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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Benefit Concert
By Stock Forrest | September 5, 2008
I really messed up. Earlier this summer I talked my editor into sending me to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Benefit concert in Cary, NC. He made it clear that we have almost no travel budget and that this show would have to be a big deal in order for me to go. I really wanted to go, because I once spent a stimulating evening with a woman who taught literature (or biology or math…I wasn’t paying attention) at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. I’ve been meaning to pay her another visit, and this looked like a perfect opportunity.
The concert benefits the John Entwistle Foundation, so there was a lot of speculation that members of the Who would be appearing. The problem was that the lineup for the show was not announced up front. They released the names of only a few performers prior to tickets going on sale.
I told my editor that we should buy my ticket in advance, based on some quotes from promoter Rick French:
“If we announce the full line-up prior to putting tickets on sale, very few people in the Triangle would be able to land tickets at anything close to affordable prices due to secondary market ticket brokers using computerized programs to overwhelm Ticketmaster and buy the majority of the available inventory. Since we only have 7,000 tickets in total we are trying to keep that from happening. That is why the best seats to the biggest shows are gone moments after they go on sale and you can immediately find them on Stub Hub at 2-3x the face value. We want people locally to have a shot at the tickets at face value. You will have to trust us … it will be well worth the wait.”
“We could have done this at Wembley Stadium and sold it out but we wanted something much more intimate and with better sound.”
So, I bought my concert and plane tickets. They have now announced the full lineup. When my editor saw the list of performers, he blew up. There are no big draws there. The headliner is Jack Bruce. I covered the Cream reunion shows at Madison Square Garden. That was a big deal. Seeing Bruce solo at this point is no big deal - he played a bunch of Hippiefest shows this summer at small venues.
My editor will not reimburse me for the concert ticket or any of the travel expenses. If I still go and write something up, he said he might publish it.
There have been some complaints on the show’s message board, and a local music blog has provided some snarky coverage of the announcements here, here, and here. Other than that, however, there has been no buzz about the show at all.
I can’t believe I fell for some promoter hype - if anyone should know better, c’est moi. But I’m still going to go. Some of my best friends and enemies in the business will be playing, so it will be interesting no matter what. I just gotta hope that my lady friend will put me up so I don’t have to pay for a hotel room.
Topics: Concerts |
September 6th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Wow! All the performers have played extensively with the “likes” of a lot of great musicians!
September 8th, 2008 at 10:46 am
That’s right, Beach. I plan on playing six degrees of Steve Lukather in between sets.