Ticketmaster hates Phish fans [Another Epic Fail]

Well, it happened. Luckily, nobody but a couple of fackers and, according to the stats, no less than seven of their lovable lady friends noticed it, but yesterday was the first flat tire along the Schiff Happens road to Bonnaroo. Yes, friends, I skipped a day on the Bonnaroo countdown.

I have no excuse for this egregious error, but here are some potentially reasonable explanations as to why this happened:

1. I have an actual job with actual work to do that doesn't involve sarcastic riffs on Philly sucking, the biggest loser in the history of reality television, or mustaches.
   
2. I spent a few hours back at the doctor's office, including a subway voyage from work to the Upper East Side that was a pile of fail at every turn for absolutely no reason. On the plus side, I received a clean bill of health and was able to conclude my 24 hour Holter experiment, which ended with the same nurse who had hooked me up to the device on Tuesday violently ripping electrodes off of my torso and saying, "I told you it was gonna hurt." Of course, she saved the lone electrode that was deeply embedded in chest hair (the rest were on the sides of my abdomen) for last, building the nervous anticipation for my unplanned partial chest waxing. I may or may not have exclaimed "IAMSPARTACUS!" at the moment of detachment.
3. I participated in the latest chapter of "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People," authored by the friendly scalpers at Ticketmaster. I smell a story....

Around 8:30 last night, Ticketmaster released a bunch of 4-day passes for Phish's just-announced late July/early August run at Morrison, Colorado's renowned Red Rocks Amphitheatre. It will be Phish's first shows at Red Rocks since their infamous 1996 visit, and tickets don't go on sale to the general public until next Thursday (Umm, I mean next Friday. Yes... next Friday...). The pre-sale lottery registration isn't even complete yet, so this gives you an idea of just how random it was that these tickets -- and 4-day passes for the entire event, no less -- would have been released at 8:29 last night. I found out about this the same way I find out about anything worth finding out about -- Twitter (shameless follow me plug).

As soon as I saw this was happening, I went into frenzy mode. I @replied to a Twitter user called @imtrappedintime, the first person I saw tweet about the secretly released tickets. Feeling like I was working within an extremely limited time window, I eschewed the phone and instead instant messaged anyone I could find online who might care. I navigated the Ticketmaster site and, to my amazement, broke through to an order page. I actually backed out, with tickets in hand, out of sheer disbelief. I was able to get through a second time (nothing short of a miracle if you recall what happened the last time Phish tickets went on sale), and was staring at a 4-day, General Admission pass to what will no doubt be the jewel of the late summer tour. At this point, I am simultaneously having two separate IM conversations that both look something like this:

ZOMGPHISHPASSESONSALEWTF?!?! What do we do? Do we buy them? Are we even going to go? Is this real? WTF is going on? Should I click submit? I'm gonna click submit. Did you submit? What do I do what do I do WHATDOIDO I'MFREAKINOUT!!!

I don't know what came over me, but once my UVA fraternity buddy said he had submitted his request, I had to do it. Spontaneous $200 purchases for events that are months away and will be taking place across the country generally do not show up anywhere in the Schiff Happens playbook. It's just not something I do. But I did it. And then I waited....

I waited instead of celebrating, mostly because even after I saw that my order had gone through, I found it impossible to believe that any of what had just transpired was real. How had it happened? Was there a friendly fan working for Ticketmaster? Was it a planned move by the band to thwart second-party scalpers (this was a prevailing rumor immediately after the tickets became unavailable again)? Was it simply a glitch that would inevitably be heartbreakingly corrected? There was no way to know for sure, and thus no way to be anything but cautiously optimistic. At least not for a couple of minutes, until, sure enough, I got the confirmation email. Then the payment hold on my online checking account statement. Holy shit, it was really happening. I scored the motherlovin golden ticket!



And then, a few short hours later, I met Slugworth in a back alley, and he buttfucked that golden ticket right out of my hands. In an epic case of, "I never should have gotten my hopes up because it was always too good to be true," Ticketmaster declared that the tickets had been released in error, and that all orders would be canceled.

