planetdan

Sunday, May 06, 2007 :::

Just when you think you've got it all figured out.

I consider myself to be a pretty sophisticated concert-goer. I've attended many shows and events, so over the years I've prided myself at learning the tricks of the trade. For instance, if the ticket says "Doors open at 6pm", you'll be lucky if the main act starts before 9pm.

There haven't been many good concerts in town lately. All the worthwhile acts are travelling the festival circuit right now apparently. Minneapolis always gets skipped. So Ben Gibbard of The Postal Service and Deathcab for Cutie was coming to town and I thought it might be an interesting show, in spite of my indifference toward the artist himself.

"Doors 6pm" said the ticket. I called the venue, and a bare-bones message said there were two opening acts, neither of which I had ever heard of. I surmised that if doors opened at 6pm, the first opening act would start at 7pm, the second at 8pm, followed by the main act at 9pm. And that was wishful thinking. I'd been to concerts where the doors opened at six and the main act started after midnight, so I wasn't too worried.

Kmack and I took our time, got a nice dinner, walked toward the concert venue while stopping at various bars along the way, and casually sauntered up to the doors of First Avenue around 9:10, fully aware but not worried that we may have missed the first song or two. To our surprise we were greeted by the door(wo)man who just gave us a confused look:

"Um, shows over."

I'm getting too old for this shit. Why can't they print out schedules and stick to them? This is the internet age fer chrissakes.

Who gives a shit about Ben Gibbard anyway.

::: posted by dan at 3:41 PM :: [ link ] :: (11) comments

Comments are Closed On this Post

11 previous comments:

Same thing happened to us at a Beautiful South show. Doors opened at 8:30, we got there at 9:30 and apparently missed half the show. Then they broke up, dammit.

By

elcynic, at 6:54 PM

don't miss the openers! sometimes you get to meet awesome new bands that way... i always watch and listen to every single song the evening offers me to get the most out of the ticket.

By

Richard, at 7:21 PM

His mother.

By

Anonymous, at 11:34 AM

Ben went on at 8:40 and played a little over an hour, so you couldn't have gotten there at 9:10 and been told that the show was over, it had to of been later.

By

Anonymous, at 1:12 PM

It was 9:10 or 9:15 at the latest. Fer realz. I even have a witness.

But my real point was that concert venues need to get their act together to have some standard for scheduling shows so that I don't have to a) sit through five boring as hell or just plain awful (read: Frog Eyes) opening acts if I don't want to, or b) miss the show entirely.

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dan, at 2:14 PM

Um, they do have a schedule. Doors opened at 6pm. And anyway, like Richard said, you can find out about new, up-and-coming bands by watching the openings. And if they suck, just go out a buy a band t-shirt, have a beer, take funny pictures of people with your cellphone...

By

lola, at 2:51 PM

Ack, Frog Eyes! I had finally cleared the memory from my brain and then you have to go ahead and bring it back up again. Damn you, Daniel! Don't you remember how painful that was? And how swealtering hot it was in there? Ah, good times.

By

Anonymous, at 4:07 PM

I agree with you Dan. I hate how it seems like bands will just come on and start playing whenever they feel like it, with no regard for the fact that most people there have real jobs they have to go to the next day and would rather not sit at a concert listening to nothing for an hour.

By

Zoe, at 6:35 PM

The rub here is that the concert you attended was 18+. If you're going to a 21+ show, your formula is fairly reliable - doors open, 1st act an hour later, 2nd act an hour after that, headliner an hour after that.

The formula goes out the window when "youngsters" are involved.

That said, Ben is a very nice guy.

By

Ryan, at 1:08 AM

There haven't been many good concerts in town lately.

i guess you missed The Rapture on tuesday? it was a great show. the effed up thing about that show was that The Rapture were the opening band! WTF? they went on promptly at 9:30 followed by the craptacular Shiny Toy Guns. needless to say we were out of there by 11.

By

Honey Bunny, at 10:03 AM

I've never cared much for Mr. Gibbard. I think God was just lookin out for his homeys.

By

Anonymous, at 2:14 PM

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