A: 50%, which is a percentage I'll glady take.
And now with 2009 officially over, a quick look back at the 10 concerts I attended:
(Looking back, I wish I would've made it a point to write a review of each)
March, The Vic, Cut Copy: A dance-riffic night.
March, Aragon, Bloc Party: The last time I'll ever ask more than 2 people to go to a show.
April, Metro, Peter Bjorn and John: Still fun, yet disappointing.
May, The Riv, Franz Ferdinand: A. Maze. Ing. (Post from PB&J+FF)
June, Park West, Phoenix: Probably the best story to come out of a show this year.
September, Aragon, Phoenix: Solidifying 2009 as the year of Phoenix in my musical life.
November, House of Blues, Mute Math: Infected with Twilight tweens.
December, Lincoln Hall, Do Make Say Think: Best venue discovery of the year for sure.
December, Metro, Mew: Oh, to be a V.I.P. every time.
December, Allstate Arena, Flaming Lips: 2nd to only FF in best stage performance of the year.
Also in chronological order, my 10 missed concert opportunities of the last year:
May, Logan Square, Here We Go Magic: Slight regret. I lobbied hard for this show. At the last moment I found someone to go with me, only to have the threat of rain have the whole thing swept out from under me. However, the silver lining to the cloud that didn't produce rain was that I ended up going out to see The Hangover in the theater that night with other friends.
July, Metro, Fleet Foxes: Note that I don't regret not attending Lollapalooza. But I did want to see the Fleet Foxes after party show. But of all these misses - this one was missed for the best of purposes: my family vacation out to California to see my cousin get married.
September, Bottom Lounge, Akron/Family: Almost zero regret. A band that made me raise an ear after a track was played on NPR, but didn't have a strong enough album to warrant a concert venture.
September, The Vic, Moby: If you would've told me in college that I would casually dismiss a Moby show I would've not believed you. For better or worse, I'm not as enthused by his music as of late and didn't want to spend for the (relatively) high price for that tickets. *bonus regret is not getting into his free Smart Bar DJ set - but that might have been difficult ticket to acquire.
September, Soldier Field, U2: The moment Lebowski Fest announced it's Chicago dates I quickly unloaded my already bought ticket to this show... Didn't look back until I started to compile this list a few days ago. Bono's got nothing on The Dude.
October, Metro, Grizzly Bear: Biggest regret of the year - especially when they played two shows in two nights. One was missed so I could watch the Bears lose, the other was because of a condo board meeting (maturity blows).
November, Empty Bottle, Lonely Dear: A shade more regret than the Akron/Family show. I didn't really make much of an effort to find anybody else to go to this show with me, and let it pass by without me without much of a second thought.
December, The Bottom Lounge, The xx: Very small amount of regret. At the time I had not yet heard of them. This "wrong" will be "righted" when I see them this April at Lincoln Hall.
December, Congress Theater, Girl Talk: The most unrealistic regret of 2009. Sometimes you just know you'll never see a concert once it's announced.
Without a doubt, 2009 had more money spent on "tickets" than any other year. The above list doesn't include the ten MU bball games, 5 nights of Lebowski Fests, and an oddball Aqua Teen Hunger Force Live show! Should I make it a point to make my 2010 "regret" list longer as a budgetary concern?
