Here is a typical concert experience...
Arrive three hours before the show so that you can actually get to your seat in time - after fighting all the traffic, jockeying for a $20 parking space and getting through the lines at the gates, etc.
You have to pack food and drinks in a cooler so that you can tailgate and not have to buy the $6 cheeseburgers and $7 beers at the concessions (even a bottle of water will cost you $3.50).
Unless you won a radio contest or have connections somehow to the performing acts, you will have nosebleed seats and will have to settle for seeing the performers on the huge screens (might as well have stayed home and watched it on DVD). Or you could rent binoculars ($15 per event - leave your credit card or driver's license as collateral). But remember, if you leave your driver's license as collateral - you can't buy beer because even if you look like Keith Richards, they will still card you.
During the concert, you must constantly get up to let by the constant stream of fellow concert-goers who can't go more than 10 minutes without having to get up to buy food at the concessions or use the bathroom.
During the concert, the people sitting next to you will likely be on their cellphones yakking to their friends on how they are "at the concert" and they will periodically hold the cellphone in front of them so as to prove to the person they are speaking with that yes, they are indeed at the big concert.
If you light up a cigarette, you are immediately thrown out. But somehow the smell of marijuana is everywhere. How does that happen?
The loudspeakers at the concert are always TOO LOUD.
Whenever the performer sings a slow song, people feel obligated to light cigarette lighters. Why?
When you stand up so that you can see, the people behind you tell you to sit down. When you sit down, you can't see because the people in front of you are standing.
The performing artists seem to have a compelling need to patronize their audience by changing the lyrics in some of their songs to reflect the town they are in. Then they will always tell their audience that this is the "best darn audience we've ever played for! Hell yeah!"
After the concert is over, everybody starts running for the exits, pushing and shoving. Then the main performer comes out for an encore and everybody is pushing and shoving back to their seats (when will they ever learn?)
After the final encore, everybody is pushing and shoving back to the parking lots where they proceed to wait for hours and hours while pimply-faced teenagers try to direct traffic by waving flashlights in a random, haphazard manner. During all of this, the concert-goers have a need to play full-blast in their car stereos (with the windows down) a CD of the artist they just got done listening to live.
You finally get home bleary-eyed at 2AM and wonder what the heck you just paid $300 for.
I can't argue with your points at all. I just pay a ticket broker to make sure I am sitting in the first 5 rows and be done with it. Yes,it costs an arm and a leg but I don't have to put up with half of the crap you just listed.
Man..outdoor concerts are the worst.
The only aforementioned act worth seeing this summer is Aerosmith. However, if you've seen them before, there's no reason to pay $100 a ticket for nosebleed seats this time around.
Thank God, I live in New Orleans where I can hear great live music every night of the week and don't have to worry about even paying a cover charge.