Now, Ticketmaster is apparently within their rights to do this in the event of this kind of unintended premature sale, as their terms of service (which I am quite aware that I agreed to simply by clicking "Submit Purchase") state. However, in light of the aforementioned LiveNation disaster, the controversy surrounding the Ticketmaster/LiveNation merger, and recent condemnation of their shady practices from influential artists like Trent Reznor and Bruce Springsteen (throw a fist!), I can't help but think of all the great PR Ticketmaster would have received if they had simply decided to let the purchases stand. They could have said, "We effed ourselves a little bit, but scores of loyal fans got tickets, and that's ultimately what Ticketmaster is here to provide." Instead, they bent us all over and stole our Everlasting Gobstoppers. Again. As usual.



It stings to have the Golden Ticket in hand momentarily only to see it ripped away, but in the end, I'm no worse off right now than I was when I woke up yesterday. I've put in my official lottery request, and I'll be damned if I'm not due to win one of these things. I'm remaining optimistic, but my experience last night taught me that I'll always have to be prepared to be let down as long as Ticketmaster/LiveNation is the only way for me to procure the tickets necessary to go see the live music that I love so much.

The point, dear reader, is that I got wrapped up in other things and lost sight of my goal -- those Bonnaroo festival gates, miles from sight, inviting me to join the summer's biggest party. However, there's no reason to fret. We've still got our spot in line and will continue to count it down from here on out. In light of this most recent Ticketmaster disaster, I think it's only right that we pick up the countdown with a little bit of Bonnaroo artist Nine Inch Nails. Between Mr. Reznor's aforementioned tirade against Ticketmaster, and the fact that several of Nine Inch Nails' albums -- The Downward Spiral, Further Down the Spiral, Pretty Hate Machine -- could be used to describe the company, it just makes sense. I've always been fascinated by NIN but a little bit too terrified to fully dive into their catalog, so I look forward to freaking the living piss out of myself as I prepare myself for their set at the 'Roo just 83 short days from today.*



UPDATE: Phish have issued their official response. Nothing really surprising there. The bigger update is that Ticketmaster sent me and the rest of the melancholoy Phishheads a letter explaining the situation, which included the following conciliatory paragraph:

In addition, we’d like to show our sincere regret for this error by providing you with a gift certificate in the amount of $50.00 that is redeemable for any purchase for tickets to qualifying events on Ticketmaster.com or through our call centers as long as your order was in accordance with our standard order guidelines. You should receive this gift certificate in the next two weeks.
We are sorry that we were not able to provide you with the tickets you ordered and hope that we will have the chance to serve you better in the future. We encourage you to visit Ticketmaster at the scheduled onsale for Phish at Red Rocks currently scheduled for Thursday March 26, 2009 at 12:00 pm MT.

So some small bit of good has come out of this... I guess. "We set you up for heartbreak -- oops, our bad -- but please enjoy this 50 dollars, which you can attempt to use next week as you inevitably get shut out of the same tickets you already had in your hand because we've sold them all to scalpers."

Fuckmylife Ticketmaster.

*If you don't want your precious childhood memories corrupted forever, or if you hate to laugh, then don't watch Kermit the Frog's rendition of "Hurt."

The Boss doesn't pump his gas - he pumps his fists

It has only been a week since we last checked in on him, but Bruce Springsteen has been so damn busy making headlines that it feels like we need to run a weekly recap on all things Boss. In true Garden State fashion, we're going to attempt to bring you up to speed on The Bruce by rating his recent newsworthy moments on a scale of one to five Rockin New Jersey Fist Pumps. Five Jersey Fists for the most bitchin possible news, one Jersey Fist if you'd rather pump your own gas than read that story. And away we go!

So, back in January, Springsteen released a greatest hits collection exclusively with Wal Mart. Just ten bucks for E Street's greatest hits? Not a bad deal, right? Well, not until you recall that Wal Mart has been accused of anti-union practices, paid major fines for violating labor laws, basically represents all that is soulless and evil in the world of corporate sleaze, and, you know, pretty much violates all of Bruce's core principles. The fans called him out on it, and Bruce issued a heartfelt mea culpa, calling the Wal Mart deal a "mistake." We can't let him off the hook entirely for the Wal Mart exclusive, but for hearing his fans and copping to his misstep, Bruce gets 2 Jersey Fists here.


