You wait until the lights go down, and then you somehow connive your way down to the row where the industry suits repose.

('I just waltzed up to that black dude and got two third-row tickets off him five minutes before the show, only fifteen bucks!') You camp out. You have to wait in long lines, you have to exercise Machiavellian crowd control instincts, or you have to exhibit first-rate scalping prowess. Apparently, going to concerts involves a masculine manipulation of worldly impediments. It's one of those High Fidelity–style games, talking about the gigs you've been to. In the case of popular music, however, this absence of statistical abstracts gives rise to annoying compilations of top-ten lists, desert island discs, accounts of various shows. The deployment of these facts becomes an important part of the obsessive lifestyle of the cathected individual. Those pursuits have their elective affinities, but they also depend on rigorous templates of factual material. Unlike being, e.g., a deranged baseball fan, or a hardcore weather person, or a day trader, or a wine fanatic. PREFACE: The problem with being an engaged music listener is that it's completely unscientific. Some Propositions Concerning the Lounge Lizards: The Show I'll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive Their Most Memorable Concertgoing Experience

The lounge lizard