I'm one of the 'stay at homes', I just don't enjoy it anymore. Physical problems prevent me from being as fleet as I once was and I tend to (until Fever Ray a month or two back) feel I've seen it all before. It's no longer worth the cost and effort for me.

Sorry dude.

Doesn't worry me at all. It's great to go with a mate or Mrs T but I will happily go alone. Saw Jeff Beck, Caravan and Hatfield and the North tout seul and also went to see Lau but arrived late and my mates were in the crowd at the front so I stood right at the back by the bar and had a pint. Lovely. He who travels fastest etc.

Always nice to have someone along for the ride but I'd much rather see a gig on my own than drag someone along who isn't going to enjoy it. Might feel a bit of spare part before the show but it really doesn't matter once the band starts up.

I quite like it sometimes, especially as it means you can move freely around the venue and avoid any chattering f**kwits and people re-enacting 'The Pogo'.

Indeed I started a thread about this some moons ago..
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/do-you-go-gigs-your-own

I prefer going with others, but if no one's keen I'll sometimes just go alone. I went to see The Divine Comedy alone in Manchester this week and it was superb!

would go alone so we don't have to look at their wife\ husband \ other standing or sitting with arms crossed and a face like thunder. As was clearly the case with teh bloke across the aisle from me at Ash tonight. Miserable fecker looked like Jim Royale when Nanna was visiting.

I did take the Mrs. to a few shows. She was OK with Santana and Erasure, but after seeing the Tubes she now refuses to go to anything else...

Sometimes I will arrange to go with friends or work colleagues and sometimes I will go on my won but bump into friends there.

I do prefer company though. I have now resorted to taking my 17-year-old niece to concerts with me - I am going to give her an education by taking her to see Spizzenergi at Camden next month, though I know I am running the risk of just looking like a dirty old man.

Since I will know a few other people there I may enjoy a little bit of fun by not letting on she is my niece and just let them think I am capable of pulling a teenager :)

Now travel... that is another matter. I spent years travelling alone when my job took me overseas a lot and I find it VERY hard to adjust to having somebody travelling with me.

...I've stopped dragging people to see Richard Thompson, and now go alone. First solo gig would have been Del Amitri way back when, and as it was standing only, much self-conscious boppage ensued. These days, I couldn't find anyone to see the Decemberists with me recently, and I have a spare ticket to see Roger Waters rebuild the Wall in Tacoma in a month or so...

....my whole life. Doesn't bother me, never has, never will.

I can't imagine not having company at a gig, but then I don't go to many and never really have. *whispers* I don't actually enjoy them that much. Shhhhh!

For me, the company's at least half the point.

I've gone solo quite a few time and it's been fine, although company is always nice. CW Stoneking in Glasgow was the last solo gig and there were quite a few people (mainly blokes) on their own.I've seem Marillion on my own several times, as it's hard dragging anyone along to one of their gigs. I'm seeing them support Deep Purple in Berlin a week tomorrow and I will have company.

... but thankfully I have a friend - a recently registerd Massiver, in fact - who's at least as keen on going to gigs as I am.
In 33 years of regular gig-going, I've probably not been to more than 4 or 5 gigs on my own. The first occasion was definitely David Bowie on the "Stage" tour at Earl's Court in 1978. I don't really mind watching a band on my own. It's the hanging around for ages beforehand that I don't like to do on my own. I just feel like a bit of a lemon.
And one last thing. I know that some people, when they reach their forties or something, give up going to live music, for whatever reason. Well, each to his own and all that, but for me live music is - or at least can be - the absolute best night out there is. A good film or play are enjoyable and everything, but NOTHING beats a great gig. Some nights, there's magic in the air.

Stand near the vicinity of the bar. Drink copiously. Fiddle with your iPhone/Blackberry. Take lots of notes.

Everyone will assume you're an A&R man.

since then have gone to most gigs in company, apart from some mid-week gigs when my wife was reluctant to go because of her work (teaching - long days etc.)

Can't often be bothered to go to gigs alone these days. As you get older, there is always the risk that you will look like a sad old git.

Would like to come down to London to one of the Massive gatherings. We'll see.............

Mrs Cakes is a worthy companion at most gigs but draws a firm line at anything with the taint of prog. Thus my continuing devotion to Jethro Tull is a solitary vice and one subject to random bursts of her withering scorn in company, often when drink has been taken.

However that is not the worst of it. The worst is when buying a ticket over the phone having to answer the question "And how many would you like?" with "Just the one." Do I imagine that brief tumbleweed moment of pity or is it real? Either way, not pleasant.

