Go for the Opener

Last week I attended my first show since November. I spent much of December and January wondering if live music was doomed yet again to fall victim to the COVID crisis, the omicron variant the perpetrator this time.

Thankfully, things cooled down enough post-holiday season for me to snag a ticket to see Manchester Orchestra, who were supported by Foxing and Michigander. It is hard to pass up an opportunity to see Foxing in both my and their backyard.

The number of shows I have seen in my life is unfathomable. Yet I had never attended a concert more for an opener than a main act. Don’t get me wrong, I like Manchester Orchestra a lot. Much more now that they have taken Foxing under their wing. But I love Foxing.

I learned that I should do this more often: go for the opener.

Go for the opener so that you can use every opportunity to gush about the opener in obligatory pre-show small talk with random concertgoers whom you will probably never encounter again in your life.

Go for the opener so that you can be one of few who gives a damn about anyone besides the headliner because let’s face it: your favorite band was probably an opener for someone else.

Go for the opener so that you are on your toes after you storm into the venue, knowing that your favorite group will play sooner than later. The people around you may snooze, forget they are even at a concert until the main act starts at 9:15. Instead you are on edge, as the beloved opener will step on stage before your non-concert day bedtime.

Go for the opener so that you can practice not caring what other people think. The half-comatose people around you might shoot you weird looks whenever they lift their eyes from their phones or snap out of staring into space after thinking about nothing, seeing you pour all your energy into appreciating the opener. Who does that?

Go for the opener so that you can enjoy your favorite band’s songs without being subject to the awful voices of your fellow concertgoers, which often drown out the otherwise beautiful sounds emitted from the stage. No one else knows the lyrics, so it feels like the band is playing just for you. Untarnished bliss.

Go for the opener so that you lose it when they switch up the setlist from the last leg of the tour and unexpectedly add your favorite song from their newest album. No one else reacts. You feel like the band somehow saw you and chose to read your mind.

Go for the opener so that you can earn a setlist from the guitarist. No one else knows who the hell these people are, so when no one else jumps at the opportunity to beg for a setlist, he immediately responds to you calling his name and jumping up and down – wow, someone in the audience knows who he is? – and awards you the piece of paper, which you treasure so much that you want to frame it when you get home.

Go for the opener so that the people next to you request to take a photo of the setlist now frozen in your grasp and then ask how long you have been a fan of the band who just graced the stage. You jump to answer their questions, eager to sprinkle in any random detail about the opener’s discography if prompted. Four or five years, you tell them.

Go for the opener so that after their performance you almost forget that the night is not over. There’s more!

Go for the opener so that there is no line for the stuff you may want to buy when you wander over to the merch table after the show. Your size probably isn’t sold out either.

Go for the opener so that walking 1.5 miles in the pouring rain and taking the metro after eleven o’clock to get home are not prices to pay but rather opportunities to replay every detail from the opener’s set in your head.