coventry

I'd still love to see Gordon, though. Was spinning one of his Songbook cd's today, as a matter of fact.

It's got nothing to do with having a thick skin, Mick; it's about a vocal minority acting as if not getting tickets is personal. I'm not particularly bothered by it any more than any other thread, but I can't sympathize with self-indulgent petulance. And just as there are people on this thread who are calling me out on any number of issues, so too will I call out other members on things I notice. I mean, it's a forum about a rock band, not a religious discussion. I can't speak for everyone, but there really is an issue with some of the shenanigans that venues are pulling this time around. Tickets for me are the same price as they have been in the last 3 tours but my venue is playing games like I've never seen before. They're quite clearly controlling what tickets are being funnelled into the system every few hours. 6 hours to sell out all out every seat except nosebleeds only to have tons of 100 level seats appear in the evening out of thin air? I expect there will be tons of floor seats again next week or when the tour actually gets promoted in the city. I feel it's something legitimately complaining about. Every concert I've been to likely controlled the flow of tickets to a degree but never anything so blatant. I agree that the seat release and the schedule is suspect, but it's a seller's market. We can complain about it all we want; the venue's job is to sell tickets to cover and exceed the cost of the show, overhead, and fees. However they go about legally doing that is up to them. Having said that, I'm not saying I don;t give a shit about those who are unlucky enough not to have scored any seats except distant 300-level ones. It's just, at this stage, it's too early in the game to go into histrionics.

Same thing happened to me in Columbus last tour. Had seats right next to the stage just off the floor. Then they slid the stage back one whole section. This tour, I got on right at 10am, and picked up Section 104 row D. They moved the stage again! Whine! Whine! Gripe! Bitch! This shouldn't affect VIP tickets, or would it? They're supposed to be within a certain amount of rows from the stage, regardless of where they move it. This kind of tinkering with seats almost seems illegal except the venue carefully inserts that "conditional, we-can-move-seats-as-needed" clause into their sales contract. It's definitely not in good faith, just as the relentless scalping and massive resellling goes against the grain of artistry as well.

Lots of artists: Phish, Umphreys, The Yellowjackets, The National, Jaime Cullum, War on Drugs, Mars Volta, Chris Issak, etc. There's always good, quality music out there to be enjoyed. Lest I sound pollyanna and pompous, of those listed above, only Phish will bring me to the emotional level that Rush does; the rest are various stages of enjoyment and appreciation and "must sees" in their own right.

You missed my point. And one of my previous posts where I refuted your OP. You can get quite good sound with a system that costs no more than two Rush VIP Gold tickets. Maybe you should understand how vinyl playback works before you go trashing it.

Same thing happened to me in Columbus last tour. Had seats right next to the stage just off the floor. Then they slid the stage back one whole section. This tour, I got on right at 10am, and picked up Section 104 row D. They moved the stage again! Whine! Whine! Gripe! Bitch! And yet I can see the whining here. A) It sucks completely. and B) That's deliberate manipulation of a product already bought. Not griping over something never had. (and I'm sorry you were dorked over by the venue)

It's got nothing to do with having a thick skin, Mick; it's about a vocal minority acting as if not getting tickets is personal. I'm not particularly bothered by it any more than any other thread, but I can't sympathize with self-indulgent petulance. And just as there are people on this thread who are calling me out on any number of issues, so too will I call out other members on things I notice. I mean, it's a forum about a rock band, not a religious discussion.

It's not the frustration one can feel when repeated requests for "Best Seats Available" go rejected some few seconds into the sale. That's understandable. It's the tone, the whole "I'm through.." and "It's not fair..." and such. That's whining. Research how large venues release tickets (as has already been pointed out a few times in these threads). Figure you'll get decent tickets if you really want them. Keep TM up and running and check it each day. Look for postings alerting fellow TRF members that new seats are available, etc. You want frustration? What about the South American or Scandinavian fans who quite possibly will never see the band again?

Stop being so fourth wall, lorraine. I'm not whining about things. I'm admonishing those who are. I don't get your "fourth wall" reference - Call it admonishing if you want. I say you are whining about whiners. Fourth wall is calling attention to the very medium one is using (like an actor talking to the camera, or someone acknowledging she's whining about whining). By your generalization, any critical observation is whining. Which is pretty general.

Stop being so fourth wall, lorraine. I'm not whining about things. I'm admonishing those who are.

Its not about whining, More about frustration. Yes I agree. There are a lot of people that have been long time fans that can't afford the tickets this time. Especially if it's going to be their last decent sized tour. I can understand thinking this, but sometimes it's better to just keep quiet. People just need to vent their frustration and this may be the only outlet they have with people that would understand. Except it's been going on since the first pre-sales started. And it went on during the CA tour, and the one before it. People blame scalpers, they blame, ticketmaster, they blame the band. I get the frustration, but accept the fact that this is the current paradigm in big-name ticket sales, especially hyped ones. You're a really big fan of the band? Good. Then be happy with upper-level nosebleed seats. At least you're seeing them live.

