Music Concerts Quotes & Sayings

Regular church-goers are substantially more likely than non-attenders to read, to take newspapers and magazines, to listen to classical music, to attend symphony concerts, operas, and stage plays. — Rodney Stark

Most big concerts sound disgusting and awful and insultingly bad. It's like going to the cinema and been shown a scratchy film which is upsidedown and the bulb had gone on the projector. The quality of large-scale live music is so shocking. — Brian Eno

She had forgotten about this, the narcotic of the crowd. This is why you came to hear music. To stop being yourself, to let that thing that you supposedly were go, and just be part of a mob, synchronized by the heavy beat, mesmerized by a singer with big smeary red lips, her spooky chant. — Janet Fitch

Is the phrase 'pay' or 'play the piper'
I inquire, why
'Cause I admire a desire to flip the switch
Yeah make a way to face the music like
Life savings for a mosh pit riot
Listen to a mix
Rock the tickets, higher volume
Velocity which shakes a cockpit's pilot — Criss Jami

A cough is the basic sign of inattention. Musicians never, in my experience, cough when playing in public. — Charles Rosen

My whole childhood was filled with classical music and going to concerts of the New York Philharmonic and other New York ensembles and organizations, but interestingly, I didn't become conscious of wanting to be a musician until I was about 11. I was a rather late starter. — Gunther Schuller

For those of you in the cheap seats I'd like ya to clap your hands to this one; the rest of you can just rattle your jewelry! — John Lennon

I'm mostly a jazz fan and I've never really been into rock 'n' roll music - although I guess Coldplay isn't really rock 'n' roll - but he's made me a convert. I do go to their concerts whenever we're in the same town and I don't even have to wear earplugs any more, which I did in the beginning. — Blythe Danner

When recordings replaced concerts as the dominant mode of hearing music, our conception of the nature of performance and of music itself was altered. — Charles Rosen

I run around, I listen to a lot of music, go to a lot of concerts. And when I see someone that gases me, I try to go out of my way to involve them somehow in what I'm doing or get involved in what they're doing. — John Zorn

If people would like to come to my concerts I'd love them to come. And if they like the music that I make, I love that too. But I do not make music for other people. I make it to please myself. — David Gilmour

The only times she ever felt at peace now were at his concerts. Then she could sit quietly, watching him, and sate her heart. In his music was where he lived and revived, and where she'd first loved him. And she knew, always, always when she was there, that he played for her. — Vivien Shotwell

If you read reviews of concerts, the word 'creative' comes up all the time. However, performers playing music usually aren't creative. Critics might say they are, but they're just playing another persons work. They didn't create it. — Ned Rorem

All my concerts had no sounds in them; they were completely silent. People had to make up their own music in their minds! — Yoko Ono

When you do music concerts at Taj Mahal and the Acropolis, you have to be careful about your performance being appropriate with the place that surrounds you. It has to be appropriate to the culture - it should fit the building behind you, the environment you are playing it in and the culture of that place. — Yanni

Just as all pop music is not simplistic, not all contemporary concert music is complex. Often what a person connects with goes much deeper than generalized issues of simplicity and complexity. — Michael Hersch

Let's buy books so as not to read them; let's go to concerts without caring to hear the music or see who's there; let's take long walks because we're sick of walking; and let's spend whole days in the country, just because it bores us. — Fernando Pessoa

I love seeing young girls and their parents and grandparents at my concerts all loving the music from Grease when I perform those songs (and yes, I do perform a bunch of them!). — Olivia Newton-John

My job in this life is to give people spiritual ecstasy through music. In my concerts people cry, laugh, dance. If they climaxed spiritually, I did my job. I did it decently and honestly. — Carlos Santana

Nashville was totally different than I ever dreamed. I had only seen the music business on television and been to a couple of concerts. I had no clue. — Faith Hill

I am just glad that I can take the music to the people who want to hear it. I love my audiences. I am deeply indebted to them for giving me the chance to sing my concerts, make records, and do what I love. Whatever people call it, it is great to have a voice! — Judy Collins

I grew up listening to the quartets and I loved that so much that I wanted to see if I could make music and make it happen. It was just a series of events ... me going to concerts and saying "I think I can do that". — Bill Gaither

