2 nights with Tom Petty
Jun. 7th, 2013 05:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hummingbirdmadgirlWhen I was younger, Tom Petty played something like 20 nights at the Fillmore and I remember being devastated that I couldn't go. I forget when this was, but money was an issue and at that point the idea of traveling across the country to see a band, even THE band, seemed unrealistic.
This month the Heartbreakers did a week long residency at the Beacon Theater in NY and are following it up with a week long residency at the Fonda Theater. The Fonda is small, it maybe holds 1500 people and it's general admission. Suffice it to say I was psyched when we were able to score a pair of tickets for one of the shows (being last night). The goal of the shows was to NOT play their greatest hits (yay!)
monday night
On Monday, I checked twitter, something I do maybe once or twice a month at most. Generally I only check twitter if there's some huge news or if I'm bored at the doctor's office...but for some reason on Monday I decided to see what going on and RIGHT when I checked it, the official Tom Petty account announced there was going to be a trivial contest on their website for tickets for that night's show. I logged on assuming I'd probably missed the contest, but instead was there right for the beginning and because an inordinate amount of my brain is reserved either for Tom Petty trivia or Tom Petty lyrics, I ended up winning the second question and getting a pair of tickets for the opening night. I was beyond psyched.
So we got to the Fonda and waited in line for 2 hours on Hollywood Blvd which in and of itself is awesome people watching. Then we got inside and had to stand around for 2 more hours until the show started. More great people watching but something was off...primarily that the audience, opposed to the arena shows which seem to be mostly hippies or fratboys, was mostly much older than me and where I got free tickets, they'd spent hundreds of not thousands of dollars for their tickets. In addition, no matter how much people had spent on their tickets, everyone had had to wait outside in the sun for hours before getting into the venue so I think a lot of people were dehydrated and were also not used to GA shows...so between the amount of money people spent, being worn out, overheated, and out of their element, once booze got thrown in things turned kind of nasty kind of quickly. I assume people who bought scalped tickets had an unrealistic sense of entitlement and felt it wasn't fair that they weren't in the front row (ethan and I were 6 people back from the stage) and suddenly I was witnessing people my mom's age attacking each other. It got so bad that I tried to break it up (as this was happening right next to me) and then suddenly someone my mom's age was screaming at me to fuck off while simultaneously punching anyone who tried to walk closer than her to the stage. It was kind of tense and unpleasant.
I get that when you sit outside for hours you want to be close to the stage. but I also believe that over the course of a 2 hour show it's totally reasonable to switch places with people and let them have a better vantage point, especially for such a rare occasion. I say this as a HUGE Petty fan, but to me, I didn't need 2 hours of being 20ft away from the dude, and was more than okay to see two happy dancing people get a little closer to the stage. But sadly most people were insanely territorial of their real estate on the floor and you could just feel the hate radiating from them whenever someone got up closer...which was really pathetic when you think about it, as it's a rock show, people are going to dance and get shuffled around and it's supposed to be FUN, but you could just see these little clusters of people who were infuriated by the fact they weren't in the front, by the fact someone in front of them let a stranger pass them by...it was just really disheartening in a way. But the band sounded great and the song selection was awesome.
thursday night
we tried to sell our tickets (at face value) for thursday's show because we felt like we'd been very lucky to go to the opening night and wanted to share our good fortune with others. however, it was reallllllly a pain in the ass to transfer tickets, so in the end we sold Ethan's ticket to a hardcore fan and I went by myself. It only seemed right because Ethan doesn't really even like Tom Petty and the woman we sold the ticket to had driven down from SF for business and decided to try to get a ticket for the show last minute. So I went into the venue with her and she pulled me up to the first row (!!!!) where some friends she had made on line were hanging out. Somehow I lost her in the crowd (i was still in the first row) and suddenly I was getting SCREAMED at by another posse of women my mom's age who were threatening me for being in the front row. To be incredibly clear I did not push in front of these women as I was about 10 feet to their right, I did not push in front of any of their friends, and the guys behind me had absolutely no problem with my being there as they were quite tall and I wasn't blocking their view. I told them that I'd head toward the back after the first song, that I just wanted to see Petty up close for the beginning and then I'd go find somewhere else to stand...the conversation between me and the raging women essentially went like this:
them: we waited out here all day to get in, you don't deserve to be here
me: i was outside all afternoon too, but I didn't have VIP tickets (which cost $300 a piece) so I was at the head of the other line...I'm going to leave right after the first song, I promise
them well maybe if you got a fucking job you'd be able to afford expensive tickets. YOU DO NOT DESERVE THIS
then they started screaming that they were going to call security but the guys behind me essentially told them to shut up. it was very exciting! then a fight broke out about 3 people behind me because some one else felt that their territory had been encroached upon by some guy (and said guy was super petite, easily shorter than me). This was essentially the vibe throughout the whole venue.
