I has a sad that I didn’t go to the Cure last time they came to town and my child said afterwards she wanted to go.
I’ve seen them a couple of times and they do play long “this is the last encore. But it’s going to be really really long”. Cue seven song encore including one really long song
My sisters went to see Taylor Swift in Dublin last year. It was cheaper to buy tickets for the Dublin show and fly round trip from Chicago than it was to buy tickets for the Chicago show.
Wow! That’s… insane. I had a friend in grad school from france and it was cheaper for her to fly home to get some dental work done than it was to have it done here…
She was far from alone in that. I believe that TicketBastard have slightly less of a monopoly in Europe and that moderates prices somewhat.
Also air travel is massively subsidised (subsidised airplanes, subsidised fuel, subsidised airports, subsidised transport to and from airports, etc.) which means insane things like that can happen.
I’ve seen them a couple of times and they do play long “this is the last encore. But it’s going to be really really long”. Cue seven song encore including one really long song
I’d never seen The Cure before as I’ve always been more of a casual fan than anything but I was just blown away by the quality of the show, cheap (but very high quality) merch, and reasonable ticket prices. Best of all, Robert Smith looked almost giddy with excitement to be there and seemed so genuinely humbled by the crowd response. After a ho-hum performance of one of their deeper tracks/indulgences, Smith apologized to the crowd saying how they like to play with the set list at every show and sometimes it doesn’t work out. His authenticity was lovely. I’ve seen so many bands who are clearly just there for the paycheck and going through the motions that Smith’s whole positive demeanor really resonated with me. It really converted me into a bigger fan and supporter.
While not quite the same, I’ve found that often times it’s way cheaper to get tickets to shows in Vancouver BC, which is just a couple hours away versus the same shows when they are here. Also I find the BC crowds to be much more enthusiastic than Seattle crowds — probably because it’s even more of a wilderness when it comes to tours. I like to say, Seattle doesn’t have music fans, it has music enjoyers, which means concerts often have pretty low key and more serious crowds. I’ve been to some wild shows here before, but usually it’s a different vibe.
It’s not necessarily worth it for me to pick Vancouver over Seattle since things like fuel and hotel costs will generally balance out in the end, but given the choice between that and Portland or central/eastern WA, it’s usually a no brainer. (Then again, these days I’m less enthusiastic to cross the border.)
In case one might think anti-copying terrible ideas other than taxing blank tapes started in the aughts. Clear case of running something up the flagpole to see what would happen and then running away from it. “Declined to name the artists involved”.
Billboard Magazine 1982
Funny to me because as a young kid I was oblivious to the arguments, but it already seemed obvious; tapes were inferior in quality, even years later with decks with dolby and metal tapes. They did vary widely and some of the commercial tapes I bought were terrible. Except for portability (especially traveling off to college), I pretty much regretted every tape purchase. Records sounded much better but then I had to spring for a blank to take on trips, and money didn’t grow on trees the way GB of portable storage do now.
(note that Adult Contemporary and VH1 became a big thing shortly thereafter)
Umm… phrasing?
