This question went through my head a couple of times during Roskilde Festival, where I had the pleasure of seeing my fair share of concerts, both huge and minuscule. From this empirical basis I can quite clearly conclude that the bigger the concert is, the more likely it is to suck. No matter how good the music or artist is.

To understand the conclusion, it’s in place to think about what going to a live concert actually gets you as opposed to sitting in your comfortable home listening to a studio record.

I can’t speak for everybody but to me the most compelling reasons to go to a live concert is the connection I feel with the artists when I can see them being there and performing. The feel of the sound shaking my body, the light show glimmering before my eyes and the artists sharing their energy and passion. That’s when I know it wouldn’t be possible to stand still even if I tried.

Of course it depends on the music and my relationship to it too. If I can’t dance to it, and if the artists doesn’t manage to capture my interest in the music, the concert is not going to work for me. Not even when the music is really good, because if the concert doesn’t give me that live feeling, I might just as well listen to the cd at home, enjoying the superior production quality.

The big problem large concerts have here, is that it’s pretty damn difficult to get any connection at all to the artist while there is 40000 other people standing around you and the artist is some remote figure you barely even notice on the big monitors besides the scene. Hey, they might be the coolest band out there, but when you are standing 100 meters away, the end result is usually crap anyway.

Granted this is only true if you like me are too lazy to stand in line for the front pit, but what I’m wondering about is what the rest of the crowd standing in the back with me actually get out of the whole ordeal.

On the other hand, when people hear I went to Roskilde Festival but didn’t really care to see Radiohead, they just look at me confused. It seems that big names have some kind of “don’t miss” status, so even if the concert might not be too exciting it self, there is still a certain social pressure to be there.

That said if people prefer going to a ginormeous concert either because of social stigma or more rational reasons, then I’m not going to hold them back. I’m just wondering what they are getting out of it. A part from bragging rights.