Monday, December 06, 2010

Clapton Isn't God, But ...


Eric Clapton is on tour. Despite the fact that he's been part of my musical background forever  -- a Beatles-era guy who played with them, and whose Derek and the Dominoes album provided two songs I do on my guitar, "Layla," and "Bellbottom Blues," we've never seen him live. 


Tickets went on sale at ten a.m. today. On the stroke of ten, I tapped the buy tickets button and got put into the queue, whose clock animation began. And which then ran for thirty-three minutes ...


The way ticket sales are done these days is arcane. A certain number of them are sold in advance to what are essentially legal scalpers. The prices on those get jacked up PDQ. A floor ticket that goes for $125 face value -- spendy enough, thank you -- will go anywhere from ten to twenty times that much on the re-sell market. Who can spend a couple thousand bucks for a concert ticket? Not me. 


The promotors are apparently required to hold onto and sell a certain number of tickets at an advertised time and for face-value, and if you can time it right, you can snag some of those. You select "best available," or however much you can afford, and wait to see if you'll make it before they run dry. 


We lucked out. We got two good seats for less than an arm and a leg. Not the best seats -- there are folks who have that button click timed to the mirco-second, but not bad. Given what they are going for from the scalpers, we could already get thrice what we paid them, but we won't.


Yeah, yeah, geezer rock. But assuming the old guy survives until then (and us, too,) we'll see him live. 


Layla -- you got me on my knees/
Layla -- I'm begging darlin' please ...

6 comments:

steve-vh said...

Outstanding!
Snagged tickets to Bob Seeger's first show of his tour a few years ago. And they were actually well worth the $$. and he didn't look old either.

Daniel Keys Moran said...

I admit that Don Henley and the Eagles aren't the greatest musicians the world's ever seen, but I still see them every chance I get. They're not geezers quite, but they're not far from it.

Steve Perry said...

Clapton looks his age -- he was fairly dissolute back in the day, drugs and booze and all, though not in the Keef-class of wastrel. Don't matter. I'm no spring chicken myself.

If the bad feelings the Eagles have for each other didn't ooze from them like contact poison, I'd be more inclined to go see 'em -- another part of my musical score comes out of the Laurel Canyon crowd, and despite the crap they get from the folk-county-rock snobs, they came up with some outstanding stuff.

But every time I've seen them interviewed on the tube -- that 60 MInutes deal back before the Hell Freezes Over Tour, ow, that was painful to watch.

Yeah, we argue but we're family? Uh huh, The Borgia Family. Don Felder's bio makes you shake your head. Last few times on the road, what keeps them from killing each other on stage is apparently the mantra "All that money! All that money!"

heina said...

I got to see Clapton last year with Steve Winwood. Helluvah concert. Winwood did a version of Georgia on my Mind solo with an organ that melted the place. Clapton's not too shabby either. Definitely worth seeing.

Jim said...

Outside of some venues -- the ticket sales system right now is a scam, and designed to feed the resellers. So us ordinary folks who work and just want to buy a ticket either sell a few arms and legs to afford questionable seats... or give up.

I go to Wolftrap on occasion. (It's local to me.) I like the Barns there, especially. It's a real up-close & personal venue.

Daniel Keys Moran said...

There's only a few acts I'm willing to pay stupid money for -- Springsteen, Eagles, Melissa Etheridge, Fleetwood Mac. But you can see local acts for very reasonable prices -- $20 bucks a head kind of stuff. I've got a few acts I try to get out to see just so I can drop a few bucks in the can.

Yeah, the Eagles hate each other. So did Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham, and some great music came out of it.