A Tale of Two Tickets or Why Did I Buy Early?

My mission here is three fold - a concert report, a fun look at two responses, and a big WTF to the process of buying concert tickets these days.

Julie and I have been fans of Todd Rundgren since 1972 or so. We have seen him many times together and on our own. The day, nay - the very minute - tickets went on sale for his visit to Grand Rapids with some members of Utopia in 2018, I was at my keyboard to buy tickets. FWIW, I prefer to go to the venue for ticket buys in order to avoid paying TicketMaster their silly ass fees, but that is another story.

So I bought two front row seats right away. They were very much stage right - all the stuff in the middle had been snatched up, but we were excited anyway. Front row! I bought these seats on  FEBRUARY 20th - just shy of THREE MONTHS BEFORE THE SHOW. 
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Fast forward to May 15th - Utopia is here. Julie and I closed our store early and went to the venue. Imagine our colossal disappointment when we were led to our seats ($118 each with the fee) and found we were indeed in the front row - but we were about 14 feet past the end of the stage and about 2 feet from the curtained off area the sound folks worked their magic. Our sight lines would prevent us from seeing Willie Wilcox on his drum riser much at all and provided NO chance of watching the New Guy Gil on his keyboards. WTF??? $100+ to look at a curtain?

Here comes the fun. Over the last couple years I have turned to meditation/breathing and mindfulness to cope with stress and the demands of life as a small business owner. I sat down and began to breathe and calm myself - I was trying to get over the MASSIVE disappointment of thinking we would be in the heart of the concert when the reality was we paid a lot of money for shit seats. Julie said she was going for a walk-about. After about ten minutes of breathing and calming myself, I had accepted our fate and was mentally prepared to make the best of it.

Just then Julie showed up with two NEW tickets - 2nd row full on center of the venue. WHAT? She had gone to the office - aired her complaints and BINGO - we were close enough for her to get the great picture you see above.

The guy sitting next to me had a great interpretation of the sequence. He said I was practicing one part of the Serenity Prayer (accept the things I cannot change) while Julie took matters head on and put another part to work - the courage to change the things I can! We both accomplished our goals - gotta say her result was more immediately gratifying. :-)

Speaking of the guy next to me - this is where things get real interesting. Julie and I have seats two and three in the second row. He had seat 1 on the aisle. He told me he bought his ticket the previous Friday - 4 days before the show! Wait, what? He did NOT buy from a scalper or a friend who could not go - he bought it on the web from the TicketMaster link just like yours truly. My point - how is it that when I bought our tickets MONTHS in advance, I did not even have a shot at any tickets in the middle? He told me the first four seats in our row were available when he bought his single (so it was not the case of just one seat being open.) The guy sitting on the other side of Julie bought his ticket the day of the show.

Make of this what you will. Something is very screwed up with the ticket system when an early bird purchase ends up with Obstructed View seats at a premium price and Last Minute Larry gets 2nd row center.

5/18 - NEW INFORMATION CAME MY WAY - I did get a decent explanation from another Todd fan. The front and center seats where offered first as part of a meet and great package at a much higher price. If those do not sell, then they become available as regular seats.


Anyway - the show was everything we had hoped it would be. Over and above. You could hear that Todd was fighting a cold at the start of the show, but holy shizzle when he let loose on Rock Love in the latter part of the 2nd set - WOW! The crowd jumped to its feet and let him know how pleased we were to hear his 70 year old pipes at Full Boogie!

The band rocked the house. Gil - the new guy on keys brought in at the last minute to sub for the ailing Ralph Shuckett - Kicked Some Keyboard Ass! He nailed the solo on Communion With The Sun and did a great job all night. Mucho Kudos to Todd, Willie, Kasim, and Gil for playing their hearts out and giving us a great night of music and love. One reason I have always enjoyed any permutation of Utopia and or Todd concerts over the years is that he and his band(s) always gave me the impression that they LOVE what they are doing (why else do it for DECADES?) and this show was no exception - they looked like they were having as much fun on the stage as we were in the audience.