Super fan’s obsession racks up more than 3000 gigs
Karl Lock tells Amberleigh Jack that ‘‘Nobody winds up on their deathbed wishing they had seen less live music’’.
‘We saw this opera about Jesus because it was at the Hollywood bowl ... I’d rather see a band I don’t like live, that not see a band that night.’ KARL LOCK
If you ask Auckland-based Karl Lock why he spends so much of his life at concerts, he’ll tell you, ‘‘nobody winds up on their deathbed wishing they had seen less live music’’.
Since moving to Auckland from New Plymouth in 1997, the 47-year-old he has been to ‘‘well over’’ 3000 concerts, saying he averages about two shows a week.
Lock is the first to admit that his job – manager for JB HIFI music, movies and games – affords him the perk of seeing a lot of bands for free. But he’s still forked out cash for plenty, and saves to travel internationally at least once a year. ‘‘Normally I do a bit of a road trip by myself [overseas], and see as many bands as I can. When I’m by myself I don’t need to justify what I’m seeing. Absolutely, it’s an obsession.’’
When it comes to favourites, he’s seen Bruce Springsteen a ‘‘bunch of times’’ and last year travelled to the US to see Robert Plant and Alison Krauss play three times. While there he also saw Kentucky musician Chris Stapleton twice and parody artist Weird Al Yankovic.
He caught artists Prince and David Bowie before they died and has visited iconic venues such as LA’s legendary Troubadour to see Steve Earle play and even caught Kanye West’s Jesus is King opera at the Hollywood Bowl.
‘‘I’ve got no interest in Kanye West,’’ he says. ‘‘But we saw this opera about Jesus because it was at the Hollywood bowl ... I’d rather see a band I don’t like live, that not see a band that night.’’
Lock’s obsession started as a kid. He inherited a record collection and quickly ‘‘devoured everything’’. But it was his first concert in 1987 when Crowded House played his hometown of New Plymouth that ‘‘everything suddenly made sense’’.
More than 35 years later, he could ‘‘happily see Crowded House play every day for the rest of my life’’ and went to every show on the band’s 2020 New Zealand tour.
His two children (Hunter, 11 and Jack, 17) are also catching the music bug.
This month, he and Jack will travel to Melbourne to see one of Jack’s favourites, My Chemical Romance, play twice before returning to Auckland to see them a third time. Lock insists each gig brings something new, whether it’s crowd, venue or even set list.
Lock admits he’s very lucky to have a wife who supports his passion. In fact, she pushed him to travel to the US in 2017 and 2018 to finally tick off the two remaining acts from the top-10 band list he wrote when he was a teenager.
Those final two artists were Jerry Lee Lewis, who he saw play a rockabilly festival in Las Vegas, and Tom Petty, who he saw about six months before the rock star died in October, 2017.
He’s also seen historic moments, such as when former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr joined Paul McCartney on stage at Dodger Stadium in 2019.
As he watched them play songs the Beatles had never played together, Lock recalls thinking, ‘‘does it get any better than this?... There’s a feeling you can’t describe when you watch
something unfold in front of your eyes like that.’’
He’s also still open to the idea that the best may be yet to come, his ‘‘favourite song’’ may still be one he’s never heard, and the best gig he’ll ever see may come courtesy of a band he didn’t think he liked that he saw on a whim.
‘‘That band you don’t know or don’t like may surprise you. One day you may [hear something unexpected] and go, ‘holy shit, I f... ing love this song’.’’