When I broke up with my ex going to gigs on my own was one of the harder things to get my head around. Museums and galleries = fine, the cinema = fine, gigs = somehow much harder.
Once I got over that though, it wasnt really a big deal.
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But then still plays, champions and does sessions with loads of new bands/artists. Mark is a good one imo.
going alone is the default for me these days. My former gig buddies live hours away now, and my wife is largely uninterested. Itās nice on the occasions I do arrange to go with someone, but itās rare
Controversial maybe, but I actually prefer going to gigs & festivals on my own. Free to enjoy it completely uninterrupted, and experience it in a bubble. Hate it when Iām with someone else and they want to stand at the back, or youāre really enjoying it and look over and they look bored as hell.
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I only ever hear him if Iām in the car between 7-9pm, which is mercifully rarely, but every time I do it just seems to be Mark Riley Remembers Ye Good Olde Days. Yesterday him and someone else who sounded exactly like him were reading an issue of Melody Maker from 1964 out loud for some reason.
oh yeah. A mate is nice to chat to between sets, but when the music is actually happening I donāt like any distractions
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At the start of our relationship my other half used to come along to most gigs with me.
Then she came along to see Electrelane, and decided that she didnāt need to see every band I wanted to see after all.
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Both for me 
Sounds like youāre ready for ā¦ jazz
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Yeah I had this thought too.
Theres a handful of promoters here that basically put on all the gigs I like.
A few are getting on and one or two have already gone a bit quiet after the past 2 years.
Plus the older I get the less enthusiastic I am about doing a 200 mile round trip to Dublin to see stuff.
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Oh oooooh yes I get what you mean by this, thatās so interesting
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I think youāre right, and also most people making their own music only wanna talk about sex is fun/Iām depressed/drugs are cool/Iāve had a breakup, which is all well and good but itās just normal people stuff. Youāre writing music for a thing and itās like suddenly you gotta make music for a little blue hedgehog who has to go fast and loop de loop and free animals from cyborg enslavement. Thatās pretty fucking out there, of course the music is gonna be bonkers.
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maybe we should ban lyrics.
classical/instrumental/electronic only. 
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Lyrics 
Textures 
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Is there a thread on the music board for musical theatre? If not then itās a national scandal.
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Sorry. International. Even worse
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This is a good take. I am way, way, past my thirties and still as interested in new music as I ever was, but I really donāt care about lyrics anymore. Most of the stuff Iāve liked in recent years has been either instrumental or records where the lyrics are unintelligible (thanks to screaming / distortion / being in foreign) and are effectively just another texture. Doesnāt help that the vast majority of lyricists are so crushingly pedestrian and banal - I still get loads of pleasure out of good novels and poems but some mid-twenties public school kid being sad because nice girls ignore him is an instant turn off to me these days.
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Anyway, is the answer ābecause the music industry is still peddling bands made up of four middle class white boys playing guitars, and shouldnāt we have got over that thirty, forty, fifty years ago?ā
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Pretty much agree, probably at least 80% of what I listen to these days does not have lyrics I reckon. Thing about lyrics is that if they are bad, they can cause your soul to cringe, which will shut you out pretty firmly from enjoying the rest of what is going on in the music.
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Never been into popular music