Seeing Them Live is a podcast featuring unforgettable concert stories from passionate live music fans. Our mission is to chronicle the live music experience through engaging interviews, captivating photos, and media references spanning several decades of remarkable live music events.
Live music serves as a cultural mirror, reflecting the social, political, and economic conditions of its time. From iconic gatherings like Woodstock to the transformative Live Aid concerts, these performances have shaped our world and left a lasting impact on music enthusiasts. Our guests recount vivid recollections of their first, worst, and best concert experiences. Through their personal narratives, our objective is to provide our listeners with an immersive experience that captures the vibrant energy and exhilaration of attending live performances. Live music provides something in short supply today – authenticity. In a live setting, there are no retakes, vocal enhancers, or edits—what unfolds live, truly happens.
Even if you missed the chance to witness Woodstock or find it challenging to afford a Taylor Swift concert, our podcast offers you the opportunity to hear firsthand accounts from those who experienced those and similar shows. While our primary focus lies in the pop/rock genre from 1960 to the present, we warmly welcome captivating stories from concert-goers of any musical genre. If you believe you have a remarkable live music story to share, we invite you to complete our questionnaire on this website for a chance to be featured as a guest on our podcast.
Everyone has a concert story and hopefully, one day we’ll hear yours.
Show Hosts:
Charles Zona
Charles Zona is the author of Ticket Stub Stories: A Memoir of Live Music. He attended his first concert at the age of eleven with his mother to see the Eagles. This initial encounter with live music had a significant impact on him. The massive crowd, the smoke hanging in the air, the sudden darkness of the arena followed by the bright lights of the stage, singing along to familiar songs, the body-vibrating sounds, and the eventual encore supported by a sea of cigarette lighters–this ignited Charles’ passion for live music.
As Charles puts it: “Going to concerts with my friends was always an adventure. Simply buying a ticket, going to the show, and then driving home was of little interest to us. We wanted more. We went to the shows early, especially the general admission ones so that we had a good chance of securing decent seats. After the shows, when most fans had returned to their cars and began waiting in an epic line of traffic, we would stay and venture to the back of the venue with the hopes of meeting the band. Maybe it was our attempt to squeeze every bit of the concertgoing experience from the show, but by taking this road less traveled, we created more interesting and unique memories.”
Doug Florzak
Doug Florzak is a composer, musician, and published author. He is the bass player for Wrought Iron Soul, a Chicago area classic rock band. Doug also composes and arranges instrumentals. After he released the single You Can Walk, the song took 15th Place in the Chicago Music Guide Best of Chicago Music Competition. He released Flagstone, an album of his instrumentals which was positively reviewed by indie music site Pitch Perfect. Doug is also the author of two non-fiction books: Successful Independent Consulting and The Free Agent Marketing Guide. As a concert goer, he has seen many famous bands including Queen, Heart, The Electric Light Orchestra, Billy Joel, and Don Henley.
