Is it just me with live music gigs?

[RobMc]

Reading all the peoples comments on gigs they've been to leads me to an awful confession, I never really enjoyed many and the quality of the music in most cases was poor. 

Now let me explain, music is a very large part of my life, unlike most I kept my lp's (400+), and have about the same number of cd's played through an expensive sound system. Mainly rock, metal and electric blues ( I refuse to use the bloody fashionable word 'eclectic' oh f..k I did )

Some of the bands I have seen live (most before fame) are Jethro Tull (Houston and UK), Deep Purple (Montreal), Groundhogs (UK), Led Zeppelin, Free, Fleetwood Mac ( both versions), Saxon ( In a working mens club), and lots more including Ravi Shankar in Boston. Two years ago or so I went to see Killswitch Engage at a local university, boy did I get stared at, easily the oldest there.

Now I appreciate the occasion etc. but considering the price of the tickets etc it is an expensive business, I always wanted to see Neil Young and had an opportunity recently but they wanted £150 for the privilege, no thanks for that I could buy most of his music. It was a turning point for me, I realised that for me music was a one to one thing, not part of a sweaty steaming mass, so no more gigs, just me and my hi fi. Does anyone else feel like me?, or do you think live bands are better? I went to one festival on the insistence of a friend and was completely unimpressed by the so called supergroups. Conversely  I walked into a pub in Aberdeen and left 6 hours later after listening to the best electric blues guitar player I had ever heard, similar stories with folk music in Ireland.

I think that paying huge prices to watch a group, probably with binoculars, in a venue with crap acoustics is very overrated and I won't do it anymore, but everyone to their own.