Ticketmaster saved my ass

You know, I'm right there with everyone else in hating Ticketmaster, with their $10 "convenience fees" on a $20 ticket and then an extra $1.50 fee just for the fuck of it. But last night, I've never been so glad I got my tickets from Ticketmaster.

So Super Hot Irish Girlfriend and I ride the Logan's Run train over to the E. Bay to see Blitzen Trapper and Fleet Foxes at the super-duper fancied up Fox Theater in Oakland. We ate dinner first with Stephen and Jessica at Flora, which was really good but the bartender was kind of an asshole but that's another story. ANYWAY, we sit down at our table and we haven't ordered anything yet and I realize FUCK I left the tickets in SF.

So here's where we are: We're in Oakland, an hour away from showtime, and the tickets are in a drawer in our house in SF. We are truly fucked.

I get up and go over to the Fox Theater box office and ask if it's sold out. As a matter of fact, it's not! So I resign myself to eating the tickets and buying two more.

HERE'S WHERE THE MIRACLE OF TICKETMASTER COMES INTO PLAY.

I casually mention to the Ticket Lady that I have to buy 2 tickets because I left mine in SF. She says, "Oh, did you use Ticketmaster?" I say I bought them online, so probably so. I give her the credit card I used and in about 30 seconds she's handing me replacement tickets FOR FREE. I almost wept with relief. She said, "Now, the tickets you bought earlier won't work anymore" and I said "That's OK, the guy I sold them to probably won't come" and I left.

How cool is that? Thank you, Ticketmaster, for finally doing something good instead of evil.

As long as we're here, dinner was really good. I'd go back to Flora again in a heartbeat. They were slammed, but the service was still pretty good and the food was excellent.

The Fox Theater is all kinds of awesome. It's sort of like a slightly smaller, fancier Warfield with late-19th-century brothel decor and these huge buddha-like guys on each side of the stage with eyes that light up like they're in an Indiana Jones movie. They would FREAK YOU THE FUCK OUT if you were tripping, I bet.

As for the bands, yeah, they were OK. I'd rather see Blitzen Trapper in a smaller place, since it seemed like their sound got kind of lost and bounced around in there. Fleet Foxes were fine, I guess, but I've never been that into them anyway.