Imagine standing in the middle of one of your favorite cities, skyscrapers towering around you, listening as live music from some of your favorite bands spreads through the air.
At Saturday’s sold-out Big Red Night of the Dead metal concert near CityScape, I got to do just that. It was a magical experience.
Sponsored by rock radio station 98KUPD, the concert brought mainstream metal acts Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Killswitch Engage, Hellyeah and Nothing More to the parking lot between Washington and Jefferson streets and First and Second streets.
I’ve been to my fair share of similar shows in parking lots and large fields, but those are usually side performances at larger festivals, and at venues like Quail Run Park in Mesa, Salt River Fields in Scottsdale, Tempe Beach Park or the Ak-Chin Pavilion in Phoenix. A concert in the middle of downtown Phoenix, and a metal concert at that, was almost unheard of.
But not entirely. Downtown has played host to a few other concerts in non-traditional spaces before.
One of the biggest examples is the McDowell Mountain Music Festival, which has found a home in Margaret T. Hance Park for the past two years after originating in Scottsdale in 2004. 2013’s lineup featured The Shins and The Roots, while last year’s featured Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite and Slightly Stoopid.
Concert promoter Stateside Presents and venue Crescent Ballroom, both owned by Charlie Levy, have also tried their hands at outdoor shows.
Last year, Crescent held a series of concerts outside before the weather got too hot. These shows were more of an experiment than a formal plan to have regular shows both inside and outside the venue, though.
In March, the Viva Phoenix music festival brought 70 local and national bands including The Neighborhood and Sir Mix-A-Lot to a total of 14 venues around downtown. Some of these spaces, like Crescent Ballroom and Last Exit Live, are typical concert venues, but others, such as the Hotel San Carlos, are a bit more unconventional. Some shows were even on stages set up in the street.
CityScape plays host to a few cultural festivals and events over the course of the year, including International Jazz Day; Mardi Gras Parade, Festival, and Pub Crawl; holiday markets and tree lighting; and charity fundraisers. Central Avenue is typically closed off and bands set up on the steps leading up to the second level of the shopping complex.
And in October, Belle and Sebastian were scheduled to perform in Civic Space Park, but the show was moved to the Orpheum Theatre due to rain. Weather is a rare obstacle in Phoenix, though, with the heat being of much larger concern than precipitation, although rarely enough to cancel a show or move it indoors. (Here’s looking at you, Vans Warped Tour.)
Crescent is going to give Civic Space Park another try as a venue in a couple weeks, though, for its free Los Dias de la Crescent festival. Local favorites such as Black Carl, Dry River Yacht Club, Bogan Via, Wooden Indian and Playboy Manbaby will play on Nov. 15 during the afternoon and early evening, and a few more acts will play into the night at Crescent Ballroom.
Weather, noise and crowd size seem to be the three biggest concerns for concerts in non-traditional spaces.
As a metal and hard-rock fan who often gets flack for the inherently louder volume of the music I listen to, I was worried people would complain about the noise from Saturday’s Big Red Night of the Dead. The concert ran until 11 p.m., and I noticed as I was leaving during the last song that most of the noise stayed contained within that block. Even walking on the opposite side of Second Street, it was tough to hear more than a general hum.
The concert was sold out, although I don’t know exactly how many people that is, beyond it being several thousand. In 2012, I saw Five Finger Death Punch and Killswitch Engage play a similar concert at Comerica Theatre as part of Trespass America Festival. Both Five Finger Death Punch and Volbeat have headlined festival shows at Ak-Chin Pavilion, as well. The crowd clearly could have been much larger than it was, and I think even for the size of audience they had, KUPD could have chosen a larger space than that lot.
At the very least, they could have organized the space better. More entrance lines were needed, especially considering how much time pat-downs and bag searches take. There should have been more than just three food vendors, and they shouldn’t have all been cluttered in one corner. Same for their being one merchandise vendor – other festivals have had multiple tents/tables or even had a separate booth for each band, which really speeds up the process and logically increases sales.
KUPD has said they want to make this concert an annual event, and have hinted that it would remain in downtown Phoenix. The future of that parking lot as a viable venue isn’t certain, and I’d definitely like to see them move to a different space for next year.
But I agree – keep Big Red Night of the Dead in downtown Phoenix. The more concerts the better, and unless we’re talking May through September, I’d always rather stand outside for a show than sit indoors at U.S. Airways Center or Comerica Theatre if it means I can be surrounded by both the city I love and music I love.
Contact the author at kimberly.koerth@asu.edu. Contact the columnists at Emily.Liu@asu.edu and Oren.Simchy-Gross@asu.edu.