I think that it was really rock-and-roll stars, women who were breaking boundaries with their bodies and their voices and their beings and their music. I spent a lot of time at concerts,just watching women rock out. They expressed so much of what I believed could be possible. — Eve Ensler

I'm approaching a period in my life though where I'd like to be totally absorbed into music, doing concerts, writing something. Basically, that IS what I am doing. — Roscoe Mitchell

But an innovation, to grow organically from within, has to be based on an intact tradition, so our idea is to bring together musicians who represent all these traditions, in workshops, festivals, and concerts, to see how we can connect with each other in music. — Yo-Yo Ma

I think fans going to concerts expect more today in terms of meeting and things. It's cool - I get it because of how the Internet has made things much more personal for fans to follow with Facebook, Twitter and everything - but I also think it's kind of hindering because it takes from the music in a way. — Kellin Quinn

Of course, some people call me one of the most well-networked people in the world, but I am a very unsocial person - I never go to a cocktail party; I am never seen at a charity event. I have one exception: I'm a member of the board for one of the big European music festivals, so I participate, with pleasure, in concerts. — Klaus Schwab

It's really a lot of fun to see that this music can actually survive, that it can be concert music. My solo shows are already going along that path. You have the freedom to basically push to party, or you can tell a story from nothing with soundscapes, moving images, to a real party mood. At some concerts, people get out of their seats and start dancing after a while. — Pantha Du Prince

I was a teenager doing teenager things, and now I have the honor of being on tour with musical giants Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull. I'm doing my music and performing in my own concerts! It just goes to show that anything is possible with hard work. — Prince Royce

Classical music was my starting point. My mum would expose me to a lot of music and take me to really weird concerts when I was possibly too young. — Planningtorock

This is why I am not overly enthusiastic about the various "spiritual exercises" in meditation or yoga which some consider essential for release from the ego. For when practiced in order to "get" some kind of spiritual illumination or awakening, they strengthen the fallacy that the ego can toss itself away by a tug at its own bootstraps. But there is nothing wrong with meditating just to meditate, in the same way that you listen to music just for the music. If you go to concerts to "get culture" or to improve your mind, you will sit there as deaf as a doorpost. — Alan W. Watts

The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don't listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don't listen anyway. When people go to concerts, they say I'm going to see ... not, I'm going to hear. — Branford Marsalis

The strings all soar,
The reeds implore,
The brasses roar with notes galore.
It's music that we all adore
It's what we go to concerts for. — Lloyd Moss

I've always loved the songs of the sea. I was first introduced to them back in 1957, at the Old Town School of Folk Music. I used to go to Pete Seeger concerts, and he would do songs like 'Ruben Ranzo' and talk about how the sailors sang songs to do their work - to raise the anchors, pull up the sails and that sort of thing. — Roger McGuinn

Just going to Bangladesh was an experience ... if you go into small villages in the U.K., they're backward and culturally devoid. But if you go into small villages in Bangladesh, they have classical music concerts. — Sarah Gavron

I'm experiencing the mood to go out and share the music. I don't look at these concerts as a platform for people to watch me, look at me. No, a tour is about an interaction. A thing, myself, a band, and the people who support what I do and enjoy what I do. — Lenny Kravitz

For me music is pretty personal. I generally listen to it alone, and I've never been a lover of concerts. So I don't think I really bond with other people over music. That's not unique to music for me, either. I feel that way about film, television, art, everything. I read a book alone, so why wouldn't I listen to music alone? — Rick Moranis

My band and music are so intense they scare me, and I'm not afraid of anything. We love our music with everything we got and deliver the most inebriating fun concerts on earth every night. — Ted Nugent

My mother always took my brothers and me to music lessons. There were six children. Our parents attended our concerts and encouraged us to study and enjoy many different types of music. — Wynton Marsalis

What appeals to me about an American music directorship is the involvement of the conductor with the orchestra and the community. I think that's a fantastic thing. In Europe, being principal conductor means merely that you're the person who does most of the concerts. For me, that simply isn't enough. — Jeffrey Tate

