So i think it would be interesting to see how this community celebrated Live music in 2024! I made a list of my Top 10 concerts this year and it looks like this: 1st Place: Linkin Park – Hamburg, Barclays Arena 22.09.24 If someone had told me at the beginning of the year that I would see Linkin Park again this year, and in Germany no less, I would have called them crazy. Even now, it's still surreal to me that it actually happened. Emily, new album, and a new tour in 2025? Incredible. I've already shared my thoughts about the concert, but I still want to briefly mention here how amazing it was to see the band perform with so much energy on stage again, especially Mike, who was literally glowing throughout the entire concert. Emily, despite her initial nervousness, was also incredible, and with Heavy Is The Crown, a proper world premiere. There's no way it’s anything less than number 1. This trip will definitely stay in my memory for a long time. I'm so excited for what's coming next! 2nd Place: Green Day – Nürburg, Rock am Ring 08.06.24 What an absolutely incredible show that was?!?!?! So much Dookie and American Idiot, by the way, my first ever album with Hybrid Theory, played in full. It was a dream come true for my 14-year-old self. The people around me were also having so much fun and knew the lyrics really well! My first Green Day concert definitely set the bar high for future shows! 3rd Place: Donots – Düsseldorf, Der Hof 14.04.24 Seeing the Donots in such a legendary venue was really something special, basically just a two-hour long mosh pit Since it was the second night, with a focus on the German-language songs, that was a positive aspect for me personally, as I’ve really followed the band closely since 2015. These guys are just incredibly solid on stage, which was confirmed for me during the signing session at Vainstream, where Ingo and I briefly chatted about how sad the situation with the Ratinger Hof is! Just love for this band. 4th Place: Sum 41 – Dortmund, Westfalenhalle 09.11.24 So, the last time with Sum 41. But what a massive finale. The whole range of hits and a few deep cuts. The band was literally on fire the entire concert, and the atmosphere in the crowd was phenomenal. Was it the last time we saw Sum on stage? I don't know, but I’ll carry this performance in my heart for a long time! 5th Place: Parkway Drive – Münster, Vainstream Festival The band is just on such a high level in terms of their live shows, it’s always a blast to experience this kind of destruction. For me, the performance at Vainstream was even better than at Rock am Ring, just because it felt a bit more comfortable here 6th Place: Alligatoah – Dortmund, Juicy Beats Festival 26.07.24 His live performances have been very destructive this year Quite fitting for his new style, which also comes across very strongly live with the band. I'm really looking forward to the concert in Dortmund, it's just so much fun to see him live. 7th Place: Zebrahead – Oberhausen, Resonanzwerk 23.07.24 My first time at Resonanzwerk in Oberhausen, and what a blast Zebrahead put on. You could almost feel the sweat dripping from the ceiling. The crowd was also visibly having so much fun. Definitely the best performance of the four Zebrahead concerts I've seen this year 8th Place: Deine Cousine – Oberhausen, Turbinenhalle 26.04.12 My new discovery of recent years. What a party this band throws, it's wonderful, so much love and peaceful celebration from the crowd, making the whole event very special. 9th Place: The Prodigy – Deichbrand Festival 20.07.24 Wow, that was a fantastic show, and now I regret not seeing The Prodigy in 2015. It was just incredibly strong, and I'm already looking forward to their performance at Rock am Ring next year! 10th Place: Kettcar – Cologne, Luxor 08.04.24 That was truly a beautiful concert in a relaxed atmosphere.
Great thread idea! I didn't do a lot of concert-going this year on account of having a tiny human to care for, but I did get to go to a couple that I really enjoyed! I don't know if I could rank them so I'll just describe. July 28: A Day to Remember (with Four Year Strong & The Story so Far) I was really excited to go to this one because I like both The Story so Far and A Day to Remember a good bit! Been wanting to see ADTR for years now and finally got the chance. They did not disappoint! This was an extremely rowdy show—people were getting really upset because of the number of crowd surfers and general rowdiness, and I witness three fights break out because of it. Really awkward to be in the middle of but I had a great time. I didn't go mosh because my knee had been in bad shape and it was really bad that night, but I was able to make my way to the front. The crowd was already absolutely bonkers for Four Year Strong, TSSF got a lot of remarks because Parker is the opposite of energetic (his style is to hang on the mic and be melancholic), and then all hell broke loose for ADTR, and Jeremy then got the crowd to do "crowdsurfing on crowdsurfing," a tradition I was not aware of. The security looked so over it. August 30: King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard I got into this band last year because of @IGibbedYEIH suggesting them relentlessly. They're so eclectic and wacky and I love that. They had a good helping of their jammier blues stuff, alongside their thrashy work from Pertrodragonic Apocalypse. And then they closed the set with 15 minutes of live analog synth goodness. Really fun band and not knowing what the heck they were going to pull out for their set (they change it up every night) had me anticipating what was coming next. Only con: I thought we were getting one of the 3-hour sets, but I was mistaken lmao. But I was dead tired by the end anyway, so it worked out. September 27: Etran de l'Aïr This was a highlight for me! I did a lot of research this year into West African musical traditions, and spent a lot of time learning about the different cultural groups and their musics. One of the most interesting modern developments out there are the peoples of the western Sahara, especially the nomadic Tuaregs, who have really taken to electric blues. Their album covers are just really unique, as you see these people in their traditional turban dress, endless sand dunes in the background, holding Fender Stratocasters. They've taken to blues and melded it with their music traditions to create a really cool, groovy, and exciting style called Tishoumaren, or as most people know it in English, just "desert blues." This particular group, from northern Niger, embarked on a US tour that came through my city, and they played at a venue at Jack White's Third Man Records. The people there were all really into the music, and it was really cool to see all the people connecting over the music despite not understanding a lick of the Tamasheq language. Their drummer was doing a ton of really cool polyrhythmic drumming that was obviously influenced by the drumming traditions of West Africa, while the two guitarists jammed out and did a good mix of chanting/droning over the instrumental. It's really cool stuff. The only bad part about my year in live music is that, despite always aggressively protecting my ears with ear plugs at shows, I developed tinnitus starting at the Etran de l'Aïr show. I took my ear plugs out for like...maybe 30 seconds to get a shirt from the back while the band was still playing, it made my ears ring a little, and then it just never went away. It was really bad for the next week or so, but it's calmed down a little. Still upset about it though, but based on conversations with my family it sounds like it's actually pretty common on both sides, so maybe it was just a really terrible coincidence of timing. Really looking forward to 2025 because I'll tick off the last couple of artists on my "bucket list": Linkin Park and Devin Townsend. That will only leave the big one, John Williams, who I desperately want to see conduct before he dies, which could be...any day now.
Tinnitus is always a party bummer when it come to us music lovers. I developed it by playing music way too loud for way too long on my mp3 player during teenage, and figured out I had it by the time I was 18. It's been 15 years now and luckily my brain has rewired itself in such a way that 99% of the time, I won't really mind much or even notice. Beginnings were definitely a bit tedious, now it's like an old companion The bright side is that it has pushed me to be really prudent when I started going to concerts and such - never went to one without ear plugs. The less bright side is that the more time went by, the more used I got to it, the less careful I have become when it comes to protecting my ears on a daily basis - less regular breaks while listening to music, playing it on louder volume again, etc. And lately I feel my tinnitus has been slightly more aggressive again, although it's always hard to judge and make the difference between what's the current status VS what's the attention given to it. But all in all, still very okay I'd say. Let's keep protecting our precious ears and rocking on safely