Don't Be Afraid to Dance Luckily, all music was made for moving. If you're not into metal and punk, that doesn't mean you can't still move around. If you're at an indie rock show, you can still dance your ass off to the more upbeat songs. Don't be afraid to look uncool in front of all the casually dismissive hipsters around you acting like they're too cool for it. If you let yourself get down to the music, you'll have way more fun, and they'll be the ones missing out.

And you can dance to any music. One of my favorite parts of Mars Volta shows when that band was still touring is that they played freak out psychedelic prog rock, but you had a whole crowd shaking their asses to it along with the band, who were dancing machines themselves. All it takes is some courage and free spirited abandon, whether you've got moves or not.

Don't Record It Seriously, the only thing worse than the casually dismissive hipster is the casually dismissive hipster who also has their iPhone up in the air recording every second of the show. You may think you are experiencing the concert, but what you are actually experiencing is the screen on your phone. You are missing out on the inherent interactivity of a show for the one-sided enjoyment you could simply glean from watching YouTube videos.

You also aren't doing any particular service for the fans. Unless it's a new song, it's unlikely you're giving new content to the world. Even if you are the first to record a brand new song, you're still giving the fans a shitty iPhone video. If you really want to do a service to fans, become a professional taper. These people exist and provide actual quality recordings of performances, whereas what you are doing is missing the show for yourself and giving the gift of an ear-splitting five minute long bass tone to fans around the world.

Don't Expect Perfection This is the number one problem people seem to have with live shows. They go in wanting to hear the record. If you want to hear the record, listen to the record at home. When a band performs, you have to take into account things like human error. That's part of the fun of it. You are having an intimate experience with the performers themselves, not enjoying the endlessly tampered with studio recording.

Live shows are something special that can't be replicated past the initial performance. Once they're done, they're over and there's no going back. It's an in-the-moment experience that you can never have with a record. That means it's not going to be perfect or exactly like the record. It's going to be unique every time. That is the beauty of the thing, and demanding an exact replica of what you already heard on a CD is ruining the experience for yourself and the performers.

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