My music obsession has grown significantly over the past few years but has hit a new high in the last year or so. I’ve greatly expanded the repertoire of artists I keep in rotation, and a lot of this is thanks to concerts.

I didn’t attend my first concert until my freshman year of college in 2021. I wasn’t super into music as a whole at this point; I just found various artists and hyper-fixated on them until my focus switched.

My next concert wasn’t until months later, and my attendance happened pretty spontaneously. A friend of mine had their concert buddy bail on them at the last second and was selling the extra ticket for $20, so I volunteered to go.

The concert was by an artist named Poppy, whom I knew nothing about other than the TikTok obsession over her song “Girls in Bikinis.”

It turned out that Poppy was a heavy metal singer, and I was the only one at the concert without fishnets and platform Doc Martens, but I still had a great time and played her songs on repeat for a week after.

My next concert was also pretty spontaneous. I ended up at a Nicky Youre concert with some friends because he was performing at UW-Eau Claire and tickets were only $10.

I didn’t even know Youre’s name before the day of the concert, but I ended up streaming “Eyes on You” and “Shut Me Up” a concerning number of times in the weeks following.

My next concert was The Eras Tour a few months later. I didn’t have to fight to the death for tickets on Ticketmaster, thankfully. I got lucky enough to have my roommate offer me one.

A mere $270 later, I was standing in the U.S. Bank Stadium listening to “Dear John” and “Daylight,” and witnessing the announcement of “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” firsthand.

It was one of the most magical nights of my life, and I can almost guarantee Taylor Swift will hold her spot as No. 1 on my Spotify Wrapped for her third consecutive year.

It was downpouring when we finally left the stadium, but the “Midnight Rain” only made the night more ethereal. The hour-and-a-half-long drive home in only a blanket (because all of my clothes were soaked through) detracted only slightly from the ambiance.

The Swift concert cemented my concert obsession, and the next few came in quick succession.

I saw Paramore with two hometown friends in early August. I liked Paramore going into the concert but left it as a huge Hayley Williams fan.

“Crave,” “Decode” and “Crystal Clear” were my songs of choice in the following weeks.

I moved into my place in Eau Claire this past August, and one of my roommates and I made the last-minute decision to attend a Lumineers concert the day after I arrived.

She got back from her trip to Minnesota and got ready in about 10 minutes, then we hopped in my car and drove an hour and a half to Somerset.

It was an outdoor concert and we had lawn seats, and the whole thing was absolutely magical.

“WHERE WE ARE” and “BRIGHTSIDE” had me bawling harder than every other song they played (yes, I cried to every song).

I loved every second in the sold-out arena for the Swift concert but realized I liked the smaller (and cheaper) concerts just as much. So when I got an email from Spotify about $30 Del Water Gap tickets, I immediately texted a friend and snatched them up.

The friend I’d been planning to attend the concert with lived about a five-minute walk from the theater, but she got sick at the last minute, so I recruited an Eau Claire friend to accompany me.

We packed up my car and drove to Minneapolis with no idea what we packed and no idea where we were sleeping.

Del Water Gap provided yet another magical night, and we lucked out and ended up sleeping on the floor of a friend’s hotel room after bouncing from the concert to a dorm room at the University of Minnesota to an 18+ club.

It’s been a few weeks now, and you’ll still find me listening to every song on Del Water Gap’s discography.

“High Tops” and “Perfume” are two of the songs that got me into Del Water Gap in the first place, and hearing them live was a dream come true.

“Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat” had me in tears, and “Glitter & Honey” and “Gemini” remain two of my favorites, but “We Will Never Be Like Anybody Else” has jumped to the top of my list since hearing it live.

My concert obsession has only continued to grow. I’m going to see Noah Kahan this coming June, and I spent an arm and a leg on the closest possible seats I could get to see Hozier this August.

Based on my concert attendance, my music taste has seemed pretty cohesive lately, but don’t let this fool you. Lil Peep, Mac Miller, Lana del Rey, Gracie Abrams, Juice WRLD, Phoebe Bridgers, Zach Bryan, Post Malone and probably 50 other artists have stayed in my regular rotation.

Price can be reached at [email protected].