225 vs. 214

Editor’s note: Rebecca Todd Pitre grew up an avid concertgoer in Baton Rouge but lived in Dallas for three years before recently returning. Here she compares musical experiences in both cities.

For the haters, a preface. 1) I’m not ignoring local music. It’s impossible to do a perfectly scientific experiment with this. I saw who I saw in Dallas, and I see who I see here. 2) In my old age of 27, I might be getting a little ornery when it comes to crowds at shows, and this might be affecting my audience-ocity. 3) I make these comparisons with nothing but love.

One of the cheesy sayings I hate the most proved true as I set out to compare the Dallas music scene to ours here in the Rouge. Ugh. I hate saying this, but everything is bigger in Texas. It’s not always a good thing, and in the case of live music, it ain’t pretty at all.

Case in point: I recently saw My Morning Jacket at Dallas’ Palladium Ballroom. Their performance was soul-altering. But the show sort of sucked. Weird, huh? Well, it’s because the ballroom is about the size of five Varsities. Total mathematical precision there, by the way. It’s nice, but I’ve always felt that the place was just as soulless as its hooting, finger-pointing patrons.

I was dying for that communal audience applause, for the crowd to move as a whole, to know that the band could feel our energy. But no, I was one person in a sea of a thousand statues. Don’t get me wrong; it was fun. There were some movers, but I swear up and down this is true: the people I saw having the most fun were those I knew who had driven in from Baton Rouge and Shreveport. No lie. Swear. Mean it.

I compare this, then, to seeing Wolf Parade at Spanish Moon—again with scientific accuracy. It was uncomfortably crowded. It was sweaty and smoky, and in the end maybe even a little smelly. It was also tremendous. The mutual affection between the band and the crowd was palpable. Halfway through the show the band started thanking us. It was full of love and groove and rock. And no, I don’t do drugs.

I happen to know through a friend, who is friends with the band, that Band of Horses was slightly nervous to play at Spanish Moon back in February because of Mardi Gras. One of them later told my friend, “The kids in the crowd had blood on their teeth.” What he meant is that our local crowd was raw. And real.

When I saw Band of Horses in Dallas? Statue Nation.

Look, I’m a Chelsea’s Café girl. I want all of my musical experiences to be in such settings. I want intimate, but not shoebox. I want the option of seeing the stage. Dallas had this at one point, but big clubs and even bigger arenas ended that.

Baton Rouge doesn’t have that problem, but we are sometimes overlooked. Bigger names go to Dallas because more people can attend the shows. But that doesn’t mean there is a better vibe there, or that the artists are necessarily better. Baton Rouge has what it takes to lure entertainers: fun in our bones, dance in our shoes and an almost innate cultural appreciation for anything that makes us shake it.

Because, as with most things, the city’s musical map is about its people. It’s not the physical venue. This I know. And here, we are gritty. We are a lot soulful and a little dirty. We dance. We show the band some love. And man, do we have fun.