One thing to know about me is my tendency to over-purchase tickets for shows. The usual two will suffice for an average known band... but if I see a $10 show for an up and comer at a small venue, I'll usually splurge and buy 4.
I am not looking to scalp them, rather, I feel that since the price is so good I can probably convince a few people to come with me without risking a big money loss.
So take the Maximo Park so a few Sunday past at the Middle East in Cambridge. This show was the right price and the right night.. so I thought! Problem was, low promotion and a hot swelting Sunday night in June was just not getting anyone out of the house.
I can only push and promote a small band to a certain limit. You either take my word or take the word of the album playing on your system. Difficulty is that at 10p on a Sunday, people are either settled in for the week or in no mood to endear the sopping humidity that makes this June all too famous.
3 tickets left and no takers... hell, at least I can sell or (gasp) give them away at the door....
10p outside the MidEast and its a deadzone. No smokers in sight, no strollers walking by... just me and the door.... the bouncer moved inside.
I have never not given away a ticket when I had spares. Tonight was a first in my musically career. It wasnt so much the money but the fact that at 10p I saw NOT ONE person enter the venue in 20 minutes time!
I did what any honest music fan would do. I left them at the will call and made the ticket girl promise to give them to any souls that wandered in. God only knows if any did.
So how was the Maximo Park show? Well, outside of onstage soundcheck and filling in less than a quarter of the cellar with 100 people, Maximo played as though the room was full... which is what any band should have done. A solid 1 hour set of tracks off their latest 'A Certain Trigger' and words of insight related to finally having heard their music on Boston radio (what channel????) proved to us early adpopters that this band would back soon.
I wouldn't compare it to U2's first show in Boston playing to less than 50 people in 1980 (no I was not in attendance), but it was well worth the 40.00 I spent on a ticket(s) to see them.
Hopefully my early investment will produce some good futures later on.