AndGraceToo Wrote:chris Wrote:Don't let the door hit you on the way out...
Nice attitude..I guess it's a Toronto thing, but I guess I'll never know.
To quote ol' HAL 9000 from Kubrick's
2001: a Space Odyssey:
Quote:I can tell from your voice harmonics, Dave, that you're badly upset. Why don't you take a stress pill and get some rest?
That did seem way over the top Chris, just from the way it read. Maybe I didn' read it quite right, but it did come across as an "Well F'off then why don't you"
Let's say, gord forbid, you weren't able to get one of the limited tickets to one of these shows, or you happened to live somewhere beyond Toronto and couldn't make the trip to see the show.
As a matter of fact, regardless of whether you'd prefer seeing a Hip show over a show by [insert a lesser-name band B, i don't know anything about Widespread Panic and haven't found the need to yet], you would technically have more money for the [band B] show if it was the case that you couldn't make the Hip show. You might even have a good time at the show.
Regardless, no matter how many people live within 125km of these cities, the venues that the Hip are playing can only hold about 1000 per night (i.e. 4000 vs a 15,000 hockey rink). It's understandable that people would be frustrated by the concentration of smaller shows in one particular area when there are numerous 1000-seat venues at any particular place in North America. I live very close to the Commodore, so I can't complain at all, but I'm sure that people have their price points for going to see a show and we seem to be hitting them fairly often now (see RHCP and Tool as examples).
Add in the travel and it gets to be prohibitive. The Commodore is a magical place, but $60 is quite of a bit of cash. I remember getting into the Greg Moore fundraiser at the Commodore back in 2000 for something like $25 maybe? Could be wrong on that, but we have witnessed a significant spike in ticket prices in some cases (while at the same time there are some fantastic shows coming up in Vancouver for like $15 each, go figure). This makes it difficult to see the band perform on multiple nights. I find this to be one of the more enjoyable ways to appreciate what a band like the Hip is able to do, unlike a lot of other artists, i.e. with their catalogue and idiosyncracies they can put on a new show every time, like a 7-game baseball series (or hockey if you prefer).
At the same token, we might also have reached the point where the band has hit its own price point for extensive cross canada tours involving multiple rigs of lighting and sound equipment as well as the band and crew. While I'm fully expecting more Canadian/U.S. dates, as we've seen in the past, I've wonderd at what point fuel costs while drive out any mid-sized stadium tours to the point where it's either PopMart or bust.
Anyway, there's lots of considerations and it's pretty quick to be sending understandably frustrated fans out the door (especially when you're running the "hipfans.com" site. oh the irony). While, on the other side, it's also pretty quick to assume that this is the extent of the touring from a band that historically finds its legs when it's out on the road. Maybe it's not a "a lot of folks" that are getting happy from these smaller shows, but at the same time this is just "some exciting tour information" not all of it.
Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah (sorry, i just scrolled back and noticed the length of this post) Blah Blah Blah Blah.
That is all.
-jf
I hope everyone can the tickets they want - I'd love to be going to these shows.