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Example #1: David Beckham (bottom left) is entranced by a Spice Girls show. The second row, however, doesn't agree.

There is a lot of live music being performed out there these days. This can be both a curse and a blessing, for with the good comes the tripe you’d rather eat a microphone stand than listen to. How can you quickly tell what’s going to be good, and what’s going to be a waste of time, without spending hours trying to figure it out? What are the early warning signs to tell awesome and awful acts apart?

The proven tips below are pretty much guaranteed* to help you separate the bands/artists of quality from the real duds. Disagreements, or additional suggestions, can be taken up with me directly.

* Not necessarily guaranteed, there are always exceptions

1) The Pre-Show

The quality of the warm-up music (NOT the warm-up band) playing before/between sets is usually the direct opposite caliber of what you’re going to be seeing. Ie: If you hate what you’re hearing before the band goes on, odds are you’ll love the set. Indie-rock acts are usually precluded by house music, or overtly dance-y techno, while punk-rock might be played on by Broken Social Scene. My theory is the promoters do this intentionally, to make what you’re going to see sound better. I haven’t found any proof for this yet, but there’s also no evidence that denies it either. Conspiracy?

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