So Tom Petty came out and I was like 6ft away from him and I swear I was just heartbroken. He was wearing so much makeup and looked -so- old and tired. His hands were shaking as if he had some sort of tremor to the point where I have a hard time believing his guitar was really even plugged in because it would've sounded awful. It wasn't some stylistic choice, he just seemed like he couldn't hold the strings down without shaking....I don't know if it was nerves or health or what....but after nearly 30 years of fandom and wanting to be close to the stage, there i was and it was AWFUL. Seeing him so old and frail made -me- feel old and frail (standing for like 6 hours didn't help) and after the first song, true to my word, I escaped the front row and went up to the roof where the music from the mixing board was being piped. It sounded better than being in the venue since you could actually hear the band instead of hearing drunken screaming women.
On the roof I ended up talking to a bartender and security and they essentially said that these were some of the worst audiences the theater has seen in a while. They felt that the audience was one that wasn't really handling the whole standing in the sun all day and then standing on the floor + drinking thing very well and that EVERY night so far had had a lot of people getting into fights or passing out....but that the difference between this happening at a punk show vs a Tom Petty show was about a 40 year age difference and that was actually making things worse.
I eventually went downstairs again and ended up hanging out with some guy who was friends with the band and he was going to give me his afterparty pass because he didn't want to attend, but I demurred since Ethan was not with me and all I wanted to do was go home. Even the guy who was friends with the band thought that the crowd was nasty and kind of out of control and was counting the minutes for the show to be over so he could go back to the hotel suite and get his stuff and drive back to San Diego. This night the band sounded good (not as good at monday) and played more covers.
So all in all it was a weird scene. I feel incredibly lucky to have won tickets, to have gotten my brief moment in the front row, to have made another hardcore fan seriously happy, but I was also just disheartened by the whole VIP ticket thing. It is, in my mind, stupid to have VIP tickets for a GA show since there's no way to enforce one's VIP-ness and because of that, it results in a lot of tension...which is a shame to have all these undercurrents of hostility happening in what should be a really special event. Don't get me wrong, it was still awesome and I'm thrilled to have gone twice, but it was memorable in all the wrong ways.
This month the Heartbreakers did a week long residency at the Beacon Theater in NY and are following it up with a week long residency at the Fonda Theater. The Fonda is small, it maybe holds 1500 people and it's general admission. Suffice it to say I was psyched when we were able to score a pair of tickets for one of the shows (being last night). The goal of the shows was to NOT play their greatest hits (yay!)
monday night
On Monday, I checked twitter, something I do maybe once or twice a month at most. Generally I only check twitter if there's some huge news or if I'm bored at the doctor's office...but for some reason on Monday I decided to see what going on and RIGHT when I checked it, the official Tom Petty account announced there was going to be a trivial contest on their website for tickets for that night's show. I logged on assuming I'd probably missed the contest, but instead was there right for the beginning and because an inordinate amount of my brain is reserved either for Tom Petty trivia or Tom Petty lyrics, I ended up winning the second question and getting a pair of tickets for the opening night. I was beyond psyched.
So we got to the Fonda and waited in line for 2 hours on Hollywood Blvd which in and of itself is awesome people watching. Then we got inside and had to stand around for 2 more hours until the show started. More great people watching but something was off...primarily that the audience, opposed to the arena shows which seem to be mostly hippies or fratboys, was mostly much older than me and where I got free tickets, they'd spent hundreds of not thousands of dollars for their tickets. In addition, no matter how much people had spent on their tickets, everyone had had to wait outside in the sun for hours before getting into the venue so I think a lot of people were dehydrated and were also not used to GA shows...so between the amount of money people spent, being worn out, overheated, and out of their element, once booze got thrown in things turned kind of nasty kind of quickly. I assume people who bought scalped tickets had an unrealistic sense of entitlement and felt it wasn't fair that they weren't in the front row (ethan and I were 6 people back from the stage) and suddenly I was witnessing people my mom's age attacking each other. It got so bad that I tried to break it up (as this was happening right next to me) and then suddenly someone my mom's age was screaming at me to fuck off while simultaneously punching anyone who tried to walk closer than her to the stage. It was kind of tense and unpleasant.