You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends. — David Byrne

The songs themselves sometimes have messages and people can read into them different ways, but I try to use concerts as a way to gather people and then have information there. I think that's important to find that balance, a way to be able to turn people on to things at the shows, but also just have it be an entertainment experience for people who just want to hear music and dance and don't want the extra stuff. — Jack Johnson

I regularly go to concerts with my children sharing the music. — Peter Hook

Everyone should be able to go to a concert and enjoy music, and not feel like they're going to be harassed. That's how I see punk music. — Joe Armstrong

Even in music concerts in Mumbai and different parts of the world, seats are reserved for sponsors. — Zubin Mehta

We sometimes take photos (or record a video) so that we can later see what was happening while we were busy taking photos (or recording a video). — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

We don't live in a jazz world, unfortunately. I think if I had lived in a jazz world, I would have done OK. I'm not sure I would have done great. I'm a lover of jazz music, so I would have been happy, don't get me wrong. I go to jazz concerts like the biggest jazz fan in world. The drag is that I don't play jazz for a living. — George Benson

I don't see why people want new plays all the time. What would happen to concerts if people wanted new music all the time? — Clive Barnes

It is interesting that our biggest fans are the greatest names of the classical music scene, such as Julian Rachlin, Janine Jansen, Mischa Maisky and Gidon Kremer. They even make guest appearances in our concerts occasionally. — Aleksey Igudesman

Music has been a huge passion of mine ever since I started playing the piano at age 3. Going to concerts, performing on my own, and listening to my favorite artists growing up confirmed that love for music and made me want to pursue it as a career. — Daya

Recording a song for a film doesn't take much time; it's hardly an hour's job, but concerts are constant, and so is travelling, so I've to take time out to work on my albums because I'm passionate about creating my own music. When you love something dearly, you set your priorities accordingly. — Kailash Kher

We had various kinds of tape-recorded concerts and popular music. But by the end of the flight what we listened to most was Russian folk songs. We also had recordings of nature sounds: thunder, rain, the singing of birds. We switched them on most frequently of all, and we never grew tired of them. It was as if they returned us to Earth. — Anatoly Berezovoy

My friends joke that I'm dead until I get onstage. I'm dead right now as you're speaking to me. — Lady Gaga

I feel that classical music should be a more recognizable part of everyone's entertainment. It has been my hope that through live concerts, motion pictures, recordings, international competitions, and interesting public forums, a larger group of people will learn to love classical music and attend live concert performances. — Jose Iturbi

In my day-to-day, I do a bit of yoga, I go biking, I read, I watch shows, I go to music concerts. — Lizzie Brochere

I worked with Snoop, but I would love to work with him again, but DMX ... I would love to work with him as well ... I met him in Atlanta; I went to one of his concerts; I would love to do a song with him. I respect him and really like his music. — Bow Wow

I don't think anyone listening to my music needs any special knowledge. They don't need to have a background in contemporary music. They don't need to go to new-music concerts all the time in order to be able to understand it. — Missy Mazzoli

It's so funny being a Christian musician. It always scares me when people think so highly of Christian music, Contemporary Christian music especially. Because I kinda go, I know a lot of us, and we don't know jack about anything. Not that I don't want you to buy our records and come to our concerts. I sure do. But you should come for entertainment. If you really want spiritual nourishment, you should go to church ... you should read the Scriptures. — Rich Mullins

Our eyes met and locked as the song came to a halt, followed by a screaming conclusion from the crowd, girls around us pressing me into the stage, forcing all the air out of my lungs, but I'd forgotten about doing anything so basic as breathing. — Emme Rollins

The majority of people who keel over dead at concerts are killed by a long trumpet passage. — Garrison Keillor

I am tired before the concert, not afterward. — Arthur Rubinstein

Whenever I visit a city, I like to see what classical music concerts are on offer. — Park Chan-wook

In the music world, concerts unfold strictly according to plan. But, as I'd been finding out, in the book world, things keep changing by the second. — Dan Hill

I'm afraid concerts spoil people for everyday life. — L.M. Montgomery

My gaze returns to earth and when it does, it's her eyes I see. Not the way I used to see them - around every corner, behind my own closed lids at the start of each day. Not in the way I used to imagine them in the eyes of every other girl I laid on top of. No, this time it really is her eyes. A photo of her, dressed in black, a cello leaning against one shoulder like a tired child. Her hair is up in one of those buns that seem to be a requisite for classical musicians. She used to wear it up like that for recitals and chamber music concerts, but with little pieces hanging down, to soften the severity of the look. There are no tendrils in this photo. I peer closer at the sign. YOUNG CONCERT SERIES PRESENTS MIA HALL. — Gayle Forman

