I love going to concerts. In my heyday in LA (because every single musical act in the world comes through LA), I would attend at least 1 concert a month, and sometimes several in concerts in a week. I love a live concert experience. The Lady Gaga concert on New Year's Eve was my last concert of 2009 and I remember thinking that I wasn't seeing another concert again until the end of March (actually later tonight) when I'm seeing the John Mayer concert at the Staples Center in downtown LA.
Listen, I'm all for musical artists making as much money as they can. Lord knows their radio play and digital track sales aren't exactly paying for the private jet, but I'm out as those prices. And it's not just the ticket price, it's the facility fee, and the "convenience" fee and the taxes and the parking fee (at least $20) and the nightmare getting in and out of the concert and the $12 beers and $15 dollar drink - each.
3 months and only 1 concert? And then Paul McCartney, Sting, the cast of Glee, and Lady Gaga all announced upcoming concerts. Excellent! Paul McCartney & Sting are living musical legends and Gaga & Glee are the gayest concerts I could ever go to - I was SO EXCITED!!! And then I looked at the ticket prices....WTF?!?!?
It's as if we weren't still living through a recession. For Paul McCartney, the good seats start at $750!!! Are you f-ing kidding me?! I know Sir Paul is a legend, but for close to a $1000 I would expect a personal concert in my home at that price. The $250 seats are the NOSEBLEED seats. Really for $250 all I get is the nosebleed seats?! That's a lot of money to watch a spotlight follow a dot around a stage while singing famous 60's tunes. Sting's prices are a bit more reasonable, but he's doing an orchestral tour. Lady Gaga's tickets are $250 and those are just the decent seats. The good seats are $400 and Gaga just became famous and started touring last year. Glee was no better. If you wanted good seats, you would have to pay $200? Really? $200 for a glorified celebrity high school glee club concert?! Hell, even Conan O'Brien, who isn't a stand up comedian, and just made $32 million for NOT doing The Tonight Show is charging his fans $695 to meet him $500 for the close seats and $250 for the nosebleed. And yes, most of these artists (except Sir Paul) have seats for under $100, but they're super nosebleed from a very high altitude seats and there aren't that many of those seats available at all. And you know who started all this overpriced concert tickets (and got it) was U2 with their environmentally unfriendly, but amazing concert (see my previous blog - I watched it for free on You Tube).
Listen, I'm all for musical artists making as much money as they can. Lord knows their radio play and digital track sales aren't exactly paying for the private jet, but I'm out as those prices. And it's not just the ticket price, it's the facility fee, and the "convenience" fee and the taxes and the parking fee (at least $20) and the nightmare getting in and out of the concert and the $12 beers and $15 dollar drink - each.
I tell ya, when I can just sit in the privacy and comfort in my own home and watch a digital concert with digital sound on my TV watching either HD Net's Sunday Concert series or Palladia (MTV's HD concert channel - notice how tarnished the MTV brand is that even MTV isn't branding their own channel MTV any more?) why the hell would I want to pay outrageous prices for an inconvenient experience to witness 2 hours of music when all I see are little glowing specs saying, "Thank you" after finishing a song and asking, "Are you all right ________ (insert you city name here)"? And after complaining about this recently one of the comments I heard back was, "Well, just watch the concert on the monitors." What? I didn't pay $500+ to be a live concert and basically watch it on someone else's massive TV. I can watch a concert on my big screen TV at home for free where my cable company is already ripping me off for $150 plus a month.
First I was too old to stand in the General Admission pit with the kids, but now I'm too rich to overpay for a minimally satisfying music experience. I don't mind spending a lot of money for a great musical experience if I feel I'm getting my monies worth, but a lot of money for nosebleed seats sound like a bad deal to me. Rather than enjoy the music, I would spend the whole time at the concert angry because I overpaid and I'm having a bad time for a lot of money.
As for John Mayer, I got great seats for under $100. Thank you John!
(Full Disclosure - I did overpay for the Gaga tickets, but they were for a great cause - my boyfriend's birthday, and we did get nosebleed seats for Glee, and I MIGHT, MIGHT be spontaneous and see Paul McCartney and Sting - but if the prices are out of control for bad seats, I definitely won't).
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