hi there again…i really just wanted to say something about these new shows in brooklyn.
last time we played Brooklyn Steel, we did 5 nights, and the tickets sold out quickly. everyone got very mad, and we in the band got all upset, and there were cries of bots, etc.. so we dug in, worked with the promoter to delete a bunch of questionable transactions, tried to control tickets the best we could, and discovered that it was actually very few pro scalpers and bots. (fact is, scalpers were announcing tickets for sale to our show before they were even available at all, with the idea that they could put out crazy prices in the beginning, and if anyone bit, they’d scramble to try to find a ticket, or, well, i guess sell a fake one). the fact was that there were many more people who wanted to see us than we had tickets for, which is awesome and a bummer at the same time.
outside of all that, the shows were very fun for us. we were close to home and the crowd was fucking great. we got the idea that we should do it again as soon as possible in hopes that more people who wanted to see us but missed us could come see us then. and this is the first time when both we and the venue had a block of dates available in a row, so here we are. 7 nights. with the 5 before it's like, more than a big venue, which we hope will be just fine.
i had a lot of back and forth about these shows with our very wonderful, concerned, thoughtful and on it managers and agents, and the professional consensus was that playing them was, frankly, a bad idea. to explain: we just did this in april, so they might seem “less special” now. for reasons i can’t seem to quantify, the earlier gigs were considered special, so they were in higher demand and sold out very quickly. but the undermining of some of the specialness is precisely what we’d love to accomplish with these gigs. they’re just some gigs. they’re in our home town, so we can totally walk there. they’re no more special than any other gigs. nothing unusual will be happening, other than what always happens at our gigs, which is us playing a bunch of songs as well as we can. we’re going to be playing a LOT in the near future, so they’re certainly not worth getting on a plane for, in our opinion. it’s NOT a finite resource. it is certainly 100% not worth paying some crazy amount over face value for them. we’re playing in other places this year, a lot, and that’s likely close to wherever it is you live (unless you live far from things, which i’m sorry about—but it still wouldn’t be worth flying to these.)
playing more seems to be the best antidote. unless we play big places, which are ok sometimes, but not our favorite things all the time. or, if i read some blogs correctly, we should charge way, way more for the tickets. this isn’t interesting for us mainly because people with a lot of extra money aren’t the only people we want to play to. (don't get me wrong: we’re aware that if the tickets are, like, $15, they just get resold for a lot more, and we sit there like morons wondering how we’re going to pay our crew, but, you know…) the last solution, which i like, is requiring an ID which matches your ticket. this is somehow still totally illegal here in new york, which makes me pretty bonkers.
so, that’s where we are. here are some shows which we’re really excited to play, and we think are worth maybe precisely what the tickets cost. and maybe if no one buys a scalped ticket for more than the face value, the room will feel a little empty, but at least we’ll be done with this crap once and for all, as scalpers aren’t in it to troll music fans—they’re in it to make money, and if no one feeds them, the natural consequence is that they’ll just thin way the fuck out.
thank you guys for reading.
james
ps. i really didn’t want to make any more announcements of any kind until we had a release date for the LP, but these shows are this week, and we’re still getting the artwork finalized so they can make covers, which we need to solidify the date, so that’s still happening. watch this space. and by “this space”, i mean the internet.
pps. hearts
― groovypanda, Tuesday, 13 June 2017 11:49 (six years ago) link