The Per-since-tence of Memory: The "50 Concerts" meme

The Facebook note in which I was tagged included this opening text:
"OK, here are the rules. Test your memory and your love of live music by listing 50 artists or bands (or as many as you can remember) you've seen in concert. List the first 50 acts that come into your head. An act you saw at a festival and opening acts count, but only if you can't think of 50 other artists. Oh, and list the first concert you ever saw (you can remember that, can’t you)?"

To which I must reply: I'm amazed I can think of any concerts I went to (many of which were around 20 years ago), off the top of my head, but recalling which one was first would require consulting records, which the rules forbid, so pardon the hell out of me for being old.

While I'm following that "first ones that come to mind" rule, I twisted those rules to list some concerts with multiple artists; the title was "50 Concerts," not "50 Bands You Saw In Concert." Frankly, the people who start these memes really need to put a bit more effort into naming them, in my humble opinion.

Anyway, that said, here's what I came up with in a little over 10 minutes of concentrated effort one night this past week while riding the train home, in absolutely no particular order:

Anthrax
Afghan Whigs
Nirvana
Screaming Trees
Soul Asylum
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Replacements
Paul Westerberg
Old 97's
Rhett Miller
Alice In Chains
Lilith Fair (really; yeah, I went with a woman; no, I wasn't the only male)
Gin Blossoms
Luka Bloom
Deacon Blue
Edie Brickell & New Bohemians
Beat Farmers
Mojo Nixon & Skip Roper
Pixies
The White Stripes
Tori Amos
New Model Army
The Waterboys
Love Battery
Robyn Hitchcock (solo and with the Egyptians)
Jimmy Buffett
Buddy Guy
Long Beach Blues Festival
Ramones
R.E.M.
Neil Diamond
Neil Young
Mudhoney
The Monkees
Weird Al Yankovic
The Kinks
The Who
The Jazz Butcher
Love & Rockets
The Godfathers
Phish
Feist / Spoon
Dramarama
The Smithereens
The Dickies
Dinosaur Jr.
The Damned
Al Green
Sonic Youth
U2 / Public Enemy / Sugarcubes
X
Oingo Boingo

p.s. Yes, that's 52.

~

Now that I've delineated a list of artists I saw play live for a Facebook meme about that, I think a distinction needs to be drawn between going to a concert and happening upon a band. Going to a concert implies intent; you were going to the venue with the express purpose of experiencing the artist's live show. That's different from going to a bar or coffee house or restaurant or record store and there happening to be a live band playing; the point of your venture was to drink or eat or hang out, and the music was coincidental. If your story is "Yeah, we went to this bar and so-and-so was playing, and it was a great show," then you didn't see a concert. If you went to the bar because you wanted to hear music performed but had no idea who would be playing, you didn't see a concert. At least not for what could be included in this list.

That's the restrictions I placed on myself, whether it was necessarily required or not. The only "rules" noted implied one not to take too long composing the list. I'm not sure whether that was supposed to make it a test of one's memory, or whether there was some kind of psychological conclusion one could draw from which concerts one remembered, or if the person who came up with the idea knew that establishing a time limit might make it more likely people would participate; it wouldn't seem too daunting a task. People will squander tremendous amounts of time online, but asking them to devote more than 15 minutes of concerted effort toward such a task conceivably could elicit an I-don't-have-time-for-that reaction.

The point of the memes (to the extent I can discern one) is to interactive participation, presumably trying to draw in those who don't otherwise bother by expressly soliciting their input (that is, by "tagging" them, so they get a notice). As to what one is to gain from looking at a mere list of artists' concerts a friend attended, but without indications of where the concerts were, or how many times the friend may have seen the given artist, or which shows were good or not-so-good, or hearing any stories about the shows, I'm not sure. Maybe the list is intended as a first step. I suppose it could be more a matter of supplying the raw data and allowing others to react to it as they will. In comments left or other notes those details could come out.

Me, I learned my lesson about trying to get people to participate in a way that would be seen by a bunch of others—others who come from disparate parts of my social life.

~

Years ago I used to send out occasional emails to pretty much everyone in my address book (obviously before the days of even Friendster). I'd only do it a limited number of times a year (and, for the inexplicably curious, or those wishing to go down Memory Lane, those messages are archived here; check out everything listed from 2000, 2001, 2002, or 2003). Generally, if I sent a message to 100 people I'd get well over half of them to reply back with at least a hello. (That's way better than any blahg post or Facebook status update has ever gotten.)

Then one time I sent out a message where I asked people to just hit Reply and type the first thing that came to mind for one minute. No stopping to think, just typing (even if gibberish) and then hit Send.

However, I threw in: "If you're feeling daring, hit Reply To All." (Yes, I had all the recipients in the To line.) And some people did just that.

Suffice it to say, the first thing that came to mind was… not exactly for public consumption, especially when some of my older relatives were in the mix.

That was the last time I sent out a message where I didn't BCC all the recipients.

~

Facebook sometimes seems like having all your friends and family in the To line.

I suppose people tend to grasp the more public nature of what they may post on another's wall with that forum, rather than blithely clicking one button on an email—especially when essentially dared to do so—but nonetheless I don't solicit that sort of thing in the time I spend logged in to the site.

And I sure as hell wouldn't tag anybody. As previously noted, that is, quite literally, asking for it.