I’ve only seen it brazenly smoked at a Phish concert, but at pretty much most concerts I will notice at least a hint of the smell at some point. I haven’t usually noticed it in smaller or more intimate/well kept arenas.
Grateful Dead, Alpine Valley, WI, circa 1988. It was an outdoor show, and I think I got a contact high. That was also how I found out that secondhard pot smoke is a far worse asthma trigger for me than secondhand tobacco smoke.
Yes, Pipefest, last 5 years.
It’s actually a reference to a (snowboarding) half-pipe… but, name an event as pipefest, make it the largest hiphop gathering in the country… and you’re going to see smoke.
Back in my day, 70s & early 80s, it was quite common. People you didn’t even know passing it to you. Security would make a few token busts but it was pretty much out of control. This was Atlanta, Ga just for reference.
At outdoor concerts, yes, all the time.
Indoor ones - well, I’ve only been to a couple of big indoor ones and didn’t notice any pot there, that I remember, but they weren’t smoking-friendly either, even before the ban. Bands playing at pubs or small venues? Yeah, before the smoking ban, there were sometimes people smoking pot.
I’ve never been to a concert where pot wasn’t being smoked. Indoor, outdoors, metal, alternative, funk, folk, young people, old, urban venues, the middle of cornfields, 500 people in the audience and 50,000. What an odd question.
There were a few kids getting away with it at the Umphreys McGee concert at Frederik Meijer Gardens/Sculpture Park. The amphitheatre is strictly non smoking and they park cops at both ends of the stage. But the band had a smoke machine going onstage the entire time, naturally that emboldened a few in the tightly packed crowd to spark it up. They got away with it, naturally, yet the cops barked at my friend for dancing w/o shoes on.
I’m going to have to go with never.
In my mid 20’s I started getting migraines. Shortly after that I attended a concert and spent the entire concert throwing up in the bathroom and then crawled to the car to await my friends. A couple more incidents and it became clear that a sure fire way to an instant migraine was to smell pot, so no more concerts for me 
This was however an awesome tool when my kids were teenagers.
I was gonna say this, then I remembered a Japanese violinist I saw perform with the Pittsburgh Symphony. None there, though we did partake in the car before going in.
I began attending concerts in 19 and 78. 14 years old.
I’ve been to hundreds, and the only ones I can remember having no pot were Chuck Mangione and Anne Murray. From Bon Jovi to Zeppelin, all the rest had pot.
I have never smoked pot, can’t stand the smell, and don’t understand the need to alter one’s conciousness. As an ex-cop, I frown upon your shenanigans.
That said, Mrs. and I took our 15yo son to see Heart/Cheap Trick/Journey here in Atlanta last year, and when the smell hit us, Jr. says “what the heck is that?”
Right or wrong, that smell certainly brought back a flood of memories from back in The Day.
Ask any old time Detroiter about Eastown and Grande Ballroom concerts.
There were a lot of free concerts in those days too. Can you imagine that? They would have 7 or 8 bands and clouds of smoke were normal. But local bands, bar bands and occasionally famous bands would do their acts. All for free.
I was at the Summer Jam in Louisville in 1978. Ted Nugent, Eddie Money, Journey, and Frank Marino (maybe others, I can’t remember) played an outdoor concert at the stadium. I remember hearing you could see a man-made cloud hanging over the crowd.
I was a teenager in the late 60’s/early 70’s, so, yeah, there was some grass burning.
God, that was a fun time. Steppenwolf, Led Zeplin, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who, The Stones, 3 Dog Night, Spencer Davis Group, Rod Stewart and the (Small) Faces, Creedence, Clapton, The Moody Blues, and others I’m forgetting–I saw them all between, oh, '68 and '74.
sigh
Fuck I’m old.
Welcome back to school concert, USC, 2005. It was the Roots. I never saw anyone smoking, but there was a very thick cloud over the whole crowd, it was ridiculous. We joked it was the Berkely kids who came down for the concert.
This would have been my answer until last weekend. Which is when I saw Guster and Maroon 5 at Meadowbrook in New Hampshire. (Great show, BTW) It was strange to see the stage without that familiar heavy haze.
Maybe you are looking at it wrong. There is no need. Just like there is no need to put butter on corn on the cob. Many people feel it enhances the taste of the corn, however. Personally, I never put butter on my corn, but I do not begrudge others who choose to do so.
Loads of them. Indoors and outdoors, although this was before all the present anti-smoking kerfuffle. If I was going to one now, I’d have to make sure I had a few ready-rolled and hope there was a smoking area, otherwise it would be into the toilets and fuck 'em if they have a smoke-alarm.
Did you hear that, Carl Sagan? Oh, you can’t, can you, you’re dead, you childish fucking loser!
What’s that, ex Mrs Sagan? You’re the head of a board working for marijuana reform laws? You childish fucking loser!
I saw Tom Petty in Chicago a couple years back and there was plenty of pot still being smoked in both places, by my reckoning.
Each time I hear “You Don’t Know How It Feels”, I feel compelled to quip “Hungry, I’d imagine…”
Yeah, and Louis Armstrong, too. Man, what a loser he was.