Features
Tours de Farce: Reason To Believe
About that woman who was sitting home alone in the dark, looking at tour schedules on one of those other concert-info Web sites? Yeah, that’s the one. She clicked for the MxPx itinerary, but instead of dates and venues, she ended up with a deep-fried rat on her monitor.
Or what about the teenage couple parked in the woods while checking out The Moody Blues schedule on the guy’s Wi-Fi laptop connected to one of those other concert Web sites? They hear on the radio that a crazed promoter, whose right hand was replaced by a prosthetic after he lost a bidding war over Simon & Garfunkel, had escaped from the concert industry’s insane asylum. You can probably guess the rest; Terrified, the couple immediately drives home, and the next day the boy finds a hook hanging from the right-rear passenger door handle.
They’re called “urban concert legends,” and the Net is filled with them. Tales about other concert Web sites using real blood to list the dates for KISS, or claiming that Dr. Phil is Marilyn Manson’s father. Then there’s that story everybody has heard; that if you listen to Pink Floyd while reading the schedule for the Eagles as listed on one of those other concert Web sites, that the dates and music will perfectly sync with the first reel of The Wizard of Oz.
But are they true? Are data entry people from other concert Web sites hiding under your car at the mall waiting to slash your ankles if you don’t promise to rely on their tour information for Shania Twain and Eric Idle? Is one of those other concert sites flashing subliminal ads in-between the individual dates for 311 and Nickelback? And while we’re at it; what’s up with that other concert website’s editor who supposedly circulated an email claiming that Clear Channel was about to acquire the Vatican? Could any of these stories be true?
Heck, we don’t know. However, we can tell you that we never ran with any of these stories on Pollstar.com, for we firmly believe that most of you deserve as much truth as the average concert fan can handle. That’s why we take no stock in stories involving mayhem, gore, lawsuits and stomach pumps involving those other concert websites. The bottom line is; if we can’t prove it, we won’t print it. Period.
However, that doesn’t mean we’re opposed to spreading those stories around.