Jam bands tend to have a wider variety of merchandise than most bands–both their own and the homemade variety, such as the T-shirts available at Phish shows that morph the band’s song titles into various corporate logos.
For my last couple of Phish shows, I’ve worn my t-shirt from the Deer Creek 2000 run. I don’t have t-shirts from a lot of other bands, except a String Cheese Incident shirt, and I’ll usually wear it to other shows, just to strike up conversations (both with other SCI fans and the curious).
And I am officially jealous at dinahmoe for making it to It. Did you see the control tower jam?
I’ve never heard that you’re not supposed to wear the t-shirt of the band you’re going to see but I do know that it’s frowned upon when a band-member, usually done when the band is in the struggling for recognition phase, wears one of his/her own band t-shirts.
Well, here’s the t-shirt I wore to the Metallica et al. Summer Sanitarium tour when they were in Minnepolis (Metrodome, not the best venue for a concert, but cool nontheless):
It’s never cool to wear the tee-shirt of a band that you didn’t buy at a concert, unless it’s homemade or something. More specifically, wearing a tee shirt you bought at a head shop from a band that you have never seen live is way lame. If the band charges more than ten bucks for one of their tee-shirts at a show, they are not a cool band.
As long as you follow that rule, you can wear whatever you own to concerts. It’s always pretty cool to wear a rare or old shirt from the band you are seeing or a related band. The only time I’d be weary of wearing the tee-shirt of a band I am seeing is if they recently “made it big” and the tee-shirt reflects it’s newest album, marking you as somebody that is only at the show because you heard their one new hit song on the radio.
I don’t personally wear the shirt of the band I’m going to see, as a lot of the shows I go to are small enough that you can meet/ hang out with the band members afterwards, and it seems overly gushy-fanboyish to do so while sporting their logo for all to see. However, that’s my personal preference, and other than that I’m more or less with the “wear whatever you like” crowd. If you plan on jumping in the pit, though, make sure it’s something you don’t mind getting sweaty, dirty, stretched out, or torn.
Regarding what even sven said, I’m of the opinion that it’s acceptable to buy the shirt at a store (or, preferably, online from the band’s website) *after *seeing the band play. I can’t count how many times I’ve gone to the merch table after a show, only to find that they ran out of shirts my size.
Well I can tell you from experience that a gray flannel suite and tie are not considered standard for a White Zombies concert. People actually put out their joints around me (I think they thought I was a cop).
Ike, the last time I saw the Jerry Garcia Band (and got to meet the man himself), I arrived about halfway through the first set coming from a formal dinner (the City Manager and I had the use of the City’s skybox that night). I was wearing a tuxedo. Somewhere there’s a picture of me, standing on my head, wearing a tux, and Jerry standing beside me with a really large grin on his face.
My usual attire was jeans, Nakamichi Audio t-shirt, and Merrill hiking boots.
See, I think this has a major part in the whole thing. The cool guys in the band never wear the shirts they sell. They always wear shirts for other bands they like. So the fans emulate the band and do the same thing.
