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Tours de Farce: Let The Games Begin!
She popped into the office just as we were wrapping up the schedules for Steve Earl and that co-headline between Phil Lesh & Friends and Bob Dylan. “I have the routing for Kina,” she told us. “It’s imperative that you publish it on the Internet by June 1st.”
“How will this affect the future,” we asked her. “Will it stop the promoter riots of 2015? Bring relief to the ticketless refugees of 2011? Will it stop ticket scalping?”
“Oh, we don’t have scalpers in the future,” she answered, “But if you list these dates along with Cary Pierce and Queens Of The Stone Age, it will prevent the needless slaughter of millions that will happen less than 10 years from now.”
“We thought the future was going to be filled with peace and prosperity,” we tell her. “What happened.”
“It all started, or will start, in 2008, at a KISS farewell concert. Right before the show, a lighting truss will fall on a guitar tech.”
“How terrible.”
“The audience didn’t think so,” she replied, mixing her tenses as is the prerogative of a time traveler. They screamed for more. It wasn’t long before promoters started scheduling violent death matches before the headliners.”
“That’s awful.”
“Not really. Ticket sales went up 50 percent and sparked a boom in new amphitheatre construction.”
“I guess every cloud does have a silver lining. Who were the victims, err contestants?”
“At first most of them were culled from the MP3 prisons established by Attorney General Lars Ulrich in 2006. They’d be herded on stage where specially trained record company execs would go at them with chains, baseball bats and pool sticks.”
“You mean every major show opened with a violent event?” we asked her. “Just like the coliseum gladiators in ancient Rome?”
“Exactly. But along with increased ticket sales, it also put an end to Internet music piracy.”
“No wonder.”
“Anyway, if you publish those tours, along with CPR featuring David Crosby and the Counting Crows / Live cobill, we may be able to stop the madness before it starts.”
“What will happen if we can’t stop it?”
“It will eventually burn itself out,” she told us as she prepared to leap back into the future.
“Public outrage?” we asked her.
“Oh, nothing like that,” she replied right before she vanished from our office. By that time the victims, err, I mean contestants, were being gathered from the real dregs of society. but…”
“But what?”
“We ran out of scalpers.”