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There was a time...back in the dim and distant past...when buying a concert ticket was relatively easy. First of all, there was PUBLICITY. Your favourite band announced that they were touring. If you were lucky, they were playing in Dublin. After that it was a simple endurance test. You turned up at Golden Discs or HMV or whoever, the doors opened at 9 o'clock and you BOUGHT your ticket with cash. If it was a popular act...your U2s and so forth...you might have to queue up for a few hours before the official opening time. But you did it because like, you're a fan. And that's what fans do.
Nowadays, of course, that's all gone by the wayside. Popular bands don't advertise. They don't have to. So unless you join their fan website, you don't even know they're playing your town. And of course, very few people pay for fu*king ANYTHING with cash these days. It's all credit cards, which of course means that Ticketbastard can fu*k you in the ar*e for "handling fees", "service charges", "booking fees" etc.
In the last few years we've now had the phenomenon of the PRESALE. This is where the fans get a chance to buy tickets in advance of the plebs. If you're a U2 fan, like me, you have to shell out 50 euro and sign up to their official website for this privilege. And then there's O2. They have a presale scheme whereby if you're an O2 customer, you get a chance to buy tickets for O2 gigs before they go on sale to the general public.
I'm an O2 customer. Which means that EVERYY FUC*ING DAY I get texts from them offering me the chance to buy tickets for events, 99% of which I have no interest whatsoever in. But the ONE TIME, the ONE FUC*ING TIME, I am interested...in buying a ticket for Arcade Fire...no chance. Sold out in seconds. Or so I'm assuming. Ticketbasta*d's wonderful automated system doesn't actually tell you the tickets are all gone. You just get a range of options saying try again.
Well I'm fed up trying. Can anyone tell me, by the way, exactly when Arcade Fire became bigger than Jesus? I mean, they're good but they're not THAT fuc*ing good.
Anyway, to sum up: I'M GETTING TOO OLD FOR THIS FUC*ING SH*T. I DON'T FUC*ING NEED IT ANYMORE.
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