This past weekend, I attended the Warped Tour as it rolled through Minneapolis. This won’t be a show review, rather a rant on the rampant commercialism I was witness to.
Up until a few weeks ago, I didn’t really care if I made the Warped Tour which has practically become a summer tradition for me. I took a second look at the band list, and Burns decided he wouldn’t mind going. I figured it would be worth my money to go. $37, I had a ticket. Of course this is after Ticketmaster tacks on $7 in fees per ticket. It kills me to pay those fees every time. I understand Ticketmaster is a business just like any other and requires money to opperate, but somehow a 25% fee seems excessive.
Now as Burns, Rodney (Andy’s step-brother), and I show up to wait in line for Will Call (it would’ve cost me another $11 to ship the tickets to my house as I ordered them a week before the show) I heard some music. At first I thought it was a soundcheck, but as we came around the bend and down the slope, there was a small tent set up with a band playing to the line-waiters. This was new. There wasn’t much else to do besides watch the “tent bands” in our hour wait for the gates to open.
As I mentioned previously, the first band was already playing when we got there and they didn’t sound like anything special. There’s a reason they were playing in a tent to the line instead of on one of the stages inside and the reason isn’t because they’re undiscovered. Of course they had one of their buddies walking around and selling their CD for $5. Far more annoying, however, were what I call the “groupie bitches.” The whole time the band, their name was Allura by the way, were playing, they were bouncing up and down, cheering, and snapping pictures. The groupie bitches also walked over and told us we should buy that band’s CD which kicked off the following exchange:
Jared: Which one of the band members is your boyfriend?
Groupie Bitch 1: He’s not my boyfriend! We flew here all the way from Southern California. (As if it was the most wonderful far away paradise in the world)
Groupie Bitch 2: Do you want to see our tickets?
J: I don’t doubt you flew here. I’m not going to buy your boyfriend’s CD so you can go hawk your shit somewhere else.
GB 1 & 2 (with a look of disbelief while walking away and giving me the finger): Hrmpf!
Rodney and Andy thought it was hilarious as did I. I guess I’ve seen one too many ads with pretty girls in them trying to sell stuff they’d never be into themselves. I’ve got a few more rants to go on about crazy religious people and big ass sunglasses, but I’ll save those for another post (possibly later today). I also took a few pics that I’ll post when I get around to processing them.
