Here's something you might be interested in.
I wanted to buy tickets to see Flight of the Conchords at UCSDs Rimac Arena. I went there a week after the show was announced, only to find it was sold out.
I told my girlfriend yesterday that we should drive down and see if they released more tickets. They often do that. She checked online and saw that they had released more, but the box office wasn't taking calls.
I figured at worst, we buy a pair from a scalper. And, we both wondered how scalpers are hurt now by the internet. We saw tickets for sale on Craiglist and eBay, for twice the price (you can't get much more, as this is a comedic band, it's not like buying tickets for Taylor Swift or something). My girlfriend said she heard that some venues work with one ticket broker, selling a big block of tickets and that's a legal way to scalp.
We walked up and were able to get some amazing seats. We figured people that paid the outragous service charge would be ticked off to learn we got better seats on the day of the show.
We were an hour early, so we walked around the UCSD campus. As a former SDSU student, it's nice to see how the smart folks live (on a side note: SDSU was named one of the top party schools in the country, yet again).
We saw only one scalper. I was almost tempted to ask him how much he was selling tickets for.
We also saw two guys smoking and I said, "Hey...there's the band right over there."
My girlfriend said "Stop staring at them. They'll think you're weird."
I went over to say hi, and as I approached, I realized the guy with glasses wasn't Jemane. He just looked a little like him. I asked the other guy if he was Brent. He took a drag of his cigarette and with a thick accent said, "No man, that's not me."
I walked back to my girlfriend and said, "I think Brent just lied to me. That had to be him. He even had the accent."
It wasn't. They sat a few rows in front of us. A few people did approach them, some even taking photos of the look-alikes. My girlfriend jokingly said to me "They should be in a Flight of the Conchords tribute band. They could open shows for Led Zepagain."
Arch Barker opened the show. He's a comedian that plays the pawn shop owner on the series. He had a few jokes that worked, but wasn't very funny.
When the band started, the crowd was pumped.
We had these idiots in front of us that kept talking, which is never good during an acoustic show. Just as I was about to tell them to shut up, they left.
There was a guy behind me that had the loudest laugh. And he seemed to laugh at everything. I thought it was fake; my girlfriend thought it was real.
When they did the song about epileptic dogs, one kid behind me had to spend 15 minutes explaining to his friend that there was an episode of their show that dealt with a girl they liked asking them to write a song and do a benefit for dogs with this disease.
The sound system at Rimac sucked, as the mics seemed way over-modulated. But the band was in great form.
They had a joke about being late to band practice. And that worked for the few times one of them would forget words to a song, the other could say "If someone would've shown up for band practice on time, that extra hour might've helped."
I ran into my friend Ken at the show. He didn't care for the merchandise they were selling. I thought it was clever. T-shirts that said "Band Meeting," and underwear that said "Sugar Lumps" (the guy behind me probably explained to his friend that they had a song that was a take-off on Fergie singing about her "lady lumps").
Of course, when they sang that in the show, the crowd went nuts. They walked around the first few rows, thrusting and grinding at women.
They wore their robot costumes, but not when they did the song about robots killing humans. They did that for their disco dance groove "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor." And as they explained after the song...it's kind of obvious what that is about (and it saved the kid behind me from having to explain that number to his buddies).
The band did all the songs you know and love, including their Stairway to Heaven -- Business Time. And, one of the great things about these songs we've heard so many times is, they added new lines in them.
Oh wait...I just realized, they never did the funny song "If That's What You're Into." It starts as a romantic ballad to a woman, about all the things the guy would do for her. It quickly becomes a list of sexual things he'd do to her, if "that's what she's into." And I swear, nothing is funnier than hearing Jemanes deep baritone come in on back-up vocals.
One song had an added segment on the Swine Flu. A few other songs had different lyrics that made them fun to hear with fresh ears.
Of course, the bands banter with the crowd was great. But as they've said before, they're professions. When they are paid to talk like that, it works better than regular people that say things like "I'm out of onions" or "It was a nice, warm and breezy day today."
Even though, as they both agreed...it was a nice, breezy day.
And it was a nice, entertaining concert.
Let's just hope the TV show is continued for another season.
