Springsteen Born to Run (press for the book)

[Nurse Duckett]

Springsteen did an acoustic version of "The River" on Colbert (a US talk show). I think I have posted this before, but I am hard-pressed to find a song that is basically a novella that is as good as this one. There are better songs, for sure, but I don't know if there are fully formed stories in a song that is as good as "The River."

Steve Earle's 'Taneytown' from El Corazon might also qualify as a short novella - indeed, it also appeared in his Doghouse Roses collection of short stories.

[danielmak]

Springsteen's live series has mostly been good. He has just released another from his Brendan Byrne Arena 1984 10-night stand:

[WOM]

This is as good a place as any to note the astounding damage Springsteen has done to his fanbase with this Ticketmaster 'surge pricing' debacle. My lovely wife, a lifelong fan, and I (her obliging +1) were pre-registered with Ticketmaster Verified Fan for both the Buffalo and Detroit shows. After enduring absurdly long waits, we were greeted by tickets nearly sold old, but priced into the high hundreds / low thousands of dollars. These are tickets we'd normally pay $125 US for. Upper level, but happily in the room.

We refused to pay so we won't be going. She's seriously fucked off, as are many, many of his die-hard fans. And there's no absolving him through claims of ignorance about what TM was doing; Springsteen is highly involved in his tour planning, as is his management. This is greed...a cash grab...a last, long gouge of the fans. As has been pointed out, he's 72...so....I mean.

Anyway, fuck him. This is tone-deaf and off-brand and really bad form for him. This is the guy who, like Pearl Jam, cancelled shows in the past when it looked like a scalper's bonanza. Now he just wants in on the action.

[Hot Pepsi]

That is disappointing. Was the idea to claw back some of the money that was just going to scalpers anyway?

[caja-dglh]

That is disappointing. Was the idea to claw back some of the money that was just going to scalpers anyway?

Correct. Though he is the first high-profile artist to try Ticketmaster's thing and it was vocally opposed to weeks ago when the initial access went on sale. Yet it seems like they have decided to stick with it.

This might be interesting as I have a tin-foil hat theory that it is the same 300k who are always seeing Bruce live. Like a cleaning roster, except you get Bruce.

[Hot Pepsi]

I read a bit more.
Lots of people are pissed, but some people reportedly did get in at the $60-$400 level before prices spiked.
Not sure why WOM and L got left out of that.

He’s coming here in March 2023 and the TM site shows plenty of seats available in the $350 neighborhood. That’s about $300 more than I would spend, but you’re welcome to stay here if you want to come to that.

I guess everyone is thinking this might be one of the last tours.

[danielmak]

I posted something about this in another thread (two links to a blog posts/email newsletter). His tickets have historically lagged in price compared to other artists of his stature and as HP noted, he has always been hurt by scalpers.

With that said, c'mon a tour like this isn't some small fry thing. Be smart. Even though I read the articles I posted to the other thread, I didn't spend any time thinking about solutions until I started typing this response. Here is one: register your name, credit card with ticketmaster/live nation. The day tickets go on sale, you can't buy more than 4. The tickets are attached to you. When you arrive at the arena, you scan your ticket and credit card. You can only re-sell through stub hub (also owned by live nation/ticketmaster) and you can't sell at a mark-up. Basically you would re-sell because you can't make the event. Ticketmaster would do their part and remove their fees for re-sell (i.e., these bastards make money again whenever someone re-sells). They waive these fees because they want a massive tour like Springsteen's.

I'm sure there are problems with what I just typed. As I said, I just thought of this on the spot. I don't have a team of people thinking through this stuff like Springsteen's managements and Live Nation execs.

[caja-dglh]

Dude just needed to use data he probably has to sell to the repeat fans he has attending gigs before going open.

i could be explain to a data guy how to get that set.

<suddenly gets quiet and then thinks about a biz plan>

[danielmak]

Dude just needed to use data he probably has to sell to the repeat fans he has attending gigs before going open.

i could be explain to a data guy how to get that set.

<suddenly gets quiet and then thinks about a biz plan>

Yeah, this is a good shout, but here's the problem the more I think about it: his team has no sense of how to deal with tickets in general. My wife was up for a trip to NYC before COVID either mid-week or weekend to spend a few days hanging out, seeing friends and family, and going to one of Bruce's broadway storytelling and music shows. I got on the list and received a text that my general number in the queue came up. Then when I used the link that was sent to me, I was dumped into the portal with all of the dates. There was no differentiation among dates that had sold out or that had available tickets. It was the ticket buying equivalent of being in the worst shopping mall parking garage at Christmas time. I said, f**k it and bailed. Seriously? One of the biggest rock stars left and his team can't remove dates that are already sold out and only show dates that have tickets that match the request?

I am a regular poster in this thread and post other stuff about him. I'm a big fan, but the more I type this out, I start to wonder how stupid can you be? Every other rock band of his stature (Metallica, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam) would be way more organized than this.

[WOM]

Good solutions, but mostly already in place. Verified Fan pre-registration is intended to algorithmically separate real attendees from scalpers. The process worked fine for Springsteen on Broadway. The problem here is the surge pricing.

To L's point, if you want $250 a ticket, put that price on the ticket and give me the option to buy it. At least a dozen times, we'd select a pair of $125 seats only to have them turned into $800 seats by the time they hit the cart.

This was a gouge, plain and simple.

Thanks for the very kind offer, HP.