CHOOSE RANT

Title:   Concert Prices Day:    May 16th, 2000 Author:  Ruiner Update:   Just saw Finger Eleven in concert at The Brewery and they were great! A cool birthday present by some friends of mine. And the show was only Seven dollars. On another note, I thought ticket prices at concerts were bad enough. You should see how much they charge for seats at wrestling events. It's unreal.				I am a happy person, at least for the moment. I got to do one of the best things this past weekend. I went to see Nine Inch Nails in concert. If there was any doubt, I am a huge NIN fan (as some can tell by the screen name I use, the whole 'ruined' thing). This would mark the fifth time I've seen them perform in concert, and it keeps getting better every time I see them (okay, well except for the David Bowie incident, but that's beside the point). Regardless, I love the group, and I really enjoy my concerts, especially if a group can hold their own in a live performance. Some can't, but I won't start naming names… yet. So I'm thinking I'll grab some kind of memorabilia. Something to say, 'Hey, I went to see Nine Inch Nails and I had pretty good seats.' I haven't bought anything recently at concerts, mainly because I've been short on cash. But this is NIN, and if I'm gonna buy something at one concert, it's gotta be them. So before the show, I head over to the vending booth. They had plenty of shirts, ones with different artwork, different slogans. One in particular that we liked had a line from the song '...Damaged' : "Too fucked up to care anymore". But it was long-sleeved and I didn't want to grab another one of those. Actually I was interested in a cap, a black baseball cap with the NIN logo on the front and Fragility 2.0 on the back. I wear hats on the weekend when I don't feel like messing with my hair. So that's my target. But then, I spy the price. Thirty-five dollars. I'm thinking they must be confused at first. See, the hat is positioned very close to another item which could very well cost thirty-five. So I ask, but sure enough, the hat does cost thirty-five. I smile and reply that I just don't need a hat that badly. It's still difficult for me to get used to the jacked prices. T-shirts all sell for at least twenty-seven dollars now at these shows, much more if the shirts are actually cool. That long-sleeve I was talking about? Forty-five dollars if memory serves me well. And it's not just Nine Inch Nails. No, if they were the only culprit, I'd be a good little fan and not rant about it. But it's everyone. The KISS farewell tour I went to, you don't want to know the prices they had. You'd think some of it would have bargain-bin prices, since they're gonna have to get rid of the stuff sooner or later. I know prices have risen some in the past decade. Back when I first went to see Metallica, good quality black shirts were twenty bucks, and the special ones were twenty-five. But the price hikes to me seem a little outrageous. I suppose it wouldn't chafe me so much if the damned ticket prices hadn't gone through the roof. With surcharge (thanks, Ticket-Heister) my ticket to the concert was right at fifty dollars. Okay, well I got good seats. But I heard that lawn seats were about forty-five, so not much difference there. Tickets to the KISS concert were fifty-five. And I remember them saying that there were approximately sixteen thousand people attending the show I went to. Hmm. A quick glance at the calculator… $880,000.00. Wow, that's approaching a million dollars for the venue. Sure, not all of it goes to the group, I'm not that naive. But still that enormous amount of money has to go somewhere. I'm looking at attending Ozzfest and the Summer Sanitarium tour this summer. I'm positive each show will have a similar pricetag attached to the ticket. I'm sure their excuse would be 'Well, you get to see more bands'. And I agree to a point. But I also remember the large shows of the past. Lolapalooza and Operation Rock'n'Roll. Their tickets were in the neighborhood of twenty-seven or thirty dollars. I love my music, and I love going to live shows. But I think something is seriously wrong with the system. If I have to lay blame, I place it square at the feet of the Eagles. They're the bastards that decided to have a reunion tour and charge heavily inflated prices. And yes, I attended. I'm not an Eagles fan by any stretch of the imagination, but the girl I was involved with at the time was, so I went by default. At least we got lawn seats. They charged forty-five for the lawn and somewhere around ninety dollars per seat to that show. And fools were lined up to grab those tickets because they would definitely sell out. Honestly, I wish more people had taken the high ground and denied the Eagles their due, saying they would not attend because of the outrageous prices. But instead, it sold out faster than tickets to the latest Pokemon movie. And promoters took note and felt justified. So now it is all too easy to spend lots of money on these concerts. Let's say a couple goes to a show. For most of the concerts I've spoken of, we're looking at one-hundred dollars for both tickets. Then say they get thirsty. She's driving so she gets a couple of sodas. Six dollars. But he's drinking alcohol, and at five or six dollars a beer, he easily drops thirty more dollars. Oh, and they want to get matching shirts. Well hey, that's another sixty dollars. Before you know it, you're right at two-hundred dollars. Let's hope the band plays well. I wish I could take a firmer stand on this, but I'm weak when it comes to my music. There are still groups I have not seen live, groups that I own every CD for like Pantera. I will continue to attend shows, although now I prefer more of the smaller venues, like the Ritz here in Raleigh. It seems more comfortable, and it's not as expensive. Of course, the more popular your group gets, it brings on the larger venues and the skyrocketing prices. I think something has to give… soon. On a funny note, I think that Joey (of SufferBastard fame) and I should draft a big letter to Metallica. It should say that they should not worry about Napster and the possible money they'll loose because of those pirating their music. Hell, for the prices they charge at concerts, people might as well get a free CD off of the boys. Hmm, let's take Lars' list of 335,000 thieves and multiply that by thirteen dollars (the going rate for new CDs). The number is just shy of 4.5 million. They could play about ten shows and recoup that money fairly quickly. Maybe this is the solution? (grumble, grumble, greedy bitches) To wrap it up, I will say that my resolve was not that good at the NIN concert. I did not go crazy and buy the hat, but I did snatch up a tour program priced at fifteen dollars. I don't feel too bad about that purchase, but I still wish I had the hat. B.Mooney