Elton John ( with my colleagues, we won tickets in a contest at work )
Duran Duran ( as a favour to my best friend, she got sick on the way there, high fever, doesn't remember the gig, wish I could say the same... )
Free concerts in the park ( free as in "good luck getting anyone to pay to see this shite" )
Everything else have been solo excursions. I'm used to it now, so I don't mind too much, but yes; you do feel like a tit ( or in my case - a pair of tits... ) waiting around for things to get going.
I still refuse to own a mobile phone, so I have nothing to fiddle around with except my drink. You get terribly selfconscious and think that everybody is staring at the leper in the corner, waiting to see if half a nose is going to fall off into your drink.
I'm not the kind of person that is happy to strike up a conversation with strangers either. But once the gig starts everything is fine!
But I would probably go much more often if I did have someone to go with ( my friends are not that interested in music, oddly enough ).

I go to about 80% of gigs with the GLW, and, if not her, an old friend of generally similar musical enthusiasms*. This means that it's quite a refreshing novelty when I go on my own a couple of times a year, and I certainly don't feel like Billy No Mates (or perhaps I'm just old enough not to care what complete strangers might assume of me).

That said, whether or not you believe there is such a thing as a Guilty Pleasure (as opposed to simply a) Things You Like and b) Things You Don't Like, all of which are morally neutral) if I do end up attending a gig which nobody else wants to come to, it usually means nobody else wanted to see it with me, and this makes it feel as if I've transgressed some musical taboo. In the interests of full disclosure, for instance, nobody wanted to come with me to see Heaven 17 performing Penthouse and Pavement this month, but I intend to go and enjoy it all the same, possibly in a room full of other unaccompanied men who fancy an evening of 80s nostalgia in a supportive and non-judgmental atmosphere...

To see Gruff Rhys at The Empire, Belfast. Got the last bus in at 7pm and the gigs not till 9pm. Currently sitting in a coffee shop writing this. It's a cold foggy night and I left my wife and our 2 kids cozy and warm at home. I don't mind though. I've never felt that self conscious around people I don't know, friends and colleagues that's another matter, and I actually enjoy a spot of people watching myself as it goes. The bit that bothers me is that it's a Sunday night. I can never find Friday or Saturday gigs I want to see these days.

As for looking like a sad old git, I am a sad old git.

I could do with someone to tell me if I have a coffee monobrow right now though.

... on my own, some years ago, and ended up being bought a pint by Edwyn himself at the bar afterwards. Also had a chat with Paul Cook. I love going on my own, it's an adventure, you never know what's going to happen.

I think that the thing to remember (or at least assume) is that most of your fellow gig goers don't really give a toss whether you're on your todd or not.

I go to most gigs on my own, I think I generally prefer it but that might just be because for me it's the norm. Next one.. Harper Simon at Bush Hall.

gig experiences ever on my own, unhindered by social graces.
The first was De La Soul at the Jazz Cafe in Camden. Had a bottle or two of red wine and then saw Goldie upstairs afterwards so with my shy guard dropped I went and chatted to him and wound up backstage chatting to my teenage heroes. Pos and Maceo kept giving me ice cold buds and asked if I wanted to go to Spearmint Rhino with them. Looking at the £5 in my pocket I declined and waved them good bye.
The second was Mavis Staples at the Barbican. She was in poor health due to a bad throat but came out and gave her all in support of her civil rights album in those pre Obama days and had not just me but many others including herself in tears. A genuinely uplifting and life changing experience.
I would not have been able to do either of these in the company of others and tend to escape to gigs on my own when possible.

I'm off to see Field Music on my lonesome ownsome tonight. If any of you are going and see a bashful fella who you could imagine the loving wife of, while watching the Goodies reunion, asking 'Do you think you'll look like Bill Oddie when you're older?', do feel free to smile.

I went to see my favourite band in the world, 'moron techno' outfit Scooter, on my own. In Birmingham. (I live in London, they weren't playing there) And it was AWESOME.

Andrew Harrison may have been there, I didn't see him though.

Oddly enough though I saw Bon Jovi by myself but the FPO joined me to see The Phantom Band. In a normal household it would be the other way round I think.

I hate going by myself. When I was single I used to buy a pair of tickets, convinced that by the time the gig arrived I'd have some cool rock chick girlfriend to go with... so I often ended up selling the spare outside or dragging a male friend along. One of my friends even walked out of a Styx concert - my mythical rock chick would never have done that!
For a few short months in 1982 I did have a cool rock chick to go with; we saw Todd Rundgren, The Alarm, early Marillion, Huang Chung, the reformed Genesis at Milton Keynes, amongst others... but sadly it didn't last.
Many years later I met the GLW; we are both interested in music but our musical venn diagrams barely intersect any more. I've suffered Morrissey and she (and I) suffered Robyn Hitchcock. I refused to take her to see The Sex Pistols. She came to see Neil Young in summer 2010. I think we now have an informal truce. I take friends met via the interweb to gigs if I go at all... but I rarely go any more unless its Sigur Ros or Explosions In the Sky or Pavlov's Dog decide the play the UK....