I get that when you sit outside for hours you want to be close to the stage. but I also believe that over the course of a 2 hour show it's totally reasonable to switch places with people and let them have a better vantage point, especially for such a rare occasion. I say this as a HUGE Petty fan, but to me, I didn't need 2 hours of being 20ft away from the dude, and was more than okay to see two happy dancing people get a little closer to the stage. But sadly most people were insanely territorial of their real estate on the floor and you could just feel the hate radiating from them whenever someone got up closer...which was really pathetic when you think about it, as it's a rock show, people are going to dance and get shuffled around and it's supposed to be FUN, but you could just see these little clusters of people who were infuriated by the fact they weren't in the front, by the fact someone in front of them let a stranger pass them by...it was just really disheartening in a way. But the band sounded great and the song selection was awesome.
thursday night
we tried to sell our tickets (at face value) for thursday's show because we felt like we'd been very lucky to go to the opening night and wanted to share our good fortune with others. however, it was reallllllly a pain in the ass to transfer tickets, so in the end we sold Ethan's ticket to a hardcore fan and I went by myself. It only seemed right because Ethan doesn't really even like Tom Petty and the woman we sold the ticket to had driven down from SF for business and decided to try to get a ticket for the show last minute. So I went into the venue with her and she pulled me up to the first row (!!!!) where some friends she had made on line were hanging out. Somehow I lost her in the crowd (i was still in the first row) and suddenly I was getting SCREAMED at by another posse of women my mom's age who were threatening me for being in the front row. To be incredibly clear I did not push in front of these women as I was about 10 feet to their right, I did not push in front of any of their friends, and the guys behind me had absolutely no problem with my being there as they were quite tall and I wasn't blocking their view. I told them that I'd head toward the back after the first song, that I just wanted to see Petty up close for the beginning and then I'd go find somewhere else to stand...the conversation between me and the raging women essentially went like this:
them: we waited out here all day to get in, you don't deserve to be here
me: i was outside all afternoon too, but I didn't have VIP tickets (which cost $300 a piece) so I was at the head of the other line...I'm going to leave right after the first song, I promise
them well maybe if you got a fucking job you'd be able to afford expensive tickets. YOU DO NOT DESERVE THIS
then they started screaming that they were going to call security but the guys behind me essentially told them to shut up. it was very exciting! then a fight broke out about 3 people behind me because some one else felt that their territory had been encroached upon by some guy (and said guy was super petite, easily shorter than me). This was essentially the vibe throughout the whole venue.
So Tom Petty came out and I was like 6ft away from him and I swear I was just heartbroken. He was wearing so much makeup and looked -so- old and tired. His hands were shaking as if he had some sort of tremor to the point where I have a hard time believing his guitar was really even plugged in because it would've sounded awful. It wasn't some stylistic choice, he just seemed like he couldn't hold the strings down without shaking....I don't know if it was nerves or health or what....but after nearly 30 years of fandom and wanting to be close to the stage, there i was and it was AWFUL. Seeing him so old and frail made -me- feel old and frail (standing for like 6 hours didn't help) and after the first song, true to my word, I escaped the front row and went up to the roof where the music from the mixing board was being piped. It sounded better than being in the venue since you could actually hear the band instead of hearing drunken screaming women.
On the roof I ended up talking to a bartender and security and they essentially said that these were some of the worst audiences the theater has seen in a while. They felt that the audience was one that wasn't really handling the whole standing in the sun all day and then standing on the floor + drinking thing very well and that EVERY night so far had had a lot of people getting into fights or passing out....but that the difference between this happening at a punk show vs a Tom Petty show was about a 40 year age difference and that was actually making things worse.
I eventually went downstairs again and ended up hanging out with some guy who was friends with the band and he was going to give me his afterparty pass because he didn't want to attend, but I demurred since Ethan was not with me and all I wanted to do was go home. Even the guy who was friends with the band thought that the crowd was nasty and kind of out of control and was counting the minutes for the show to be over so he could go back to the hotel suite and get his stuff and drive back to San Diego. This night the band sounded good (not as good at monday) and played more covers.
So all in all it was a weird scene. I feel incredibly lucky to have won tickets, to have gotten my brief moment in the front row, to have made another hardcore fan seriously happy, but I was also just disheartened by the whole VIP ticket thing. It is, in my mind, stupid to have VIP tickets for a GA show since there's no way to enforce one's VIP-ness and because of that, it results in a lot of tension...which is a shame to have all these undercurrents of hostility happening in what should be a really special event. Don't get me wrong, it was still awesome and I'm thrilled to have gone twice, but it was memorable in all the wrong ways.
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Date: 2013-06-08 10:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-09 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-10 12:25 am (UTC)Weird.