Someone Call a Cop

THE NEWS:

The Police are set to embark on their first tour in 23 years! To celebrate their 30th anniversary, Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland will trek through arenas and stadiums across North America this summer.

I checked my thesaurus to see what words were synonyms for "trek", since it's an odd descriptive for anyone not traveling by foot. I found hike, tramp, slog, trail and trudge. That sounds like a lot of work. I sure hope they're being amply compensated.

So, there I go, over to the Ticketmaster site (Circle 4 of The Nine Circles of Hell) to check out the ticket prices, to let me know how much celebrating I can do. Plus, I figure if the boys are going to trudge all over the United States, they had better be making enough money to afford gorp.

At the aptly named Palace at Auburn Hills, the geezers are accepting $227, $92 and $82. That should be enough to keep them waist-deep in gorp, even at New York prices. At the Madison Square, the tickets start at $254. The seats in New York must be closer.

There's even a Gold Hot Seat Package for $405. I can only imagine. First of all, a gold hot seat sounds like something that happens to people with urinary difficulties. I'm not sure I want to sit in a gold seat - especially if it's warm.

Who would chunk down $405 to see this?

The joint will be filled with power-buyers. Big corporate jerks who never really dug the band, but "grew to love" them once they found out that their CEO was giving them tickets. The CEO bought them from a ticket broker who got in on the pre-sale and jammed up the Internet with hundreds of workers buying thousands of tickets. It'll be harder to get a ticket for this than it was for George W. Bush to learn to say Barack Obama without giggling.

By the time the real "since Fall Out and Roxanne" fan gets a shot, the choices will be (a) A "cheap" seat in the Mount Everest section or (b) Pay a broker three times value. Include me out.

I think The Police are betting that their audience has now become nouveau riche middle-management types and can fork up the money and barely miss a mortgage payment. I think they figured right.

Whatever, it's big-time production Music-as-Business and I consider it to be at the basement of everything that myself and my family hold dear. It isn't the function of entertainers (especially artists and musicians) to build a stage that could contain a cruise ship and run ticket prices through the roof. The art should be above that, but I'm not naive enough to think that they aren't in it for the cash. It's a money grab, plain and simple.

In 1978, you could have paid 5 bucks to see the young, energetic Police, not this current bunch of Stung, Jerry Springer and Harpo Marx.
Could they charge half of what they do and sell the place out? You bet. But, they can also charge what they are and still sell it out.

What Would Jesus Do?

It should be illegal, but it is subsidized and encouraged.

Go figure.