Concerts, and the music that generates them, help make me whole. Nothing can replace the awe and amazement when you can hear thousands of fellow fans singing together in unison to a favorite song. The energy and implied comraderie cannot be topped. Venues would fill to capacity the whole night long. And yet, sadly, outside of major concerts, you just don't see a lot of this. Most people seem to stick to the one band they want to support and show up for that band's set only.
Now, granted, the more specialized a scene gets, the more scattered the fanbase can be. There are hundreds of bands in the "metal" genre, ranging from heavy metal, death metal, doom metal, "speed" metal, thrash, and many others. You can have one person who loves In Flames but not At The Gates, and another that's vice-versa. But both of them may love Metallica.
When the band is smaller in popularity, that divide seems so huge that, if the bands share a card at a venue, you may have people show up for only one band and not the other. Not only does such specialized fandom hurt the other bands' chances of gaining a larger fanbase, it also hurts the scene.
I can't say that any particular scene is different from this. I've seen this in the punk, metal, post-punk, and even easier-listening genres. It's like people have become fans of bands rather than genres.
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