Ted Leo, what what

If you couldn't get a ticket to last night's sold-out Ted Leo show, you can go thank your local high schooler. They showed up early and in force.

Mary Timony, same as always, comes across as a cross between Kim Deal and Liz Phair. Personally, I love the tunes, just as I did in 1996, but the lyrics and vocals leave something to be desired. Sorry to rag, but my time is short.

Radio 4, yeah. At first they sounded a lot like Q and Not U, with the same funk infused rhythm and energetic dancing. But then I realized that they were epileptic and having seizures on stage. Decent opening act nonetheless. I think that they could go really far since the lead singer looks like Paul Simon and the guitarist looks just like that dude from The State and Wet, Hot American Summer, Michael Showalter, so yeah they could break into the OC crowd.

Before I get to Ted Leo, let me just say respect to the kid in the front row wearing the yarmukle. My only suggestion would be to get a more fashionable pattern. Traditional is good when you want a traditional lady, but you were at a Ted Leo show, so I'm thinking that you might want your girl to be a little more hip and cutting edge. Meet her halfway.

Alright, back to what counts, Ted Leo rocking out. Internet hype or no, the man can put on a show. The crowd was into him being there, and he kept up his usual rapport with the audience. And he blazed through a solid set of songs. A- on the music and sound, A+ on the concert experience.

And for bonus hipness, here is an excerpt from his website:

SOARING TICKET PRICES!!
Yikes! I just got a very welcome e-mail from a guy going to the 9:30 this week informing me of insane surcharges on the tickets he purchased. I must heartily apologize to any and all who have experienced this as well. Honestly, I didn't even look into who was handling ticketing for this show, but of course, the culprit (if you don't go directly through the club) is... yeah, you guessed it: Ticketmaster. And of course, as I now look at my own web-site, I see that there's a Ticketmaster link below a bunch of the shows... DUH... Man, am I sorry about this. Alright, well anyway, I present, for your perusal, our conversation below, and ask you to accept my apologies to the "D" as apologies to you as well. We'll stay on top of it, I promise...

On Jun 11, 2005, at 4:21 PM, D**** wrote:
Hey, this email might be better sent to your bookign agent, but I was wondering why you book with clubs that use the great evil that is ticketmaster? Is it because they usually are larger venues or is this just something you don't normally pay attention to? I'm only asking because I was buying a ticket to your show at the 9:30 club in Washington DC, which is 12 dollars, but with all the extra surcharges, it becomes a $25 dollar show. I hate to sound whiny, even though that's probably what I'm coming off as, but do you think that on future tours you could support smaller venues, or is that just not an option?
Thanks, D*****

-- Response:
Ouch! That is rough, man -- I'm sorry about that. I just tried to buy a ticket through Ticketmaster myself, and found that if I chose to pick it up at the venue, it comes out to just under $20, which is still ridiculous, but not $25 -- did you ask them to overnight it to you or something? It sucks, either way, I know... One option would have been to buy them directly from the 9:30 box office, but that doesn't really help you at this point, either... Ticketmaster is an organization that has never really been a part of our equation before, and assuming that on-line ticketing would be done through the club (as it is at most of the places we've been playing for the past many many years) we didn't really look into what was going on with it for this particular show. Oddly enough, though, one thing I do know about Ticketmaster, is that the DC Ticketmaster franchise is the only one in the country that wasn't bought out by the larger corporation, and thus, remains independent of much of their shittiness. Apparently not enough of it, though! Be that as it may, when we have only one night to spend in a town, we have to face the crappy choice of having more than half of the people who might want to see us not be able to get in by playing the smaller clubs we've all been accustomed to, or going with the bigger clubs (9:30 in DC, Irving Plaza in NYC, etc.). And I don't mean to diss the 9:30 -- it's an amazing club, that we're psyched to be able to "move up" to -- but in essence, it's the spike in attendance that's why we're there this time around, and not doing multiple nights at the Black Cat, like last time. For instance, in December, at the Cat, we did two nights, with each night over-selling to 800+ people in a 600 capacity club. We simply can't stay for multiple nights on this trip, so we had to go with the 9:30, which has a 1200 capacity, still, possibly locking some people out, but considerably less than had we gone with the Cat again for only one night. You can't really just block out 2/3 of the people who want to come see you, so unfortunately, small venues aren't really an option sometimes. We are, however, extremely conscientious about the "business" side of our business. I've spent the last "x" amount of years of my life playing small venues, and learning how to control the things you need to, while allowing your "thing" to grow, and you can bet that there's a reason for just about every choice I (and Mahmood, my booking agent) make. This time, however, things were being booked while I was overseas for months, blah, blah, blah, not much of an excuse, I know... and it seems like we dropped the ball. I apologize for that. I'm sorry you had such a frustrating experience -- I'll be sure to look deeper into ticketing issues for the next tour! Thanks.
--TL
P.S. -- I hope you won't mind me putting this conversation on my website, in case there are others who are wondering what you are as well. I'll delete your name and e-mail addy. Thanks!

So sorry about this everybody!
Always Learning,
--Ted

DC once, DC forever.

All in all, I've had a solid couple of weeks of concerts (Old 97's, Bloc Party, and TL+P), and feeling good as I head out of town.