I can remember dancing around living room with my two sisters to the music of Paganini and Mozart. I can still remember my dad combing the newspaper, circling all the free concerts in town, and on the weekends, we would go as a family. — Lindsey Stirling

It starts innocently. Casually. You turn up at the annual spring fair full of beans, help with the raffle tickets (because the pretty red-haired music teacher asks you to) and win a bottle of whiskey (all school raffles are fixed), and, before you know where you are, you're turning up at the weekly school council meetings, organizing concerts, discussing plans for a new music department, donating funds for the rejuvenation of the water fountains - you're implicated in the school, you're involved in it. Sooner or later you stop dropping your children at the school gates. You start following them in. — Zadie Smith

The nice thing about growing up in that kind of environment is you were exposed to so much
music, plays, art exhibits, rock concerts. — Perrey Reeves

The great Initiates in the spirit world have vast and imposing plans for the musical future. What is this plan? It is to use music as an occult medium through which to develop altered states of consciousness, psychic abilities, and contact with the spirit world. Music in the future is to be used to bring people into yet closer touch with the devils; they will be enabled to partake of the beneficial influence of these beings while attending concerts at which by the appropriate type of sound they have been invoked. — John Todd

We do a lot of light classical programming with that, too ... obviously ... a lot of Tchaikovsky music, Grieg, things like that which have become less classical with classical concerts. — Skitch Henderson

[At a musical concert:] ... the music's pure algebra of enchantment. — Conrad Aiken

He had done regular live concerts from San Quentin jail until the civil rights people got him under the Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause. — Terry Pratchett

Concerts are never real music, you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art. — Frederic Chopin

I started singing Folksongs with my mother when I was 6 years old. We sang at Folk festivals and concerts and schools. There was always music being played either on record, Jazz and Folk, by musician friends of my mother. I took to singing very early, I believe it has been a Gift I was born with. — Vicki Sue Robinson

The desire to share is not a vague, windy sentiment, not when you see the massive rise in live concerts in response to the phenomenon of downloading music ... People want to get rid of the headphones and be part of a shared experience. — Richard Eyre

Raw, alive and honest to the point of disgusting it's listener, Placebo set out to inspire mystery and confusion. Admitting to relishing groups who could make their audience vomit with the sheer intensity of their musical vibrations, Brian clearly knew how to make an impact. Discussing sonic overload with unsettling enthusiasm, he claimed "Some frequencies can make you physically ill or make your bowels loose. The Swans used to do it. By the end of gigs people would vomit because the frequencies were so nasty. — Chloe Govan

Let's adopt all the poses and gestures of something we aren't and don't wish to be, and don't even wish to be taken for being.
Let's buy books so as not to read them; let's go to concerts without caring to hear the music or see who's there; let's take long walks because we're sick of walking; and let's spend whole days in the country, just because it bores us. [23](Zenith trans.) — Fernando Pessoa

Now I know what happens at a gig, I will be ready for it, next time
I will come in just a T-shirt and shorts and books, and fight my way to the front, like a quietly determined soldier, and then let the band take my head off. I want to walk into rooms like that every night, with a sense of something happening. — Caitlin Moran

To the U.S. and the world, I'm just known as some funny song and some funny music, some funny video guy. But in Korea I'm doing one of the biggest concerts; it's not a dance music concert. I'm playing with the band, so I change my every song to a rock song. — Psy

I'm less interested in uniqueness than in goodness. I see so many concerts where the program notes are more interesting than the music. I remember talking to one composer who went through the most complicated mathematical algorithm to generate some material from scratch. It took weeks and weeks, and he came up with a C major chord. For me, honesty is more interesting than originality. — Anna Meredith

Punk-rock gave music back to people. For a long time, when I was very young, I went to go see arena rock bands. I was 16 and it was all I could get in to see, legally. And I saw Led Zeppelin and Ted Nugent and Van Halen and all that. Me and [Minor Threat and Fugazi vocalist] Ian MacKaye would go to these concerts, and it was fun. — Henry Rollins

