Step aside people! I, as ever, have the answer, and it has nothing to do with fun on the part of the peformers (why are we talking as if they're the focus of what we're doing here?): Music - whether it be popular or classical - is at its most potent in a live context precisely because the audience has come with the purpose of experiencing it. You may listen to a recording while doing something else: reading, making your bed, washing dishes, talking. Does anyone put on a CD and sit down on an upright chair and stare at the wall for an hour? I actually used to, before I realised there is nothing I listen to that is worth such attention, and destractions were always unavoidable. At a concert you can both concentrate on the music and experience the show and the crowd. Furthermore, Gridlock, you talk as if pop music (by this I mean anything that is not classical. Fuck you and your childish sub-categories) only exists as the sound on a CD. This is to take it too seriously as an artistic product. It is a social concept because of the mass-market possibilities of both the recording and the live performance. If you treat it as a private pleasure, well I can only laugh at you