The Answer To the Question I Get Asked Most Often
What's the best concert you've ever seen? It's the question I get asked the most once people find out what I do for a living. It seems like it should be easy to answer. Actually, it's one of the hardest. After all, I've gone to literally hundreds of concerts. How do I pick just one?
Your first concert, just like your first love, is one you'll never forget. I was 17 years-old. My three best friends from high school and I went to see Rush at the Charleston Civic Center in Charleston, WV. It was a Thursday night. I remember because our parents made us go to school the next day, despite the two hour drive to get home after the show. Exhausted, our ears still ringing, and a little rough around the edges...but we were all smiles, decked out in the concert shirts we bought off a scalper outside the venue for $10.
Then there was the first concert I ever went to with a date. We saw Journey...when Steve Perry was still the lead singer. And when he belted out Open Arms, it was like he was singing it just for the two of us.
And I could never forget my first country show...Hank Williams Jr. I was in the tenth row gettin' crazy with all his rowdy friends. He sang a bunch of his dad's songs that night. And I was blown away. I remember going home and borrowing all of my dad's Hank Sr. records a few days later.
So what IS the best concert I've ever seen? I can only answer the question like this. I can't pick one. My favorite concert is the one that creates magical memories of the most important people in my life. Moments that I'll reflect back on years later...and say, "Yeah, THAT was my favorite concert." But ask me another day...and the answer will probably be different.
With that said, what's the best concert YOU have ever seen?