Not to be acerbic, but whine, whine, whine; "in the past it was this"; "it used to be so easy to do this"; "what happened to the days of.."; "I'm frustrated with how I'm not able to get seats that befit my love of the band..." I'm sorry - did a bunch of my self-entitled high school seniors just take over this forum? I mean, I understand the frustration, but we're adults here. This is a capitalist, supply/demand system. Yes - there are slimy scalpers with professionally-written bot algorithms who scoop up all the good seats and then make obscene profits on them. This has been going on for how long now? Why is this news? I agree - its a deplorable, albeit legal practice that somewhat deadens the whole experience. And yes, sometimes I too would like to be able to stand in line at the local venue or TM outlet overnight and proffer up $30 for a 2nd row seat. I'd also like to open up a brand new "Missile Command" cartridge while listening to the Police's new album, Synchronicity, but that's not going to happen again, either. You want tickets to a major draw, arena rock band? Then this is part of the game. You want good seats consistently? Start seeing smaller acts in smaller venues. Try general admission shows. Try the symphony or a good jazz club. But please stop whining about your frustration at being outwitted in the ticket game.

I hear a rumor back in '86 that Neil was a fish...the proof being his mullet.

True. If Neil were still a tractor-parts and farm-supply salesman in some nondescript Ontario town, would any one of us - had we the circumstance to stop in the store - want to talk with him or hang out after the sale?

I mean, on this reseller site: http://www.ticketnetwork.com/tix/rush-05-14-2015-tickets-2485726.aspx tickets for floor seats 15 rows behind me are going for $132, basically $35 more than what I paid for my fanclub presale Row 11 tickets. That's easily worth it if I didn't already have tickets.

Don't be such a drama queen. I can understand you're frustrated that you didn't get tickets, or even the tickets you would have wanted. But as many people have already pointed out, decent tix are available closer to the show date, even is you have to pay x-amount of dollars over cost.

Most of the time a skip can be countered by adjusting the vertical tracking force on your tone-arm. And just like used vinyl, a used CD comes with its wear and tear. I would advise newcomers to give vinyl a try, especially with the quality pressings being issues more and more frequently. A reputable site like this http://store.acousticsounds.com/cat/5/Vinyl_Records has plenty of audiophile-quality new and old vinyl. While discogs.com (http://www.discogs.com/ has researchable pressings to see which one is the best sounding. It may be a bit more fuss than popping in a cd, but again, most cd players have subpar DAC's in the first place.

Tell me about it. I wish I had known when I was younger what it was going to be like for me now. I would have had a bigger blast than I had. What was that thing Oscar Wilde said? "Youth is wasted on the young."

I remember back in the 90's days of tNMS, rumors were being stoked about the next release (T4E) and someone posted that it would be the album and be called "All Good Things". Seems a bit more fitting now than 18 years ago.

Edit: Dismissing most adult listeners' use of vinyl as "nostalgia" is condescending at best and completely misinformed at worst. You sound terribly petulant, but with a little real information, you should be okay. Preface: Don't be fooled by the Crosleys they sell in Barnes and Noble, the current hipster turntable equivalents of a 70's Speak-and-Spell. Don't also be fooled by the $10K boutique behemoths fawned over in audiophile rags. Both are completely unnecessary to good analog reproduction. 1. It's really not a lot of work. You clean your vinyl once a year or so with a cheap ($99) rotary machine, clean your stylus every few weeks with something as simple as Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, and avoid dropping your albums, and you're good to go. If you want to invest $5K in a top-of-the-line vacuum and liquid cleaner, you can, but that's really not necessary. 2. Expensive is relative. For the price of 2 Silver VIP Rush tickets, you can have a really good, dependable turntable and cartridge and some well-reviewed interconnects. 3. Vinyl sounds as muddy as the pressing, plus whatever speakers you're playing it through. A good pressing played through decent speakers sounds transparent and holographic. You can get Stereophile Recommended Components speakers for under $300. You have to do some research about which old pressing is the best, of course. And keep in mind that many new releases are mastered and compressed at levels that WILL muddy up the sound over sub-par home stereos. Many new releases are recorded and mastered with car stereos and earbuds in mind. 4. An old record is going to have pops and cracks unless you thoroughly clean it - and even then it will as the grooves have probably been microscopically scratched and have dust ingrained within. Still, a "continuous analog wave" is going to present itself much better than a sequence of ones and zeroes played by a cd player with a high jitter rate and decoded by a pedestrian DAC. Most people have crappy cd players. Most also listen to horribly compressed mp3's, eschewing lossless FLAC's and the like because of the space they take up. 5. Yes, much depends on the amp. The same can be said for any sound source. If you're using a Best Buy-grade Pioneer or mid-level Onkyo or the like, you're not going to get much in the way in fidelity, especially if you're using a receiver designed for home theatre. For the price of two VIP Gold Rush tickets, you can have a good TT, cartridge, IC's and phono stage amp, and listen to years of music as opposed to three hours.

Idk; by selling my STL floor seats on StubHub, I could make a 400% profit minimum and take the family on a nice, long weekend getaway. I'm not going to do that, of course, but I can see why others are in this for the money.

No. The sound quality wouldn't be worth it. Unless one had a $5K set-up, you'd get a muddy brickwall of sound.

This is why I'm glad I'm as ardent a Phish fan as I am a Rush fan. The former never play the same setlist twice, ever. The latter repeat the setlist impeccably with minute variations. Each is equally emotionally cathartic, each would find it impossible to replicate what the other does live.

To quote Neil, who was quoting Capote, who was quoting a Bedouin proverb: "The dogs bark, but the caravan has moved on."

Rolling Stone had a good article about how the VIP trend is ruining concert experiences and ticket trends. The gist was that the VIP tickets also drove up other tickets, discouraged hardcore but not-so-well-heeled fans from trying to get tickets, and rewarded businesses who would buy VIP tickets for clients, etc. Essentially, how concerts were going the way of major sports venues a la sky boxes executive lounges, and the like.