Live Music Quotes

“There is a high that comes from live shows, a collective energy in a large group of people all gathered for one reason. The beat slices through the melodies and then drops; the crowd bounces and undulates like ripples of water.”
― Christina Lauren, Roomies

“I'm afraid concerts spoil people for everyday life.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“I could never sit in a room and just play all by myself. I needed to play for people and all the time. You can say I practiced in public.”
― Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One

“That night changed my life: I was finally experiencing, in person, the songs that had been the soundtrack of my life for the past few years, the lyric-images I'd memorized after hours of headphone-listening on walks to school, the words that had been direct-deposited into my heart though the channel of my ears---I was hearing them here, now, in a moment that would never exist again.”
― Amanda Palmer, The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

“We were ready to rock out and we waited and waited and finally it was our turn ... there were a half million people asleep. These people were out. It was sort of like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud. And this is the moment I will never forget as long as I live: A quarter mile away in the darkness, on the other edge of this bowl, there was some guy flicking his Bic, and in the night I hear, "Don't worry about it, John. We're with you." I played the rest of the show for that guy.

—John Fogerty recalling Creedence Clearwater Revival's 3:30 a.m. start time at Woodstock.”
― Hank Bordowitz, Bad Moon Rising: The Unofficial History of Creedence Clearwater Revival