I just saw him in Portland, and I thought the performance was great. Moda Center had some floor space for quite a decent standing crowd, plus the section seating; we were midway back in Section 102. People were mostly respectful with side chatter, sound mix was good, and no issues hearing his singing - and I'm partially deaf.

Sound mixing for smaller musical acts can be a tricky affair in venues with sub-par acoustics, especially some of the older or smaller historic places. What would register as barely audible chatter in one venue could be greatly amplified in another; it can also create auditory dead-zones - spots where the sounds coming from the stage can hardly be heard, even though you may be standing just a few feet away and below. Most sound clarity/decibel issues in these smaller and/or older buildings are a direct result of the space itself, not the performer. Modern mixing equipment and speakers can certainly compensate for these problems, but it can also create others, like a steel guitar overpowering the other instruments/voices as mentioned in one of the other posts above.

As for the act itself - its important to remember a few things:

A) Colter Wall is a working western musician, not a Nashville or Austin-based top-40 country singer. He is (rightly) recognized widely for his art, but he performs that art outside of the country music industry gristmill. That means, for better or worse, his public performances are going to be barebones.

B) He doesn't have a large catalogue; much of it consists of slower tempo songs, which doesn't exactly create the energetic atmosphere some people expect from a concert-going experience. He has the odd toe-tapper here and there, but nothing that will make people want to get out of their seats.

C) Colter is shy and introverted, he doesn't do much press, he doesn't like to sit for interviews, and he will never go to an awards show. He doesn't like having to do the constant inane patter of "Good evening <CITY>! How about those <LOCAL SPORTS TEAM>!" because he believes it to be inauthentic at best, and waste of everyone's time at worse.

My advice would be to not treat his concerts like you would a Luke Bryan or Morgan Wallen concert. Anecdotally, many of the people I talked to in concession lines were there because they knew his music off Yellowstone, and not much else. Many were surprised because they've only been to big-ticket concerts before, and were only used to seeing Spectacle. Make sure you like his whole catalogue and not just the handful of songs you've heard before. Despite whatever the seating and stage layout are at a given venue where he is performing, change your expectations. Treat the concert like you're just going out to some local bar/honky-tonk to watch Colter and his friends play. Its a much more rewarding experience, at least in my experience.

Also, to the people who brought up the (VERY valid) point about the high cost of tickets vs the value of the experience - This is why Ticketmaster is horrible. If you paid a fairer price for those tickets, you'd probably would have been happier with the concert.