saturday evening at the concert hall part 8

Previous post My Story Part 8

January 25, 2006 was a cold night. By 6pm I was down at the Key Arena in Seattle hoping to get a couple of tickets to see Coldplay on their X & Y tour. I always go into these things with a sense of confidence and also some sense of doubt that I am not going to get in, but I have nothing to lose so I continue.

 The Coldplay show was a tought one to get into. The album had sold millions of copies, was compared to U2’s Joshua Tree (which is wasn’t) and I believe the show was sold out, or at lease close to it. I asked a lot of people for tics that night. I got the usual remarks of “good luck man,” “I wish I could, but I have none to spare” and the random “what, do you think I’m f-ing crazy, you will never get a free ticket.”

 It took me a good hour or so, but I eventually got two tickets for $20, that’s right, two tickets to Coldplay for $20. I got on the phone, called Amy and told her to get in the van and come down to see the show. I was super excited, but I also had approx. 40 minutes till Amy got there so I walked around and asked a few other people if they had extra tickets. I asked this one person and they, without hesitation handed me a ticket.

 Now I make it a habbit not to sell tickets that I get for free. I am very thankfull for the people that have given me tickets to shows, it is very selfless and very kind of them. But, I had 3 tickets to a show and there were only two of us going. So I went around to the front of the arena where all the scalpers are and I sold one of the tickets I had bought for $20 to a scalper for $25, yea scalpers. Now we were all set. Two tickets to Coldplay and I made $5, but on the down side Amy and I didn’t have seats together.

 Eventually Amy got down to the arena and landed a free parking spot less than 100 yards from the arena 15 minutes before the band hit the stage, unheard of. This is more of a feat than the free tickets in my opinion. We got in, said hello to a couple of friends that were also at the show and sat down in two empty seats that we found together. About 45 minutes into the show, which was amazing by the way, the people who had the seats came and claimed them, so we moved. Half an hour or so later we had to move again, and eventually we just sat in different rows, but close enough that we could hit each other with a marshmallow if we wanted.

 I found out something about Amy that night. Amy, who was like 8 months pregnant at the time, likes to go to a show with advance tickets that are together. I on the other hand just want to go out and whatever happens happens, as long as we are having fun and are together. This night however Amy did not have fun, she did like the show though. Next time I will make sure we get seats together. Oh, and with the extra $5 I bought a Coldplay pin for my fried Gordon who watched Emma for us, thanks dude.