How I Cured My Mental Illness* By Seeing 24 Concerts In A Year

Charles Bukowski, whom I hate, famously said, “Find what you love and let it kill you,” proving that even guys you hate say really cool shit sometimes. In 2025, I decided to take Chuck’s advice and set a goal of seeing 24 concerts in a single year. For Deadheads and assorted wooks, clenchers, and other types of jam-band fans I recently learned about in the Sturgill Simpson subreddits, this is nothing, I get it. But for someone with half a dozen side hustles, a kid, and other social obligations, it’s kind of a lot!

The year before, I casually noticed I’d been averaging about a concert a month and decided to finish the year out on twelve. Concerts leave me feeling energized, dosed up on dopamine, connected to people, and generally good. Obviously, this healthy habit had to continue. But remember, we opened with that Chuck Buk quote, and I am not a healthy person. So, obviously, I set a bigger, dumber goal.

Twenty-four concerts in a year sounded so fucking cool when I said it the first few times. My partner and go-to concert buddy was game. I live 20 minutes from the legendary Pappy and Harriet’s concert venue, and another cool venue opened up even closer. This was going to be the best year ever.

And really? It was.

It was also fucking exhausting.

The time to see two concerts a month among your other responsibilities and obligations is before you have very many other responsibilities and obligations. But, the most interesting thing about this experiment is how it changed the way I experienced live music.

I’m 5’2″ and a fanatic. I want to be right up front and directly center. I never felt like I was at a concert unless I was getting sweat flung in my face from the band. I also never attended a show unless it was a band I loved enough to be worth all of that. I broke my pelvis and wrecked the muscles in my left leg at 19 years old. It literally hurts me to love live music that much. But I don’t abso-fucking-lutely love 24 bands that were going to play driving distance from my house in 2025, so I started buying tickets for bands with one or two songs I liked. By the end of the year, I bought tickets because people said the band might have one or two songs I’d like. I sat in the back of the room and chatted with friends. I took breaks outside in the cooler air.

I also traveled farther to see bands I really liked that weren’t playing at my local venues, and learned to enjoy the show from the balcony because these fucked up legs weren’t going to hold me in the front row with people pushing into me all night.

At one show, I left before the headliner because I had worked all day, had to be up early the next, and was dead on my feet. I don’t think I’ve ever left a concert early before that night. Not even when a shitty band was playing.

It definitely changed the way I experienced my favorite thing. When people ask me standard questions about music (“What’s your favorite band?” “What’s your favorite song?”), I usually joke that my relationship with music is way too complex to answer. This experiment probably brought me closer to a normal music fan’s experience of “going to see a show.” You go hard for the bands you really like, you treat the local band you heard was “pretty good” like background music for drinks with friends, and you leave early if you’re not feeling it. Right?

Some of these changes were welcome. I was on the balcony for Viagra Boys at the Shrine in October, a show I had been foaming at the mouth for. Normally, I would have risked it all and been up front, just to regret it for days, if not weeks, afterward. But I was with the whole family, and it was late in the year. I had a fucking blast. We had a great view of the band and the crowd, which moved like a living organism, full of energy and hardcore fans dressed like shrimp (IYKYK). The band gave as much energy back, and there was no shortage of it where I was leaning against the bannister. And, when I needed to pee three-quarters of the way through the show, I could do that without ending up in the back and losing all view of everything, which was pretty fucking cool.

A few months out from that last show of the year – quickly booked at the last moment when a show I had bought tickets for months in advance was canceled – and I can say it was worth it. I’m glad I did it. I’m probably not doing it again. It didn’t quite kill me, but two years in a row might.

Final Tally:

• Jan: 0 Shows
• Feb: 3 Shows
  1. Reverend Horton Heat w/ Black Joe Lewis & Piñata Protest @ Pappy & Harriet’s (P&H)
  2. Agent Orange @ P&H
  3. Stage Fright @ La Matadora Gallery, Joshua Tree
• March: 2 Shows
  1. Pokey LaFarge @ P&H
  2. No Consent @ P&H (this was actually a Guttermouth show, but also the show I left early)
• April: 1 Show
  1. Sturgill Simpson @ The Virgin Theater, Las Vegas
• May: 2 Shows
  1. Cruel World Festival (OMD, Til Tuesday, Devo, Nick Cave, New Order) @ Brookside Golf Club, Pasadena
  2. Sean Wheeler @ P&H
• June: 2 Shows
  1. Tyler Childers w/Hayes Carll @ MGM Las Vegas
  2. Throw Rag w/The Hot Patooties & Mad Tab @ Mojave Gold, Yucca Valley
• July: 1 Show
  1. Gogol Bordello w/ Puzzled Panther & Grace Bergere @ P&H
• August: 3 Shows
  1. Party For Bobby Furst (This was a memorial show for a legendary desert artist featuring tons of local musicians) @ Mojave Gold
  2. Alien Probe @ The 29 Palms Inn, 29 Palms
  3. Fred Armisen Punk Sing Along @ Mojave Gold
• September: 2 Shows
  1. Billy Idol w/Joan Jett @ Acrisure Arena, Palm Desert
  2. Paul Cauthen w/Rhyolite Sound @ P&H
• October: 3 Shows
  1. The Dandy Warhols w/Kula Shakers @ P&H
  2. GayC/DC w/Hot Patooties @ Giant Rock Annex, Yucca Valley
  3. Viagra Boys w/CiCi TV & The Black Lips, Shrine Expo Hall, Los Angeles
• November: 2 Shows
  1. Rodeo 1: Orville Peck w/Palmyra, Emily Rose & The Rounders, Chapparelle, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Joy Oladokun & Angela Autumn @ P&H
  2. Rodeo 2: Orville Peck w/Nathaniel Rateliff, Allison Russell, Abbey Cone, Valley James, Jobi Riccio, & Uwade @ P&H
• December: 3 Shows
  1. The Vandals Christmas Formal w/Spray Allen @ P&H
  2. Jimmy Dale W/The Hot Patooties @ Mojave Gold
  3. Son of the Velvet Rat & Hotel Mercy @ Mojave Gold

*It absolutely did not cure my mental illness.