'Retto Ruminations
By: Amy Sciarretto
Last updated September 2nd , 2010

Labor Day is upon us, and with it, the end of the Summer tour season. I always love the "Summer Comfort" of seeing bands play sheds and amphitheaters in the out of doors. I know it sucks for the kids who have to go back to school, but hey, I've got no sympathy, because every Sunday night is a school night once you enter the working force, whether it's July or September or February! So that's what you have to look forward to you if you are under the age of 18, kids! 

On Sunday night of this week, I trekked out to the PNC Bank Arts Center, located in central New Jersey, near the Jersey Shore, but not that Jersey Shore. I went to rock my face off at the UPROAR fest, which I discussed a few columns ago as a tour that fades the Summer into Fall, in a move that I really dig.

The venue is situated along the Garden State Parkway, and the drive in the summer is lush and green, rich with vegetation. It feels healthy and fertile when I drive through the area, of course polluting it with vehicular emissions. That said, I know that next time I head down that way on the GSP, I'll be going somewhere like a dive venue in the ghetto of Asbury Park, which was a much nicer shore resort when Bruce Springsteen was penning albums about his native state. They are trying to gentrify the area, but it just doesn't seem to want to be rehabbed and it'll be Fall, my favorite season, but the drive, unless in ripe Fall when the lives are changing color beautiful, and not deep Fall, when the leaves are all on the ground and the trees are just lonely, bare branches, won't be as lush. Sorry for that mega long, undiagramable sentence, school-aged readers. 

There are a lot of memories associated with this particular drive and with that venue, having spent many summers driving to the venue to see a range of shows, from Billy Idol to Ozzfest. I also take the same route to see shows at the Starland Ballroom and did take the same route for the now defunct Club Krome and the also defunct Birch Hill. Ah, memories.

But this summer, I only saw three shows at PNC over the course of the entire summer and I started to wonder, is it the concert season or is it me? I have certainly curtailed my concert-going this year, as I usually hit at least 100 shows a year and have even topped out over 200 shows a year for a few years. I know, a massive feat as some nights, I was going to two and three shows a night, because I was young, had the time and wanted to see every band I could because it was available.

I did curb my show attendance this year as part of an experiment; I've seen thousands of concerts in my lifetime and I could never attend another show as long as I live, and I can still consider myself blessed and happy at some of the concert events I've witnessed. I've seen everyone from Eminem to Jay-Z to Super Diamond, the only sanctioned Neil Diamond cover band. I've seen some for-the-records-books shows, and shows that meant a ton to me for-my-personal-hard-drive and for my mental scrapbook. But this year, I opted to go to trim the fat a bit for a minute and go to shows I needed to cover for one of my job and shows I really had a blazing passion to see. Instead of going just to go because I love to see live music and because I like to give as many bands as possible a chance to be experienced in the live setting, since it is such a crucial part of my job, I decided to keep it a minimum for this year only. No, it wasn't a New Year's Resolution or any bullshit like that. It was merely something I just...did. I sort of stumbled onto my own happy accident and experiment.

I also adopted my furball son Higgins, my beautiful, 7-month-old English bulldog puppy, who has garnered the lion's share of my free time, which isn't so lion-sized at all. In fact, since I have taken on so many extra gigs because I love to write, I barely even have a ton of extra time to go to as many shows, so the stars aligned! It's also easier to get my work done, listen to music, write about music, interview bands, transcribe interviews and fashion them into features and posts and columns when my pup is at my feet or sitting next to me, hanging out. 

I will go back to attending a supersized amount of shows next year, and that doesn't refer to any sort of calendar year, but what I have noticed as I still hit 50 shows already this year –and am estimating that I will attend around 75 by the time December fades to January, since I do keep a record of every show/band/venue I see/attend- is that I am enjoying the shows I do see more. But I miss that element of discovering a band in the live setting; of hearing the music made by the people who wrote it in the same room with them while the instruments are played and making the vibrations. I still love shows, but by trimming my overall intake of concerts, it made me value them and miss them more, so it worked. If you deny yourself something, when you lift the band, so to speak, you will emerge with a renewed interest. Even though my mojo for live music wasn't running on fumes, it did need a bit of a break to recharge my internal battery and make me realize how much I love taking in a live show. 

Stepping back to step forward, I guess? I've even thought of getting protective earphones for Higgins so he can come to some shows with me, since I can make stuff like that happen and he's my "assistant!" 

I think that all you music fans out there should take a lesson from my semi-sabbatical, which was really me being semi-selective with my choices of live entertainment for a short period of time. Go see live music. Go see a band you love and enjoy watching them do what they do. If you can't find a friend to go with you and be your "plus one," then go alone. Soak it in. Absorb it. Let the vibrations of the instruments and the music sink into your skin and enter your bloodstream through your ear canal. Remember what you love about a band by watching them. Revel in the moment of fellow fans rocking out alongside you, even if not with you. You know the old saying, "Dance as if no one is watching." That's a mantra to behold and to put into practice.

No music, no life, as the old Tower Records slogan used to go... R.I.P., BTW! Tower, I miss you... and buying records and perusing your racks of CDs and buying Case Logic books at your South Street location in Philadelphia in the 1990s. Sigh with a side of sigh.

This time next year, I'll have a renewed and replenished relationship with live music. I am already 95 percent of the way there. ~ Amy Sciarretto 

[Tags] Rock, Metal

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