Things that make me mad #1

I have not felt compelled to blog for quite some time. Shame on me. Anyway.

I like that some of my blogger friends have frequent posts that follow the same theme or pattern. Thus begins "Things that make me mad."

Tuesday, I drove into Manhattan with Boyfriend to go see Our Lady Peace at Irving Plaza. (Things that make me glad #1?) The show was so amazing that I got the idea at approximately 2:35 this morning (approximately 10 minutes ago) to check LiveNation's site to see if there were any tickets left for the Philly show. Yes, OLP was that good. So good, in fact, that I would like to see them again in a little less than a month. That's just dandy, isn't it?

Well, here's the thing that makes me mad. You might think that there were no tickets available. Ah, but there were. I could not get them in the cheaper 4 pack promotion because it seems that there may be not be any of those promotional packs left. Alas. So, I checked for two adults, and I found two tickets available at the $20 price. Great, right? After Tuesday's show, $40 seems like a more than fair ticket price.

Then I saw the actual purchase page. On top of each $20 ticket price was a convenience charge of $10 and a venue fee of $2. Seriously? That made each ticket cost $32 apiece, and seriously made me rethink purchasing these tickets. I understand that the economy is shitty and we all have to make money some way or another, but is it really necessary for a THIRD of the ticket price to be random fees? Why not just say that the price of a ticket is $32 and leave it at that? It looks way better than saying the ticket is $20 and then spanking the ass of the unassuming consumer with a ridiculous amount of convenience charges. I love you, Raine Maida...but fuck that.

I've been doing a lot of reading about the whole proposed LiveNation/Ticketmaster merger/monopoly/cluster-fuck, and I really can't decide if the whole concert industry is going to get better or worse because of it. They say that by merging or buying each other out or monopolozing the concert industry or what-fucking-ever they're going to reinvent the concert-going experience and ultimately make live music by national and international touring acts (like badass Canadian rockers such as OLP) more affordable and accessible to the masses. LiveMaster or TicketNation will then save the world with the power of rock and the concert-goer will be happy and the venue will be happy and the artist will be happy and we'll all get naked together and have one giant lovefest-orgy of happiness. Maybe I'm just skeptical of corporate America, but I really don't see that happening.

I really loved the OLP concert because it was in a venue like The Fillmore at Irving Plaza. It felt like a club show because it was a small venue and we were packed in like sardines and Raine Maida is fucking crazy and climbs balconies. I don't think that I should have to pay $40+ for a club show because of ridiculous fees. I end my rant having no idea what I would like to see happen. I think that $32 is still way too high a ticket price for a show at a relatively small venue, so maybe more people would still balk at sky-high prices if the fees were just included in the face value of the ticket. I have no real answers; I just wanted to bitch for a little. Thanks.