I’m currently undergoing live music withdrawal.  Yes, it exist and it generally sucks.  There really isn’t any other way to put it.  But I’m proactive and I have a solution!

The Chapel Hill/Carrboro area of North Carolina used to be a live music hotspot.  It’s location between the Atlanta and the DC area made it an ideal location to stop for the night, play an extra gig, and hang out it in what can be argued as one of the top college towns in the United States (The picture is of people jumping fires on Franklin Street following UNC’s 2005 NCAA National Championship win).

Venues such as the Cat’s Cradle and The Local 506 were popular venues for artists that normally played much larger venues, but decided to play a smaller, more intimate show for the local music lovers.  Along with attracting groups from pretty much anywhere and everywhere, the local scene produced a lot of local bred talent in the 1980s and 1990s including such groups as Superchunk and Ben Folds Five.

Unfortunately, the mighty river of musical talent has experienced a major draught and is dare I say it, dried up to an almost wet-weather drainage stream.  I hate to say it, but since 2008, here is the list of groups I’ve seen in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro Area: Interpol, the Artic Monkeys, Of Montreal, and the Soft Pack.  And the first two were in Raleigh.  Needless to say, but I’m going to anyway… that’s sad for a metro area with over a million people in it.

Well, I’ve come up with a solution.  I travel to see bands and it’s awesome.  Over the same time span that I’ve seen 4 bands in the Triangle area, I’ve traveled to Atlanta to see the Kings of Leon, Portland to see Metric and K’naan, and New York to see Spoon and Vampire Weekend.

And it’s been worth every penny.  I make it a point to travel and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do so.  And it doesn’t hurt to have friends and a sibling whom I can normally bribe with a ticket for a place to stay!

Well, I’ve got a new theory I’m going to try out… I’m going to try and make a concert pay for itself.  How you might ask?  I’m going to play the concert market and invest in tickets.

So how does this work?  It’s easy and my method of investment is based on Warren Buffet’s method of investment: buy undervalued, but solid equity.  In the case of concerts, buy tickets to concerts of quality artist that are undervalued in price.  In a city like New York, it’s tough to find a concert that is seriously undervalued, but I’ve found my concert: Cut Copy.  Other bands I’ve wanted to see have had their tickets triple in value on the secondary market, so let’s see if I win!