MySQL LIKE query using column contents

I recently needed to build a query that would filter results by comparing a value from one table against another. This is relatively simple if you're checking for equality, but if you need to use MySQL's LIKE to compare strings, then things get hairy. My attempt at:
SELECT
    shows.*
FROM
    shows, states
WHERE
    states.id = shows.state_id AND
    shows.location LIKE %states.abbreviation Failed miserably. After some thought I realized that, because MySQL is looking for a string constant when using LIKE, I needed a way for the value of the column in question to be considered a constant but also prepend the wildcard '%' character in front of it. Here's the solution I came up with, and it works beautifully: SELECT
    shows.*
FROM
    shows, states
WHERE
    states.id = shows.state_id AND
    shows.location LIKE concat('%', states.abbreviation) Without a string concatenation character built into the syntax of MySQL, the use of the concat() function is required. It takes an arbitrary number of parameters that will evaluate into a single string constant. I couldn't find much from Google on this particular use of LIKE, so I hope someone finds this post useful.