Springsteen's PR blitz continued and really kicked into high gear at the Super Bowl, where he and the band gave their first press conference since 1987 (this still makes no sense to me) to joke about The Boss' complete lack of interest in football and speculate on the highly anticipated halftime show. No details were given, but Springsteen promised a "12 minute party," and on Sunday that's exactly what went down. The show was every bit the electric, rollicking performance that Springsteen fans have lauded for the last 30 years, and The Boss cemented his Super Bowl legacy when he delivered the most widely watched crotch-first into-your-living-room power slide in television history. Around the world, it was Boss Time. This is a no brainer: 5 Jersey Fists. Great 4-song set, vintage Springsteen ebullience, and a power crotch slide smack into a cameraman...come on. The look he gave to the camera right when it happened was worth 3 fist pumps by itself (Yes, I am aware that only Bruce's vocals were actually "live," but if the National Anthem can be pre-recorded, then so can Steve, Max and the Big Man. My opinion on this will not change. The 5 Jersey Fists stand).


Everyone loves the halftime show, except for Stephen Metcalf, Slate's resident high-minded shit-eater who trashed the performance because the set list failed to include "The Wrestler." Really? Granted, the song is wonderful and just won a Golden Globe, but really? Stephen Metcalf, you sir have earned yourelf one single solitary Jersey Fist - right in your fucking eye. That's how we handle things in the Meadowlands.


Not long after the Super Bowl performance (the very next morning in fact), tickets for Springsteen's "Working On A Dream" world tour went on sale on Ticketmaster. Legions of fans tried to log on and buy tickets at 9:00AM, but many encountered erroneous error messages and, worse still, were automatically redirected to Ticketmaster's reselling secondary site, TicketsNow, which offered tickets at far above face value. Once again, corporate America was putting the screws to The Bruce. Bad idea, Ticketmaster. You do not fuck with E Street Nation. Having learned quickly from the Wal Mart flare-up, Bruce, manager Jon Landau and the Springsteen Tour Team posted a strongly worded apologetic letter to fans on Springsteen's official site, condemning Ticketmaster and publicly railing against a possible merger between Ticketmaster and LiveNation, who just one week prior had infuriated Phish fans with a similar fiasco (and actually managed to make hippies everywhere nostalgic for their longtime nemesis, Ticketmaster, which has in fact always sucked). The New Jersey Attorney General announced an investigation into the incident, and Ticketmaster has since apologized to Springsteen and vowed to make amends to befuddled fans (riiiight....). You have to applaud The Boss' reaction to the situation, and at least Ticketmaster is admitting that they effed up, but none of that changes the fact that I didn't get tickets for shit. 2 Jersey Fists.


Late Monday night into Tuesday morning, long-standing rumors were finally confirmed when Bonnaroo announced its lineup, which will be headlined by 2 nights of Phish and one night of Springsteen and the E Street Band. I stated my opinions (and got Cartman's thoughts) on this matter months ago when the rumors came out, and I have since made it abundantly clear that I plan to be haulin ass to Tennessee come June. The lineup could not possibly be better, but it's worth raising an eyebrow over the fact that fans of Bruce and Phish just experienced epic ticket on-sale disasters, and as the two companies who perpetrated said disasters now talk of merging, the two bands will meet as headliners of the biggest festival of the summer. I'm no less excited, but there is reason for pause when the first wave of 'Roo tickets go on sale Saturday at noon, and though we can be glad that Bonnaroo at least takes care of ticket sales through its own site, this tiny seed of doubt knocks this news down a peg to 4 Jersey Fists.


Finally, Wednesday we learned that "Working On A Dream" became 2009's biggest debut, selling nearly 224,000 copies in its first week for a No. 1 ranking on the Billboard top 200. Most of those sales actually came before the Super Bowl performance. The album was given a 5-star review in Rolling Stone, and following all the crotch-sliding, Bonnaroo hype, and Ticketmaster hoopla (any publicity is good publicity!) should only go on to sell even more. More importantly, Springsteen finally knocked Taylor Swift (ok, I'm sorry, but... who?) out of the top spot after an eight-week reign. Long live The Boss!
4 Jersey Fists.


So now that you're all caught up, don't forget to buy your Bonnaroo tickets on Saturday. Until next week, when I'll inevitably have to recap yet another blitz of Springsteen news, enjoy Conan O'Brien's best attempt to recreate Bruce's Super Crotch Slide. This should keep you well entertained all weekend.