What was the best concert you ever went to?

I was messing around in my formspring account and the system asked me this question. At first I was going to answer it in terse earnestness, but then I realized I had a lot to say. So much to say, in fact, that I thought I would jump start my writing for the month of June by answering the question.

Sometimes I think that the halcyon days of my concert attendance are over. Not to say I don't attend concerts or still enjoy them; rather, in high school (when I went to the highest rates of concerts per month) going to a concert was a soul-defining exercise. By going to see the Arcade Fire with my friends, I felt like I was confirming that I was some hip young chick, something so far outside of my conservative Southern high school (I will still swear on a Bible that our de facto class song was "Sweet Home Alabama.") At the time I thought that every band my brother made me listen to, or every time I joined in conversations that involved Pitchfork's rating system, I was being so incredibly unique that I deserved a star.

Ok, seriously, I had problems. Regardless of that, eventually Urban Outfitters invaded our national consciousness and started playing Karen O while a bunch of teeny boppers bought t-shirts that said things like "I don't eat ham because I'm a vegetarian so FUCK OFF MOM AND DAD" and then I discovered that whatever music I liked wasn't really going to define who I was anymore. Everyone loves music and it's fun to be able to share that with people, so hiding in a corner with a list of "indier than thou" bands feeling superior was no longer going to work for me.

But the world doesn't really need another blog post in which someone expostulates "The Shins were sooo cool before Garden State made them all famous and stuff" so I'll move on. All I'm trying to do is make the point that concerts meant a lot more to me back then, when I was even more of a moldable human being searching for some reason to feel like the world was rocking. This fact alone would affect my top five list of concerts.

Then I was talking to a friend today about how I was writing this blog post and she said "so much of my concert experience is my mood, the comfort of the venue, and the number of songs they play that I really know."

And isn't that the truth? You go to a concert and you're stuck in your head the entire time because it's too loud to talk. Hopefully what's going on during the show is entertaining the music is so good you're totally swept up into it. But 90% of the time I spend concerts thinking about how I really fucking wish I was in a band and how much I having a desk job.

So, without further ado, I'm going to put up a list of top five concerts that I've attended. I don't really know if they legitimately are the best concerts, but they are ones I've been feeling in my memory:

5) Miike Snow

Venue: the Metro, Chicago

My roommate and I went to see Miike Snow on a lark a couple of months back, and the show surprised me in many ways. I didn't like the Metro is a venue that much, but these crazy Swedes came out in matching plain white masks and played with an extreme intensity that was infectious. I'd only heard one song by the group but they managed to hook me for the entire concert, which is quite a feat. Their sound was loud and powerful and their look was eerie.

4) Patrick Wolf

Venue: The Cat's Cradle, Carrboro, NC

I went to see Patrick Wolf with Radonwolf last summer. It was part of a Nylon magazine tour which in and of itself is kind of embarrassing. However, I've loved Wolf for a few years now and because it was part of a strange promotional tour there was absolutely no one there. I think there might have been 75 people in a venue that could hold up to 300, and I was right at the stage. Beforehand, Wolf walked by me and said "hey" and I nearly crapped my pants. He makes me wish I was a gay man. During the show, he stopped in the middle of the set to give a eulogy for Michael Jackson who had died days earlier. He then sang an a cappella version of Joni Mitchell's song "Michael." I hate a cappella as a rule, but it was still a nice gesture. He spent most of his banter between songs telling us how amazing the slow life in North Carolina was, and how he could have been at this Glastonbury Festival in England but had chosen to experience the USA instead. To top off the set he put on a grey leather jacket that had bird wing-type epaulets. I should have stayed to get a photo with him. He's also very tall.

I think the weirdest part of the entire show was that there was a very drunk man in attendance with his girlfriend who kept turning to us and saying "THIS IS MY FIRST GAY CONCERT." He also got in a weird back and forth with Wolf at one point about his sexuality that was uncomfortable, but who doesn't like a good asshole story about a concert? As my brother likes to say, the perfect dinner experience should always include one thing to complain about.

3) Gogol Bordello

Venue: McCarren Pool, Brooklyn

Everybody who's seen Gogol Bordello raves about how good their live show is, and I'm no exception. I spent a lot of the show wasting cash on 6 dollar cups of beer. The lead singer has a baller mustache and there are dancers. I think the reason I liked this show so much is that standing around in an empty pool with a bunch of Williamsburg hipsters was fucking surreal and AWESOME. Afterwards we got pizza.

2) The Arcade Fire

Venue: The Cat's Cradle, Carrboro, NC

These top two shows are from high school, and they both hold very dear places in my heart. Particularly because they were at my favorite venue of all time, The Cat's Cradle. I saw the Arcade Fire with a dear high school friend I referenced above, and it was during their funeral tour. I knew every song. Final Fantasy played beforehand and I enjoyed watching him create loops and building his songs--doing a one-man show must be rough. The best part of the show was that they created a funeral procession through the crowd: all of them holding various instruments, sweating their asses off, and beating drums, they walked through all of us and I got to touch the guy who looks like an adult Ron Weasley.

1) Franz Ferdinand

Venue: The Cat's Cradle, Carrboro, NC

This show will always have a one-up on my other concert experiences because it sold out before I had a chance to get tickets. My cousin and I decided to make a last-ditch effort to see them by standing around outside of the venue and hoping that someone would need to sell of their tickets. I finagled a ticket somehow, but then it seemed like Sam would never get one. We waited around through both of the opening bands before a guy who had won the tickets in a radio contest came up and sold his ticket to Sam. We walked in just as Franz Ferdinand came on stage. At that point in time, Franz Ferdinand's sound was so fresh and new and fun that every second of the show was undiluted positive energy. Also, the lead guitarist dances in a very particular and funny way that is best illustrated by the video for "Take Me Out."