I'm not a fancy person. I love small spaces. I like tiny cars. I don't buy things, aside from music and books. I don't get loads of attention and maybe it's because I'm kind of boring. I don't think I'm boring, but I have different interests. I don't go out much, not because I'm hiding but because I'm not a big drinker. I go out and have a good time, I go to concerts and stuff. — Ellen Page

Not that anyone minds
no one's paying attention to the music. Most of them never really listen to music. Practically no one actually does. Even at concerts people pay good money for, instead of a three-dollar cover charge, they talk through the whole thing. I feel sorry for them, since none of them understand what it's like to have a song just get into your soul and become your whole world. They don't know what it's like when a song changes your life. — Adam Selzer

Eventually as a teenager, I was pulled up on stage by James Brown's saxophone player, Maceo Parker, during one of his concerts and scatted on his stage for 20 minutes. After I was done, Maceo's bass player got down on one knee as if he were proposing, took a string off of his bass guitar and coiled it up around my ring finger. He hushed the crowd and said into the microphone, "Wendy, from this day forward you are married to music. You have a gift from God. You must devote your life to using this gift or else you will deprive the world of something so special." I got the chills. — Wendy Starland

Throughout my career, nervousness and stage-fright have never left me before playing. And each of the thousands of concerts I have played at, I feel as bad as I did the very first time. — Pablo Casals

We're passionate musicians, but we felt classical concerts were more like a funeral because nobody talked and everybody was dressed so conservatively. We thought that's kind of strange, because music is full of life! We thought we could break through that barrier with theater and comedy elements. — Aleksey Igudesman

I loved radio for the music, concerts, parties and to think you could get paid for it. — Laura Davies

Often times at a concert, I just close my eyes. Music is very transportive and visual for me like that. — Gotye

I've never really been nervous about any concerts. I enjoy it so much. All that matters is getting the songs played well, trying to get them to sound as close to the record live, which isn't easy, because my music is quite complicated to play. — Adam Ant

I have very eclectic taste in music, but when it comes to going to concerts, I like going to rock concerts. — Fran Drescher

When I do things, like, with Josh Grobin, or he has so many fans, and I get people after my concerts, classical concerts, all the time coming back and saying, 'Never heard of you until I heard the song with Josh Grobin.' Then they're now classical music fans, which is something I think we need to reach a wider audience. — Joshua Bell

Music was not a big deal to me when I was in middle school. And then I slowly became a big jazz fan. Even more than concerts, a lot of my high school time was spent going to jazz clubs in the city. — Nick Kroll

A hundred years ago, concerts were far more come-what-may - people played cards, drank beer and appreciated the music. If we go some way towards restoring that spirit, I'll be happy. — Charles Hazlewood

I have new music coming out. I'm working on some television shows. I still do a tremendous amount of concerts. I'm doing my restaurant. I got a club coming in New York. The restaurant is called Doug E. The club is called Fresh. — Doug E. Fresh

We are fans of Mozart and Beethoven, as well 'South Park' and Borat. We believe that we can attract many people who eschew the serious ambiance of concert halls and don't go to classical music concerts because of such reasons. However, there is a 'serious humor' on the stage: funny and ridiculous. That is important! — Aleksey Igudesman

It's wonderful doing concerts in places like New York and London, but I feel a responsibility to also bring my work home, to bring world-class, classical music to Somerset. — Charles Hazlewood

History, like a badly constructed concert hall, has occasional dead spots where the music can't be heard. — Archibald MacLeish

I insist on a Steinway for my recordings, my concerts and my home. It is the only piano I want to hear my music played on. — Michel Legrand

If you love music hear it; go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you; but I insist upon your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentleman in a very frivolous, contemptible light; brings him into a great deal of bad company; and takes up a great deal of time, which might be much better employed. — Lord Chesterfield

Every July, August and part of September I escape of the guitar, I escape of Paco de Lucia and I go to Mexico to the Carrabian. I have a little house there where I spend two months listening to music, no playing because I don't bring the guitar with me, fishing and cooking my fish and charging the batteries for new concerts. — Paco De Lucia