Coldplay Fillmore Tickets: Spanish Fly for Losers

It didn’t take Dionne Warwick to predict that there would be an unbridled frenzy when the tickets for Coldplay's Wednesday “buzz gig” at The Fillmore went on sale last Sunday. Do the math – 1,200 seat venue...tens of thousands of fans looking for tickets…at least half of the tickets likely already spoken for before the public even had a crack at them (due to radio stations, record execs, Ticketmaster employees, Evil Geniuses, etc.). It was bound to get messy, and messy it has gotten.

As anyone who logged onto the Ticketmaster site at 10:01 AM found out, tickets sold out in roughly the time it takes that little Japanese guy to eat an all-beef frank. This left many, many, many people out in the Cold (sorry, that's terrible). But rather than causing a little natural frustration among fans who had hoped to attend a cool, intimate show, the masses have responded with uncaged fury. In thousands of posts on message boards, web sites and Craigslist, “true fans” have raged at the band, the venue and "Ticketbastard" because of perceived inequities in the ticket distribution process. Nevermind the fact that one of the biggest bands in the world playing a very small venue means that tickets will inevitably be scarcer than non-pedophiles at a ‘Star Trek’ convention - it’s a conspiracy at work!!

It’s been amazing, surreal, sad, and hilarious to witness the whole “buzz gig” saga unfold. There's been so much energy devoted to the controversy, you’d swear John and George were reincarnated for a special dual-headlining gig with Beethoven's ghost and Wyld Stallyns. Maybe a better comparison is the Golden Ticket frenzy in ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’; I’m fairly certain at least one wealthy factory owner suspended production and had all his employees hammer away at Ticketmaster’s site. At least with that, the Golden ticketholders got to frolic with exotic midgets in a twisted Candyland-on-acid setting. This is just a damn rock show by a band that, while good, ain’t exactly U2 (no matter how much they want to be).

In addition to the millions of pipe-dreaming “superfans” who are posting impassioned pleas on Craigslist for tickets to the show, there is another prominent trend developing: the burgeoning “tickets-for-love” trade market. A staggering number of posts have popped up from “decent looking, slightly overweight, sorta shy” guys (translation: replicants of Comic Book Guy from ‘The Simpsons’) offering tickets to the show to “attractive, fun girls who like to have a good time” (translation: hot sluts who will be so grateful for the CBG’s generosity that they’ll at least entertain the notion of putting out).

On the flip side, there have been countless requests for tickets by “hot, superfun chicks who like to have a good time.” Some have gone further than others with their offers, but most contain at least an implicit offer of carnal rewards. While I admire the opportunistic gall of these women, I just can’t imagine why anyone would take the bait. No matter how pathetic he is, a guy would be fucking nuts to give away a ticket to a chick just because she claims she’s “hot and fun” when he could turn around and sell it for $500-$1,000 on eBay. That’s good whorin’ money!

I don't know what it says about the state of romance when Coldplay tickets have become a substitute for balls in asking chicks out. Probably nothing, except that there are many, many guys who feel no shame in bribing girls who are presumably out of their league to go out with them.

In addition to the straightforward sleaze on Craigslist, here are some other innovative, amusing and mystifying approaches to the Coldplay ticket fiasco:

• A guy who’s using his extra ticket as a bargaining chip to get a job. You’ve got to admire the practicality and instinct in capitalizing on the frenzy of morons. I’d hire him.
• A guy offering fine wine for a ticket. The heart of rock and roll is still beating.
• People offering trades for Pixies/Tom Petty/Keane/Black Crowes/Snow Patrol/(insert other mediocre-to-crappy band here) concert tickets. Good effing luck.
• A guy (presumably in jest….although in this case, who knows) hilariously offering his prosthetic leg for a ticket.
• A person offering a ticket in return for a child who will be used to perform various forms of manual labor. Chilling to think about how many earnest responses and offers this person will get.
• A person advocating a mass protest the night of the show to stick it to Ticketmaster, Coldplay, ClearChannel, etc. Yes, the spirit of the ‘60’s is alive and well in SF.
• A woman offering a ticket to anyone who'll take care of her elderly, bed-ridden father while she's vacationing in Florida. Ah, the dignity of aging.
  
• A guy offering his 1994 Honda Accord LX for 6 tickets.
  
• I don't know how to sum this one up, but he's very thorough.
  

I'm sure the show will be a good one, but the real spectacle is going to be looking at the faces of the people filing out of the Fillmore as they come to the realization that they just dropped a grand/slept with a fatty/mortgaged their house/donated a kidney/sacrificed their dignity to attend an 80-minute rock show. That's the real show, folks, and tickets are free to all.