8 reasons why concerts are my favourite places in the world

As you know by now, or if you don’t then you’re obviously new here, I am obsessed with concerts. I was genuinely wondering what I was going to do with my life without any more concerts planned until in the past week I got tickets to see Bastille in November and The 1975 in December. My concert excitement satisfaction radar is back at full.

Before I get properly into this post I just wanted to start by apologising about the fact that this is my first blog post in two months. I had planned to start posting more regularly when I finished uni in May, but I just couldn’t find the motivation to sit down and write something. I guess after finishing three years of an English and Creative Writing course I thought ‘more writing? No! Please no!’. I’ve been quite busy these couple of months, I went on holiday and graduated from university to name but a few, but this isn’t a post about my life history so I’m going to leave it there (thank the Lord I hear you cry). I just wanted to explain a little about why it’s been so long since I posted, and I promise now I’ve graduated I will be posting a lot more often.

Now, concerts are most definitely my favourite places in the world. Put me in an arena full of people, watching a band or artist I love and I can guarantee you I will be fully content and at my happiest in life. Here are just a few reasons why I love them so much.

1. The excitement and build-up

I don’t know about you, but I start getting excited about a concert from the moment I get the tickets. I go onto my little countdown app and type in the date and time, all happy with myself, and remind almost everyone I know how many days it is until my next concert at every opportunity I get (my record has been over 365 days for a One Direction concert. Waiting over a year was torture). As I mentioned at the start of this post, I literally can’t cope without having a concert to look forward to. I love the feeling of knowing that I’ve got something that makes me so happy to look forward to, and especially at the moment I’ve got two bands who I’ve never seen live before so I’m extra excited. There’s nothing like the kind of excitement the night before a concert you’ve been counting down to for months that prevents you from sleeping for hours because you are so hyped up and ready for the most amazing experience of your life.

2. The moment the band/artist come on stage

Honestly, these moments are just unexplainable. You’ve got to the venue, fought with a completely unorganised queue (more like massive mass of people with absolutely no logical order) to buy merchandise, stood in an even longer queue to use the toilets (and debated going into the men’s’ which somehow never has a queue), sat there unenthusiastically clapping along to the support act wishing that the main act would just hurry up already, and you have finally made it to that moment. The lights go dark, the screams erupt, everyone jumps to their feet, the adrenaline surges through you and the moment you’ve been waiting for is finally here. I honestly have no words to describe how incredible the feeling is when you first see your favourite people/person come onto the stage and you realise ‘wow. That’s actually them. They’re actually real!’ Nowadays it’s easy to see celebrities as unattainable, unreachable and unhuman. But it’s that moment that you realise they aren’t just a face behind a screen, they’re real and they’re here right in front of you to perform to you and make you the happiest you’ve ever been. And that’s why that moment means so much to me, at any concert.

3.  Forgetting about everything else

At concerts, probably my favourite thing above all else is that feeling I get that nothing else in the world matters during those few hours. They are my happy place where I completely let go of all my worries, fears, everything. The only thing that matters is the music, the people in front of you and the happiness and contentment you feel within those walls. You have not seen me completely and utterly happy until you’ve seen me at a concert. It’s like everything else goes out of my head and I feel completely at home and alive. It might sound cliché and cringeworthy but that’s the only way I can explain it. When people ask me why I love concerts so much and why I keep going back to see my favourite artists multiple times, I try to explain that feeling to them. But truthfully it is only something that can be fully understood when you get to experience it yourself and you’re right in that moment, feeling like you’re on top of the world.

4.  The crowd lighting up the arena

This is definitely one of my favourite moments at any concert. When a slow song is played and everyone gets their lighters (or iphone flashlights) and waves them to the melody. For me, it’s truly one of the most beautiful sights ever. I love just looking around and seeing a sea of lights twinkling, waving slowly back and forth while a beautiful ballad is played. Among all the jumping around and going crazy to the hyped up songs, it is nice to stop for a moment during the slower songs to catch your breath, and the beautiful sight of the crowd lighting up makes it even more of a special moment.

5. When the crowd sings back

This is another of those spine-tingling moments which I adore and lots of the time goes hand-in-hand with the crowd lighting up that I’ve just talked about. When the artist stops singing and lets the crowd sing the lyrics back to them. It’s honestly one of the most beautiful sounds and one of my favourite things to be a part of. All those voices, singing back the lyrics that mean so much to each of them for different reasons is just breath-taking in my opinion.

6. The artists’ gratitude

There is absolutely nothing more adorable than seeing how much the crowd’s reaction overwhelms the artist. I just love it when the crowd cheers extra loud or sings back really strongly and you can just see the massive smiles on the artist’s face(s) and it’s just the most heart-warming thing ever. It’s like they can’t believe that so many people are giving them so much love, singing their lyrics back to them so powerfully and meaningfully and they’re just overwhelmed with gratitude. It shows how down-to-earth they are to still get overwhelmed and ecstatic when they see and hear the crowd’s reaction. The one I’ll never forget was Taylor Swift last year, and I know people have mixed opinions about her especially at the moment, but at the concert after one of the songs had finished, the crowd just would not stop cheering. It honestly lasted for five minutes at least, and she kept trying to speak but the crowd wouldn’t stop cheering and screaming for her. The look on her face was just the sweetest and most humbling thing ever, and she was starting to tear up, you could see how much it meant to her. Moments like that make you realise that these people we look up to are just like everyone else, and they really do appreciate the opportunity and love they’ve been given.

7.  Hearing your favourite song live

I’m one of those people who doesn’t like to know the set list before the concert; I love it to be a surprise. It makes the feeling even more amazing when you hear the intro to your favourite song and know that you’re about to go completely crazy. That’s what I do, anyway. I have been known to turn to the person I’m at a concert with and scream ‘THIS IS MY FAVOURITE SONG!!!’ in their face while jumping up and down with excitement. Multiple times. But honestly, there is no better feeling (and I know I’ve said this a lot of times during this post which essentially is contradicting myself, but all these moments are so amazing and special to me) than hearing your favourite song live, screaming out those lyrics at the top of your lungs as it flows through you and you jump around like crazy. Those lyrics that have maybe got you through some of your worst times, been the soundtrack to some of your best times, that you’ve sang along to in your bedroom alone, in the car with the windows down, at a party with your best friends. The lyrics that mean so much to you for your own reasons, you’re getting to hear live and scream them out for the world to hear.

8. Knowing everyone around you is happy too

One of my favourite things at concerts is looking around every once in a while to see how other people are reacting, and it’s so entertaining and heart-warming. When I went to see Busted, it was so lovely and actually quite emotional to see so many people re-living their childhoods, shouting out the lyrics they still remembered from over ten years ago. Music has the incredible power to bring people together, people who would never usually cross paths. Concerts are the pinnacle of this; thousands of people from all walks of life coming together for a night and uniting in their shared love for the band or artist on the stage. It truly is awe-inspiring for me, and knowing that not only I but everyone in that arena is having the most amazing time of their lives makes me so happy. Music has brought me so much joy throughout my whole life, and in recent years my shared love for certain bands and artists has brought amazing people into my life who I would have otherwise never met, and that’s why I’m so passionate about and thankful for it.

Do you love concerts as much as I do? Do you agree with my favourite moments, and do you have any of your own that I’ve missed? Feel free to leave comments below!