Security is pretty strict about smoking in Portland. I haven't seen anyone get away with smoking anything for more than a minute in years. I'll mostly only see shows at venues that have excellent sound. I hate shows downtown. Most the venues have shitty sound and finding parking is a drag. When I see a quiet show and some girl is talking over the whole thing about what she's going to do this weekend I lose my shit. I only see one or two shows a year now a days, getting up at 5 am makes late nights a drag. One nice thing about Portland is that most shows end before 11 pm. I saw Billy Bragg when I was offered a free ticket, it was a good show by a guy I wasn't very familiar with and I saw John Maus twice because he's great and is also my wife's favorite artist.