Part I: The Long Laborious Road
Picture this: It's two weeks ago, and my wife is making a list of all area concerts within the next few months and then we debate upon which ones we might attend. There was the Cheiftains here in a few days, the Lemonheads in Indy in a few weeks, Guster down the road in March, and oh, Lyle Lovett, Guy Clark, Joe Ely, and John Hiatt in Indianapolis on Sunday. Yeah, let’s do that.
The wife left for work with instructions to make with the purchasing of tickets. Dutifully, I looked up the show, found the venue’s website, and looked for a phone number or method of buying online.
All roads led to Ticketmaster, those bastards. I punch in for two tickets in the best available section. Nothing. Hmm, that’s weird, lets try again. Still nothing. Okay, let’s try the cheap seats. Then the expensive seats. Nada, zip, zilch. Maybe they are sold out. I’ll try buying just one seat. Bingo. So, they either only have one seat left in the whole venue, or they have several single seats throughout. I’ll have to wait for the wife to make that call.
Sunday comes and we debate the action. It’s totally worth going to, but the wife is trepidatious about sitting alone. I make a phone call to talk to a live person to verify my assumptions about the single seats. Yep, the man on the other end agrees. We can get two tickets, but they will be separated by rows and rows. I ask him to calculate the total prices while I ask the wife if this is what she wants. The ticketbastard has a bad connection and I can barely hear him, while my wife mumbles uncertainty.
That will be $225 total. What!? I know the Ticketmaster fees are outrageous, but single tickets are only about $45, that’s like a 100% mark up. The connection is getting worse, and the wife is getting more unsure so instead of arguing I tell him no thanks and hang up.
More debating brings us back to the computer to see if they are showing up anywhere else near here on the tour. Sure enough, next week they are coming to Louisville. Great let’s get those tickets. They have two seats next to each other, and they are actually much cheaper than the Indy versions. This is perfect.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
wow, cool show! i'm not so familiar with Clark as with the others. love Joe Ely. the band i used to be in got some special joy out of playing "Everybody Got Hammered"
2 - Mat Brewster
See I know Clark's stuff pretty well, but only know a couple of Ely's tunes (and he didn't play either) but it was really cool to see all those guys up there, playing songs and having fun.
3 - Mark Saleski
ya, i can't imagine a show involving somebody like Hiatt not being fun.
4 - El Bicho
So where did you post the torrent of the show?
5 - Mat Brewster
Believe me I was looking around for tapers. But it was in one of those nice auditorium type places there were all sort of notices about taping and photographing not being allowed, so those big mics would have been noticed.
I do have a copy of these four performing several years ago you might persuade me to send you. This will, of course, rely on my ability to actually find it in my unorganized collection, and your ability to send the shows you promised weeks ago.
6 - Connie Phillips
Congrats! This article has been forwarded to the Advance.net websites.
7 - Loyal to Lyle
We saw the N.M. round of this show. Agree it was wonderful. But not your remark on Lyle interviewing Hiatt about his song (the horse song, right?). That was hysterical, in a distinctly Lovett, understated way. And Clark wasn't annoyed, just playing the straight guy. How could you miss that?
8 - Mat Brewster
He looked kind of annoyed to me at the time. Maybe you're right and he was just playing along. It was a great show either way.