Fenway vs. Wrigley ~ Let's get it on.

Merkin Baller

After periscoping much of both Wrigley shows, and looking at the setlists, I'm glad I went to the Fenway shows.

Fenway 1 was awesome, but Fenway 2 was far & away a better show. It was up there with Hartford '13 as the two best shows I've seen this band perform.

I'm definitely interested to hear more opinions from people who were at all four as I can't properly comment on the Wrigley shows.

CantKeepmedown

I think Fenway 2 was the best overall show. I was only at the Fenway shows, so there is a certain bias there. But even on paper, I think the Fenway setlists were better. Out of the songs that were unique to each city, Fenway had the better songs for me, personally.

But overall, all 4 shows were great in their own right and I can't wait to relive by CD and DVD! People that even made it to 1 show should consider themselves lucky.

jkalman

Merkin Baller said:

After periscoping much of both Wrigley shows, and looking at the setlists, I'm glad I went to the Fenway shows.

Fenway 1 was awesome, but Fenway 2 was far & away a better show. It was up there with Hartford '13 as the two best shows I've seen this band perform.

I'm definitely interested to hear more opinions from people who were at all four as I can't properly comment on the Wrigley shows.

Yeah, Hartford '13 was phenomenal.

JimmyV

Posted this in another thread but it is just as relevant here, too.

There are strengths and weaknesses to all four shows. Personal tastes will differ. "I was there" and recency biases will come into play as well. I really expected Wrigley 1 to be the best of the bunch because it was a Saturday night in Eddie's hometown. Failing that my second guess would have been Wrigley 2 because it was last and the band probably wanted to leave everything on the field (no pun intended.) Now I don't think either one was. For me, looking top to bottom, Fenway 2 was the best of these shows. It started hot, it finished hot, the encores were awesome, the band was on fire and so was the crowd. Fenway 2 is tough to beat.

vant0037

Every show anyone went to was the best show for some reason. I'm seeing a lot of "I went to only this show but not that show," which is exactly what OP wasnt looking for.

Whether you went to all four or not, its going to come down to subjective factors, such as: who youre with, where youre sitting, who youre sitting by, how youre feeling, what songs you like, whether youre phone is out or not, whether youre drunk or sober and how you believe that inhibits or enhances your experience, and a myriad of other reasons that have nothing to do with the objective merits of a given performance (assuming such a thing exists; a certain bassist might argue that art is inherently subjective, meaning if music is art, then judgment or comparison on a given performance is meaningless, but I digress).

I just find these questions very strange. Who thinks Fenway was better? Who thinks Wrigley was better? How many times does it happen that two people view the same thing and take away entirely different experiences? Who cares? I mean really...why are we interested in determining which show was "better?"

The only honest and accurate answer any of us could give to the question of which show was better is and always will be "the one I was at."

jkalman

Subjective factors do come into play to some extent, but the band actually does play better on some nights than others, and the set lists do flow better on some nights than others. Likewise, the crowd can differ significantly based on nights of the week and geographic location. What causes people to say their one show was the best is often termed confirmation bias. Additionally, some people don't have an acute degree of musical aptitude to notice when the band is in a flow/peak state (AKA the zone) versus all over the place and out of synch (see Johnson O'Connor Institute for info on musical aptitudes). Wrigley 2 they were out of that flow state quite a bit. Fenway 1 and Wrigley 1 they had intermittent flow state and a few extended peaks. Fenway 2 was insane with flow state through most of the show.

JH6056

vant0037 said:

Every show anyone went to was the best show for some reason. I'm seeing a lot of "I went to only this show but not that show," which is exactly what OP wasnt looking for.

Whether you went to all four or not, its going to come down to subjective factors, such as: who youre with, where youre sitting, who youre sitting by, how youre feeling, what songs you like, whether youre phone is out or not, whether youre drunk or sober and how you believe that inhibits or enhances your experience, and a myriad of other reasons that have nothing to do with the objective merits of a given performance (assuming such a thing exists; a certain bassist might argue that art is inherently subjective, meaning if music is art, then judgment or comparison on a given performance is meaningless, but I digress).

I just find these questions very strange. Who thinks Fenway was better? Who thinks Wrigley was better? How many times does it happen that two people view the same thing and take away entirely different experiences? Who cares? I mean really...why are we interested in determining which show was "better?"

The only honest and accurate answer any of us could give to the question of which show was better is and always will be "the one I was at."

I'm not OP, but that last comment is exactly why I said that for me, only opinions of people who were at all 4, or at none but periscoped all 4, are really relevant.

Sure, even if you were at all 4, there are many factors (you list most of them) that will also affect your experience of the show. But it is still fascinating to many of us to hear people's reasons for loving/hating/being thrilled/being disappointed in any given show - in comparison to the other shows.

We're also mostly adults though, so we each know that when someone says the setlist of X show blew them away, and I look at the setlist and there are mostly songs that aren't my favorite, that's cool, setlist didn't work for me but glad someone else was thrilled. Or when people have different moments that stand out as most magical. No doubt, some of my most special moments aren't going to be special to others, but those special moments add to my sense that X show was the best.

It's all subjective, we all get that. But it's fun to compare and contrast, to trade stories, and for those who went to all 4 it is VERY interesting to know what they thought was the best show and why.

JimmyV

I've certainly been at a show before that was not the best.

JH6056

JimmyV said:

I've certainly been at a show before that was not the best.

Me too, absolutely!

LC

The best way to settle this needs to be an 8 disc, 4 concert official blu ray

JH6056

LC said:

The best way to settle this needs to be an 8 disc, 4 concert official blu ray

Great idea! And 500,000+ e-ballots to vote/rank them!

mcdonams

jkalman said:

Bant said:

SVRDhand13 said:

Bant said:

I'm still don't get how people are saying Fenway 2 was better than Fenway 1.

