Trippin' the Live Fantastic

As you probably already know, because I tell everyone no matter how well or little I know them, I have front row tickets to Ryan Adams and the Cardinals and Oasis in Calgary in less than a month (less than a month!).

In addition, in the middle of September, Hot Al and I are going to Boston for FarmAid, which is some sort of benefit concert for farmers(?). I’m not really sure; it was Alex’s idea.

If you’re assuming, as Nicole did, that because it’s for farmers (maybe) it will be a country music festival, then you’re wrong. If it were country, I wouldn’t be going. Come on now, you know me better than that.

The headliners are Neil Young, Dave Matthews Band, James Taylor and Willie okay-so-it-is-a-bit-country Nelson. Oh, and if you are stuck in 1986 so still care about him, John Meloncamp will be there too. I’m almost positive that’s not how you spell John Meloncamp, but I can’t be bothered to look it up.

So that will be good. I’ve never been to Massachusetts.

Then, I am going to see Elton John at Harbour Station in September, thanks to a little undeserved devine intervention.

As the most recent development in my escapades, I actually have a story about that one…

I woke up early on the day tickets went on sale (a Saturday. Yeah. Believe it.) and began the infuriating ritual of dialing and redialing the Harbour Station box office on one phone, while dialing and redialing the 1-800 number to buy tickets on another phone, while also constantly refreshing the online purchasing page, which kept telling me that the server was too busy.

After two hours, I hadn’t gotten through on any of them. At all. Not once. I figured that, by that time, even if I did get through, the tickets would have probably sold out anyway.

I was absolutely gutted.

In a meager attempt to console myself, all day I sang, in a pathetic warble, “Music freaks, out in the streets, handing tickets out for Joh-oh-oh-ohn”. See what I did there? I took Elton lyrics and changed them to reflect my situation. Except it didn’t really reflect the situation, because if it had, I would have been a music freak out in the street accepting tickets for Joh-oh-oh-ohn.

Anyway, cut to later that evening, Hot Al and my brother and I were just returning from an afternoon of hijinx and adventure, and as we pulled into the driveway, mom came running out of the house, waving her arms like a maniac.

“Go to Harbour Station NOW!” she yelled and - from fear more than anything else - we immediately obeyed, no questions asked.

It turns out that both phone lines and the online server had crashed about two minutes into the ticket sale madness that morning. So NO ONE got through. The ONLY way to get tickets was to physically show up at the box office and wait in line. It’s basically that quality of planning and resourcefulness that I’ve come to expect from the Port City entertainment industry, but at least this time it worked to my advantage.

Around 8:00 p.m. – 10 hours after the tickets SHOULD have sold out, based on predictions and estimates – I walked away with four floor tickets.

My specific instructions to Box Office Boy (henceforth, BOB) were that I wanted four tickets, and I didn’t care if they were together, as long as they were decent seats. In fact, I specifically asked for at least one of the seats NOT to be with the others, because I’m going to this concert with my mother, and I know from experience (read: seeing Paul McCartney with my mother) that if I’m with her during a concert that I am really, really excited about, she will inadvertently depress that excitement with her stoicism. After all, it’s difficult to jump and scream and dance and sing and generally let loose when seated beside a neutral-faced woman with her arms firmly crossed the entire time, as is the stoic's way.

So, anyway, I suppose that BOB technically followed my instructions. And I suppose BOB assumed it’s only natural for people to want to stick close together on occasions such as this, so he probably thought he was being accommodating. But having said that, I fucking hate BOB.

It was only after I left the box office that I looked at the seats he gave me. There were three tickets together – floor, row 28, seats 7,8 and 9 – and there is one seat separate from the others – floor, row 27, seat 8. Directly in front of them? Are you kidding me, BOB? I realize you probably had a long day, but you didn’t have to take it out on me.

I guess it is for the best anyway, because originally the other three tickets were for mom, nanny and my Aunt Ellen, but Ellen stumbled upon her own ticket earlier in the day, so we now have an extra, which in all likelihood will go to Hot Al. So if mine wasn’t so painfully close to the other seats, he would have been sitting with my mom and nanny and I would have been no where to be seen (no, I wouldn’t have given him the single ticket. That’s not how I roll. He would deal with mom and nanny or he would not be going at all.)

So, to recap, 50 days from now I will have had direct contact (sort of) with Liam Gallagher, Noel Gallagher, Ryan Adams, various Cardinals, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, James Taylor, Dave Matthews, various band, and of course, the queen of my kings, Elton John.

In other news, 51 days from now I will be out of money and most likely living the life of a homeless. But who cares? It’s all about priorities.