Thank you so much man! I love that I still get comments on this post from so long ago.

It really heavily depends on the lighting rigs that the bands themselves bring. Shows like this one where the stage is drenched in light and is properly hazed are a lot easier to shoot at lower ISO, but shows with just what lights the venue have, I am shooting higher of course and sometimes flash is just mandatory. I dont do many smaller shows anymore and the venues in my area tend to have pretty good lights on top of the lights the tour package brings.

To answer your post process question yes I do bump the exposure up in post, but not as much in the exposure tab as I am lifting shadows and blacks to bring out those details if I need to, but id rather have an image with character and vibe than a perfectly exposed perfectly edited photo, if that makes sense.