Selling the Drama

Example #54,294 of why I'm the biggest dork alive: I spent no less than three hours of my day today following the on sales for Pearl Jam's fifteen Canadian concerts. I also devoted an hour and fifteen minutes to fruitlessly dialing the Fort William Gardens box office in the hopes of getting my friend and his girlfriend a pair of seats, and was duly rewarded when I got through and found out that the show, despite being held in a 4,000 seat venue, wasn't yet sold out. This is what happens when your venue doesn't have an on line sales method--the only way you could get tickets for the Thunder Bay concert was by phone or in person at the box office (which is why some people were camping out as early as two days ago). Afterwards, I followed the rest of the on sales because...well, because this is what I do. London reportedly sold out in ninety seconds, with Kitchener following close behind; Toronto took fifteen minutes, and what with the release of the rear view seats is still technically not sold out. Hamilton is the one southern Ontario show with any kind of decent tickets still available, but even then they're largely side view seats. The rest of the tour sold just as well. Winnipeg, for instance, was originally supposed to be a 270 degree show; but demand led them to open the seats behind the stage, and soon those were all gone as well. And Newfoundland--Newfoundland!--sold out so quickly that the band added a second show. Two shows in St. John's, one in Toronto...yup, the apocalypse is officially upon us.

What does it all mean? Nothing--except that Pearl Jam made a lot of money today at the expense of the Canadian public. But it's much, much better seeing your favourite band in a rammed-full venue...and when you've already got guaranteed best seats in the house, it's fun watching everybody else fall into line.

On a semi-related note, I think I'm going to turn this into a de facto Pearl Jam blog for the next few months. I've always wanted to write about the band, but have usually failed to find the appropriate words; now that I've got this space, I may as well give it a whirl.