What's the farthest you would go to see a concert?

[phl@mastodon.social]

@evan "Own planet" is unfortunately terribly vague :D But is the choice many in countries with many other countries in the region will take, while giga-country people will probably choose the one smaller option.

[aharoni@wikis.world]

@evan
I flew from Israel to see:
Sonic Youth in Strasbourg.
Pixies in Coachella (which also had Flaming Lips, Radiohead, Trail of Dead, Mogwai, Stereolab, and The Cure).
Pavement in New York.
And perhaps I should mention that I drove from Providence to New Jersey and back the same day to see Herbie Hancock.

I'm not wealthy, I love music.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@aharoni of all of these, the drive from Providence to NJ seems the most terrible.

[aharoni@wikis.world]

@evan True.

[jonathan@charade.social]

@evan I'm sure the fact that I live 4km from an international border is screwing up your results 😋

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@aharoni have you taken your young people on a concert trip yet? There's a window of time when they crave seeing their favourite musicians so much they are willing to tolerate the presence of a parent at the show.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@jonathan fortunately the stakes are extremely low

[aharoni@wikis.world]

@evan LOL. They don't yet have anyone that they love so intensely that they are very interested to see them in concert, but when they do, I'll go to the end of the world for that.

I did take the older one to see the LEGENDARY Russian band Aquarium in Boston. I'm much more of their fan than he is, but I did use some of their quieter songs as lullabies when he was much younger, and he identified them. They are playing in Toronto and some other North American cities soon.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@aharoni I have taken my teens to a dozen shows or so, and it's been a great experience every time.

[disorderlyf@todon.eu]

@evan Maybe once I've got my shit together I'll travel further, but it'd have to be one of my top 10 favourite bands.

[spraoi@tooting.ch]

@jamesmarshall @evan

Wow!

My transatlantic concert was Billy Childish, which was amazing, but I think you win.

[chrisn@mas.to]

@evan anything reachable by train, which in Europe is quite decent.

[ghostdancer@mastodon.sdf.org]

@evan For now it's been own country but I'd would not discard going to another depending on the concert. And as someone has already said the obstacle is money not distance.

[spraoi@tooting.ch]

@jamesmarshall @evan

For the record this win is quantifiable. Kate Bush has performed live a handful of times outside of her first tour in 1977 or around then.

Billy Childish has basically owned Thursday nights at one or the other tiny venue in London since around that same time. So he's performed live tens of thousands of times.

So @jamesmarshall experienced something rare and precious. Whereas I took part in a nitch cultural ritual. He absolutely wins and I am jealous.

[jamesmarshall@sfba.social]

@spraoi @evan yeah, these were her first shows in 35 years, other than occasionally showing up to join others on stage. I heard ticket sales set a record, with 70,000 sold in 15 minutes. I was lucky to be on her old email list, where the shows were announced and we got access to tickets a day early. People came from all over the world. It was a peak life experience for me.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

This is a really interesting result. The choices weren't great -- for people in small countries or near a border, going to another country an hour away counts as "the whole planet".

Regardless, this was a neat discussion. For me, I go to Toronto, Upstate New York or New England for shows all the time, but if something's farther away than that, it's a miss for me. I'm also pretty interested in lesser-known local bands. So I'd say "region".

Thanks everyone for the responses!