I wanted to buy tickets to see Flight of the Conchords at UCSDs Rimac Arena. I went there a week after the show was announced, only to find it was sold out.
I told my girlfriend yesterday that we should drive down and see if they released more tickets. They often do that. She checked online and saw that they had released more, but the box office wasn't taking calls.
I figured at worst, we buy a pair from a scalper. And, we both wondered how scalpers are hurt now by the internet. We saw tickets for sale on Craiglist and eBay, for twice the price (you can't get much more, as this is a comedic band, it's not like buying tickets for Taylor Swift or something). My girlfriend said she heard that some venues work with one ticket broker, selling a big block of tickets and that's a legal way to scalp.
We walked up and were able to get some amazing seats. We figured people that paid the outragous service charge would be ticked off to learn we got better seats on the day of the show.
We were an hour early, so we walked around the UCSD campus. As a former SDSU student, it's nice to see how the smart folks live (on a side note: SDSU was named one of the top party schools in the country, yet again).
We saw only one scalper. I was almost tempted to ask him how much he was selling tickets for.
We also saw two guys smoking and I said, "Hey...there's the band right over there."
My girlfriend said "Stop staring at them. They'll think you're weird."
I went over to say hi, and as I approached, I realized the guy with glasses wasn't Jemane. He just looked a little like him. I asked the other guy if he was Brent. He took a drag of his cigarette and with a thick accent said, "No man, that's not me."
I walked back to my girlfriend and said, "I think Brent just lied to me. That had to be him. He even had the accent."
It wasn't. They sat a few rows in front of us. A few people did approach them, some even taking photos of the look-alikes. My girlfriend jokingly said to me "They should be in a Flight of the Conchords tribute band. They could open shows for Led Zepagain."
Arch Barker opened the show. He's a comedian that plays the pawn shop owner on the series. He had a few jokes that worked, but wasn't very funny.
When the band started, the crowd was pumped.
We had these idiots in front of us that kept talking, which is never good during an acoustic show. Just as I was about to tell them to shut up, they left.
There was a guy behind me that had the loudest laugh. And he seemed to laugh at everything. I thought it was fake; my girlfriend thought it was real.
When they did the song about epileptic dogs, one kid behind me had to spend 15 minutes explaining to his friend that there was an episode of their show that dealt with a girl they liked asking them to write a song and do a benefit for dogs with this disease.
The sound system at Rimac sucked, as the mics seemed way over-modulated. But the band was in great form.
They had a joke about being late to band practice. And that worked for the few times one of them would forget words to a song, the other could say "If someone would've shown up for band practice on time, that extra hour might've helped."
I ran into my friend Ken at the show. He didn't care for the merchandise they were selling. I thought it was clever. T-shirts that said "Band Meeting," and underwear that said "Sugar Lumps" (the guy behind me probably explained to his friend that they had a song that was a take-off on Fergie singing about her "lady lumps").
Of course, when they sang that in the show, the crowd went nuts. They walked around the first few rows, thrusting and grinding at women.
They wore their robot costumes, but not when they did the song about robots killing humans. They did that for their disco dance groove "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor." And as they explained after the song...it's kind of obvious what that is about (and it saved the kid behind me from having to explain that number to his buddies).
The band did all the songs you know and love, including their Stairway to Heaven -- Business Time. And, one of the great things about these songs we've heard so many times is, they added new lines in them.
Oh wait...I just realized, they never did the funny song "If That's What You're Into." It starts as a romantic ballad to a woman, about all the things the guy would do for her. It quickly becomes a list of sexual things he'd do to her, if "that's what she's into." And I swear, nothing is funnier than hearing Jemanes deep baritone come in on back-up vocals.
One song had an added segment on the Swine Flu. A few other songs had different lyrics that made them fun to hear with fresh ears.
Of course, the bands banter with the crowd was great. But as they've said before, they're professions. When they are paid to talk like that, it works better than regular people that say things like "I'm out of onions" or "It was a nice, warm and breezy day today."
Even though, as they both agreed...it was a nice, breezy day.
And it was a nice, entertaining concert.
Let's just hope the TV show is continued for another season.