Great Show. Erratic Seating.
9/9/07 00:06![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madrobinsTonight was the Richard Thompson show at the Mountain Winery. When they say Mountain they're not kidding: 45 minutes drive down there, and then another 20 to get to the top of the mountain, but it's pretty spectacular. The concert venue is in a hollow in the side of the hill, with an ivied brick structure (it looks like something that was used in the winemaking process, but I don't know exactly what) as the backdrop. It was a slightly foggy evening, but there were stars, and tree frogs, and all that excellent music. This tour was in support of Sweet Warrior, a mostly electric CD with some really good songs, which I will now need to run out and buy instantly. "Needle and Thread" and "'Dad's Gonna Kill Me" and "Mr. Stupid" stood out from the album, but he also did a bunch of older stuff, going back to "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" and "1952 Vincent Black Lightning." He finished his second encore with "Tear Stained Letter," which had everyone up on their feet and singing along. He also does a lovely line in self-effacing British audience-chat.
Of course there was a rub, right? I won two front-row tickets to the show, courtesy of KFOG, our local preferred radio station. They called in the middle of the week to confirm. So we showed up at the Will Call booth and the tickets were not there. Apparently KFOG had the tickets (both my set and several sets of General Admission tickets) and someone was supposed to have dropped them off. But they hadn't. The nice lady at the Will Call booth was kind but firm: she gave us GA passes for the show, but couldn't give us the front-row tickets. We then tried (in a place with terrible cell reception) to raise someone at KFOG who could sort the problem out, but...Saturday night, 7:45? No joy. The only person there was probably the guy who does the Saturday night show, and he was probably a little busy himself; anyway, we couldn't get through to him.
So we went in and sat in the General Admission area, and it was a truly excellent show. In certain ways (being able to hear the crowd reactions, seeing the whole band at work--Thompson performs standing on the ball of his right foot, balancing on the ball of his left foot, but never fully steps down, and his drummer has the most balletic body English, and his bass player has a captivatingly odd face) being farther back and up in the bleachers was fine. But throughout the show we could see those two unoccupied seats down front, and it was distracting to see them and think we could have been sitting there.
Great tree frogs. Excellent Thompson. Free except for gas and parking. What am I worrying about?
ETA: I wrote an email to Rosalie Haworth, the DJ who ran the giveaway. It was an interesting exercise, as I wanted to convey my appreciation for the tickets, but also wanted to make clear how irritating it was to not get the seats I was anticipating. Anyway, the ball is in KFOG's court. We'll see what happened. I'm still humming stuff this morning.
Of course there was a rub, right? I won two front-row tickets to the show, courtesy of KFOG, our local preferred radio station. They called in the middle of the week to confirm. So we showed up at the Will Call booth and the tickets were not there. Apparently KFOG had the tickets (both my set and several sets of General Admission tickets) and someone was supposed to have dropped them off. But they hadn't. The nice lady at the Will Call booth was kind but firm: she gave us GA passes for the show, but couldn't give us the front-row tickets. We then tried (in a place with terrible cell reception) to raise someone at KFOG who could sort the problem out, but...Saturday night, 7:45? No joy. The only person there was probably the guy who does the Saturday night show, and he was probably a little busy himself; anyway, we couldn't get through to him.
So we went in and sat in the General Admission area, and it was a truly excellent show. In certain ways (being able to hear the crowd reactions, seeing the whole band at work--Thompson performs standing on the ball of his right foot, balancing on the ball of his left foot, but never fully steps down, and his drummer has the most balletic body English, and his bass player has a captivatingly odd face) being farther back and up in the bleachers was fine. But throughout the show we could see those two unoccupied seats down front, and it was distracting to see them and think we could have been sitting there.
Great tree frogs. Excellent Thompson. Free except for gas and parking. What am I worrying about?
ETA: I wrote an email to Rosalie Haworth, the DJ who ran the giveaway. It was an interesting exercise, as I wanted to convey my appreciation for the tickets, but also wanted to make clear how irritating it was to not get the seats I was anticipating. Anyway, the ball is in KFOG's court. We'll see what happened. I'm still humming stuff this morning.