Well 2 was like 20 minutes longer

I loved both and can't choose one over another. They're like my children haha

Yes, but that is the only thing it has over night 1.

I wouldn't say so. The whole experience was more cohesive. Set flow, band flow, fan interactivity/energy. That was my experience at least between F2 the other three shows.

Agreed. F1 started a few min late, and the end felt a bit frenetic. Kind of a sprint to the finish, then stop right at 10:30. I did get 2 songs I hadn't seen before which is saying something - Strangest Tribe and Draw the Line. Could do w/o the Aerosmith cover, but Tribe was the highlight for me. At F2 I got a grail in Angel. Other than that, nothing new. Next grail up for is Let Me Sleep, but I digress . Overall I liked F2 better, even though I was 6th row center for F1. Just liked the flow and vibe better, even from the cheap seats. Opening with Release and Long Road is textbook for me though, wouldn't choose another way to open (same as Worcester I '13). I could definitely pass on the appearances by Bronson and Youk as well.

Suziemay

vant0037 said:

Every show anyone went to was the best show for some reason. I'm seeing a lot of "I went to only this show but not that show," which is exactly what OP wasnt looking for.

Whether you went to all four or not, its going to come down to subjective factors, such as: who youre with, where youre sitting, who youre sitting by, how youre feeling, what songs you like, whether youre phone is out or not, whether youre drunk or sober and how you believe that inhibits or enhances your experience, and a myriad of other reasons that have nothing to do with the objective merits of a given performance (assuming such a thing exists; a certain bassist might argue that art is inherently subjective, meaning if music is art, then judgment or comparison on a given performance is meaningless, but I digress).

I just find these questions very strange. Who thinks Fenway was better? Who thinks Wrigley was better? How many times does it happen that two people view the same thing and take away entirely different experiences? Who cares? I mean really...why are we interested in determining which show was "better?"

The only honest and accurate answer any of us could give to the question of which show was better is and always will be "the one I was at."

I'm curious about people's opinions because I did go to 3 of the 4 and have an opinion. I'm not interested in coming to a consensus about who thought which show was the best because I agree with your views, however it doesn't mean we can't discuss. The minute this thread becomes flooded with "I don't understand why you guys think show x was better than show y" then this thread is done IMO.

jkalman

JH6056 said:

LC said:

The best way to settle this needs to be an 8 disc, 4 concert official blu ray

Great idea! And 500,000+ e-ballots to vote/rank them!

The problem with that is that musical aptitudes are on a bell curve. Let's say 30-percent of listeners (the 70th percentile and above) have the acuity to differentiate between flow state and non-flow state and musical peaks vs. non musical peaks. You may end up with a test that is near random, or the 70-percent with less acuity could favor one show over another randomly due to confirmation bias. Likewise, the bottom 70-percent could overpower the smaller 30-percent. Even if someone has acuity, they may prefer other things about the show (such as that guy getting booted at W2), which could add more to the randomness. A better way to differentiate would be to include musical aptitudes in the study and then regress the four shows on musical acuity and to also include Likert scale questions concerning their criteria for what is a "good" show (flow, set list, rarities, speeches, the crowd, venue, other) and run a multiple regression analysis. Then you can control for other factors besides flow state vs. non flow state and look at how all those factors affect a concert experience.

That being said, an 8 disc set would still be awesome.

Who I Am

Just an observation: Acoustics, crowd and show flow was pure @ Fenway 2
Main set was insane @ Wrigley 2

JH6056

jkalman said:

JH6056 said:

LC said:

The best way to settle this needs to be an 8 disc, 4 concert official blu ray

Great idea! And 500,000+ e-ballots to vote/rank them!

The problem with that is that musical aptitudes are on a bell curve. Let's say 30-percent of listeners (the 70th percentile and above) have the acuity to differentiate between flow state and non-flow state and musical peaks vs. non musical peaks. You may end up with a test that is near random or the 70-percent with less acuity could favor one show over another randomly due to confirmation bias. A better way to differentiate would be to include musical aptitudes in the study and then regress the four shows on musical acuity.

That being said, an 8 disc set would still be awesome.

You make this so much more complicated than it needs to be... I think Fenway 2 was the best, so any system of voting that ends in that conclusion is scientifically accurate. End of story.

See, wasn't that easier?

jkalman

JH6056 said:

jkalman said:

JH6056 said:

LC said:

The best way to settle this needs to be an 8 disc, 4 concert official blu ray

Great idea! And 500,000+ e-ballots to vote/rank them!

The problem with that is that musical aptitudes are on a bell curve. Let's say 30-percent of listeners (the 70th percentile and above) have the acuity to differentiate between flow state and non-flow state and musical peaks vs. non musical peaks. You may end up with a test that is near random or the 70-percent with less acuity could favor one show over another randomly due to confirmation bias. A better way to differentiate would be to include musical aptitudes in the study and then regress the four shows on musical acuity.

That being said, an 8 disc set would still be awesome.

You make this so much more complicated than it needs to be... I think Fenway 2 was the best, so any system of voting that ends in that conclusion is scientifically accurate. End of story.

See, wasn't that easier?

Lol. Yes. I edited it to be even more complicated...

I'm actually really interested in the question now. It would make a compelling study for the psychology of music in general.

vito

W2 main set was the best 1.5 of music w/ a setting that was just unmatchable!

Pearlybaker

Went to all 4 - my ranking based on my experience:

1. Fenway 2
2. Wrigley 2
3. Fenway 1
4. Wrigley 1

JH6056

Pearlybaker said:

Went to all 4 - my ranking based on my experience:

1. Fenway 2
2. Wrigley 2
3. Fenway 1
4. Wrigley 1

Cool, would love to know what factors made you rank them this way?