Random Thoughts

[The Heretic]

I think I'm done with going to gigs but I'm not sure exactly why. It's too costly? I'm too old at 50+? I'm too miserable? I like my slippers too much? It's a young metallers game? It's my time to leave the hall?

Answers on a postcard please....

[Eoin McLove]

I stopped going to gigs four years ago. I had a kid (my mickey is still in ribbons), Covid hit, moved country and was generally burnt out on the experience having been to gigs on a near weekly basis for years. I went to two in the past couple of months and had a great time. Emperor was a cool gig but it was mid week and I drove in solo so it was tame. Myself and the wife hit Unto Others on a Friday night a week or two later- our first date night in years- had a heap of pints and had a fucking great night. Might have been the break from it and turning the experience back into a special occasion made all the difference. In a few years you'll say fuck it and go see a band and have a hoot but a few years in with the slippers is needed sometimes 

[The Heretic]

Yeah a break without thinking about it too much may do the trick! The strange thing is I'm also buying more CD's now than ever, so its not a loss of grá for the aul metal, its just gigs seem like a hassle nowadays (for Dublin gigs anyway) while in other cases they aren't that much of a hassle really and its just me. It is a post lockdown thing? I dunno. Anyway I have plenty of other stuff I'm doing in my spare time in any event so I'm always busy but gigs are the one thing that's taking a backseat...hopefully not forever     

[open face surgery]

Can't say I particularly missed gigs during covid. Well, missed playing them but otherwise, didn't care.

[Eoin McLove]

I think everyone needed a break from gigs by around 2020. It was just too much.

[Bürggermeister]

The two-hour drive to Dublin for gigs is a pain in the hole, never mind driving back afterwards. I set a limit of €50 for gigs a long time ago, too, which takes any faffing around and rules out most of the big and, usually, shite gigs and venues. I'm also of an age where I've already seen most of the bands I enjoy, usually several times, and there aren't too many bands who get better as they get on in years. Add in overall gig fatigue and being sick and tired of topless, fat sweaty cunts brushing off you, lads trying to carry several pints through the crowd and spilling them all over you and the cunts with phones in the air, it takes a very special band to make me want to go to Dublin. I've gone to just a handful of gigs post-covid and enjoyed them but fucking hated the 4 hour commute for them.

Instead of going to loads of gigs for the sake of it, I make more of an event out of seeing bands I've never seen, usually with a trip abroad. I'm going to see Watchtower in Germany in September and Living Colour are touring in Europe in December, I'm more motivated in going to something like that.

[The Butcher]

Instead of going to loads of gigs for the sake of it, I make more of an event out of seeing bands I've never seen, usually with a trip abroad. I'm going to see Watchtower in Germany in September and Living Colour are touring in Europe in December, I'm more motivated in going to something like that.

Definitely agree with this - one of my fav gigs turned out to be Hans Zimmer at the Apollo in London (2014). Felt like the sound was coming from everywhere, literally got chills when they introduced the choir for the Crimson Tide track. Saw him last year in 3arena and the sound (as usual) was nowhere near the quality the Apollo had to offer.

[The Great Cull]

I could blame it on covid but I knew I'd reached gig fatigue just beforehand when I had a ticket to see Sacred Reich but couldn't be arsed to drive up on show night...

Like what others have said, the thoughts of the commute up just wiped the good from gigs and especially when they are bands I've seen multiple times before.

Since gigs have come back I'm very slow to make the trek to Dublin. Also not helped that any time I drive up now, even more cycle lanes and traffic changes make it an even bigger balls to get there.

With respect to bigger gigs, I went to both Metallica in Slane and Tool in the Point but I'll never spend that kind of money to see any band anymore. I think many folks are getting fatigued by this if you check out the attendances for the likes of the recent Metallica tour or the Leppard/Crue gigs... vast areas of arenas empty but they still insist on 200 euro plus ticket packages etc.

[Carnage]

I don't mind the commute but I get the train and have no way back after, so have to stay in Dublin. Hotel prices are the killer, it's gotten ridiculous now. Swans in August will be my last one unless something special comes along.

[Ollkiller]

The lack of gigs during covid came at the right time for me too. Just constantly either playing or going to gigs for the previous years.

Its seeing the same bands as well that caused it. Going to gigs now beyond metal to bands I've never seen I find good now. Mostly at festivals now. The thoughts of going to 1 gig in Dublin dosent appeal anymore unless it's a bucket list band I haven't seen before. 

[ochoill]

Generally not arsed travelling to Dublin for gigs given everything involved in it but I live about 10 minutes walk from Dolan's in Limerick so am at most of the metal gigs there and make an attempt to go to whatever else I can too (in any venue here) - what with work / child / money / bands / life in general it works to about two a month.  Can't argue, enjoy them all, ideal night out is seeing any sort of music.  Tend to prefer small & medium gigs over bigger events.

[astfgyl]

Done with the big stuff as well and there's fuck all doing in Tipp gig wise so it's either Limerick (Therapy? and Paradise Lost  there this year) or Dublin (Swans and Emperor coming up there) but the Dublin ones are a pain in the hole unless someone is driving. Had a lift to GODFLESH so I was off me shitter tbf but generally not going to pay the required coin to stay there and how much do I really want to see most bands really is the question

[astfgyl]

Having a good one there a minute ago while reading about the geological makeup of Japan. So like that's lots of volcanic features there and it got me thinking that the soil would be somewhat newer than somewhere more geologically stable then, so is that how evolution works with trees and stuff that certain ones do better in such circumstances and etc then over vast timespans the whole world of trees die out same as the fauna but more slowly and I could picture it all in my head like a time lapse satellite image changing colour and I got to thinking about scaling it all out and viewing a time lapse of the whole world breathing and changing and how time itself is entirely relative and thus what I'm imagining is actually happening but I'm too small to perceive the change and then we get to the old favourite infinity and I guess if the observer is large enough we could be moving at the speed of light or at absolute zero levels of activity depending on perspective so which are we really only what we perceive of ourselves on our own timeline and we both exist for but a flicker and for an eternity all at once.

Think I'm going to go play with the cats and the dog for a bit after that one, now that we've been levelled in psychological terms

[Eoin McLove]

Interesting idea but aren't there ancient banzai trees in Japan? Maybe they don't have anything on the scale, time wise, as the big reds in California or those ones in Tasmania... no idea.

[astfgyl]

No matter how old the trees they're still only newborns in geological terms. Actually thinking about how the fossil record shows certain types of plants and trees dominating over eras, how old might those trees have been? Could have had 50,000 year old trees and not know it from the fossil record. What length were days back in the day as well maybe each ring still represents a turn of the earth but maybe the turns were way longer and we're speeding up in rotation instead of slowing down, as seems to be suggested?

Can't bate a bit of wonder