Celebrating with events continue at full speed this year, and the first of two concerts this month was Yungblud.
Hubby was supposed to come with me, but work took him away again, so my good friend Leah stepped in and went downtown with me for a quick dinner before heading to Jacob's Pavilion.
I hadn't been there in years. Decades in fact. The weather was perfect for a summer concert in Cleveland, and with fast passes, we slid right to the front of the pit.
Those fast pass extras are something I'll always pay for now, especially after the Mod Sun concert and now Yungblud.
We were fourth row for opening acts, who were pretty good. The first one especially. A lot of energy. My only critique was with the second act, The Regrettes. It's the same issue I had with the second act at the Mod Sun concert.
In both instances, the lead singers tried to force the crowd to make room for a mosh pit that wasn't happening organically. In both instances they tried over and over to create a level of violence that didn't exist in the crowd naturally, and went out of their way try to disrupt the front of the crowd, and were SHOCKED with the people in the front were annoyed and not moving.
But that shouldn't surprise anyone.
Frankly these bands should know better than to mess with the people in the front because those people paid an extra $20.00 or more a pop to be there. And people willing to pay more are not who you piss off.
However, this doesn't seem to have filtered to some of these bands. They don't understand who makes them the money or the issues of safety either, because if you looked in the crowd at both concerts, you'd find a massive number of girls/women not dressed or ready for a pit.
Whether it's these young bands wanting to prove their bone fides or a misunderstanding of the times or their fans, they aren't getting the change of the times.
This isn't the era of the angry nineties males looking to take their rage out on each other in a mosh pit.
Now EVERYONE shows up with every
word of the lyrics on their lips and they want to sing with their favorite musician in a type of musical communion with other fans. Whether Mod Sun, Taylor Swift, or Yungblud, the fans want to focus on the artist, not whether they're going to get their face smashed in by a random elbow.
And at all three concerts, the crowd knew the lyrics.
The Yungblud crowd came prepared with the words and the energy to match his frantic punk pop magic
It was everything I was hoping it would be.
He was fantastic. And to be clear, he didn't ask for a pit. Neither did Mod Sun. He was fully engaged with the crowd and gave all his energy to the crowd with complete positivity, which is why when he comes back, I'll be there. Every time he comes through I'll be there.
I'll drag people with me because he's fire on stage and he was worth every penny spent.