I couldn't believe it when I saw this thread. I saw one just like this at another forum a couple years ago. The guy who started that one said he'd never gone to a show alone, and acted like it was a completely unheard-of concept. I'm glad to see so many people here who do. I go to shows alone all the time. Looking over my show list, it looks like I've been alone about half the time over the years (70 solo shows, by my count). But that's a bit skewed by my changing situation over the past few years.
While I was in the Navy, I was always going to shows alone. The vast majority of shows I saw in Seattle I saw by myself. I had a really good friend out there (who lives in New York now) who went with me from time to time, but I was flying solo probably about 80% of the time. And for the year I lived down in Virginia, I was alone for almost all of my shows. That inludes every show I saw at The NorVa or Relative Theory Records, every show at Jaxx, and a ton of DC shows. As a matter of fact, I did a
lot of things alone while I was in the Navy. I went solo in almost every port I ever visited, even though we were never supposed to (the "buddy system", yeah, to hell with that).
Since I left the Navy and came home, I've had a show buddy, though. It's my mother. She took me to shows while I was growing up, and thus she's the main reason I'm such a concert junkie. We still went to shows together while I was in the Navy whenever I'd come home on leave, and we really started up again when I moved to Virginia, but now that I'm home we go together all the time. I suppose it might seem odd to some of you that a guy in his mid-twenties goes to shows with his 50-something mother, but you have to understand our relationship. We're like best friends. And unlike many other people her age, she's actually interested in today's music. In fact, she says that she's more interested in music now than she's ever been in her life, that there are more bands making great music out there than there have ever been before. And she still
loves going to shows. So if you ever see a short, gray-haired woman in her late fifties (probably wearing some hip band shirt you'd expect to see on a teenager) with a shaggy-headed kid in his mid-twenties, it's most likely us. Sweetcell's met us, ask him.
And since I've just moved back home after six years in the Navy, I hardly know anyone at all around here anymore. I really have no one else to go with, and it's nice to have company after years of going to shows by myself. I still do go to shows alone, though. My mother and I listen to a lot of the same stuff, but I like certain bands (and whole genres, actually) that she doesn't. Plus, it's just nice to go by myself sometimes. I got used to it over the years. And as you can imagine, as much as I love my mother, there are times I'd rather see a show without her.
I'm ridiculously shy and self-concious, though, so I almost never really meet or talk to anyone when I'm by myself. I always hope to, to be honest, but just never do. If someone strikes up a conversation with me, I'll be more than happy to talk up a storm, but I never initiate anything. That's probably why I'm alone so much of the time to begin with, and not just at shows.
On the subject of movies, I go alone to almost every one I see.
