

2013: Year in Review

My total attendance fell by a few shows to 23 as compared to my 2012 total attendances of 27, including 18 concerts, 1 single day festival, 3 multiday festivals in which I only attended one day, and 1 multiday festivals in which I attended each day, bringing my average down to an event about every 16 days. As far as I can confirm, only five of these shows were sold out, which is a lot less than last year, so I suspect that there were many more sold out than I realized.

Being my first full calendar year in Chicago, I saw more shows in the general Chicago area than anywhere else (19), including most within the city itself though also a show each in nearby Aurora and Bridgeview. Unlike in DC, where I saw a significant number of shows at the 9:30 Club, I visited a total of 15 separate venues in Chicago this year, not visiting the same venue more than twice. I saw additional shows in Killington, Vermont; Manchester, Tennessee; and New Orleans, Louisiana.

Unlike previous years in which I saw at least a show on every day of the week, I did not see any live music on any Mondays this year. Friday (10) was the leader, followed by Saturday (7) with no other day registering more than three events. The year was strangely weighted to a lot of shows in the latter part of the year, such that nearly three out of four of the events took place in the second half of the year including four each in the months of July, October, and November. These were all also months when I was not abroad at all, which certainly makes it easier to attend. February and May, months were I was gone a significant portion of the month, were barren.

Including all the bands that I specifically remember seeing, and therefore wrote about, I saw a total of 61 performances by 59 artists, seeing Björk and Trombone Shorty twice each. Of those, only 21 were artists that I have seen before; the remaining 38 were artists that I was seeing for the first time. This included 20 acts at single concerts, another 32 at the multiday Bonnaroo Music Festival, (my fifth time attending), and 9 at other festivals.

I still don’t have a broad group of concert attending friends to pull from in Chicago, so in the interim, Lindsey (16) gets dragged to more shows that she would otherwise attend on her own. I also attended three events on my own. No one else surpassed that number.

Total ticket cost of $1,124, an average and median of $49 and $38 per event, respectively.

More than half of my favorite sets of the year, as follows, were at Bonnaroo, all of which were the first time for me.
  1. Frank Turner (Vic Theatre, Chicago)
  2. Paul McCartney (Bonnaroo)
  3. Japandroids (Bonnaroo)
  4. Of Monsters & Men (Bonnaroo)
  5. Postal Service (Lifestyle Communities Pavilion, Columbus, Ohio)
  6. Cloud Cult (Lincoln Hall, Chicago)
  7. Twenty One Pilots (Bonnaroo)
  8. Phish (Northerly Island, Chicago)
  9. Alt-J (Bonnaroo)
  10. The National (Bonnaroo)
Honorable Mentions: Amadou & Miriam (Bonnaroo), Bjork (Bonnaroo & Pitchfork), Delta Rae (Bonnaroo)

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