Enjoying live music whether in a club or at a concert is wonderful. It can be an enlightening experience sharing a love for a musician with other fans as the said musician plays. Whether it is pop, country, or oldies, any concert can be a lot of fun. In my lifetime of going to concerts, there are two which stand ahead of the pack.

The first one was a Pitbull concert. This concert had the best start of any concert I have ever attended. For those who do not know, Pitbull is a rapper and singer whose whole vibe is to party. Every song he sings is a lot of fun. My wife and I knew the concert would be enjoyable, but it turned out to be incredible. The first four songs were so high energy everyone in the crowd was having the time of their lives. Pitbull brought it. For the uninitiated in the concert experience, every musician brown noses the city they are performing in each night. Pitbull came off more genuine in this respect compared to other musicians. While the middle of the concert waned a bit, it picked back up and ended on a high note. Anyone I met who went to this concert said they had an absolute blast.

The second concert was a Backstreet Boys concert. This was not during their initial run of overtaking the world with their boy band vocals and dancing. The concert I went to was in 2019. The time difference did not matter for all the middle-aged women who were attending the concert. Once the Backstreet Boys took the stage, these women reverted to their teenage, college age days basking in the gloriousness of the Backstreet Boys as did I. The Backstreet Boys put on the highest production concert I have ever seen; it was a show of shows. This may have been helped by their time having a residency in Las Vegas. While they promoted a new album, they gave the fans what they wanted, which was a little of the new album and all their major hits. The best part was when two-thirds of the way through the concert, each member came out in their famous white suit, and they sang hit after hit until the end of the concert. It was glorious.

If you enjoy music, go to a concert soon. They are a nice reprieve from the real world or at least reflect on the good concerts you have attended in your lifetime. Sometimes, life can move too fast to reflect and individual events get lost in the wind. It is possible there is a concert or musician you saw somewhere which left a lasting mark. Life is hard and taking stock of the good events in life is worth doing.

Sean Dengler is a writer, comedian, farmer, and host of the Pandaring Talk podcast who grew up on a farm between Traer and Dysart. You can reach him at sean.h.dengler@gmail.com.