Ebay Extortion
As the title would suggest, I have recently fallen victim to some vicious extortion on ebay. Granted… My own stupidity is to blame…
Last night while I was browsing around online, one of my favorite songs made its way to the front of the pack on my shuffled playlist. Despite it being performed by one of my favorite bands, it was a song which I hadn’t heard in quite a while. Instinctively I began to hum along to the tune as I caught up on some overdue Digg reading. Its catchy lyrics and slightly uplifting beat mixed with a touch of melodrama make Naive one of The Kooks most adored singles.
I had first heard of The Kooks while I was studying abroad in England. Although their debut album Inside In/Inside Out was released in January of 2006, they were entirely unknown to me before I had studied abroad. When I arrived in the UK in September of 2006 I was fortunate that the band was still on the UK charts and getting major airplay (see #26). After listening to a few more of their hit singles, I was hooked. Almost overnight The Kooks had become my new favorite band.
Flash forward.
After humming along to Naive for a short while I decided I should check to see if The Kooks would be playing an American tour anytime soon. A quick glance at Ticketmaster revealed that I may have underestimated their American popularity… Not only were The Kooks touring in America, but they were coming to Boston in May. I found this quite surprising considering none of my friends have even heard of them. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Not only were The Kooks coming to Boston on their second American tour (their first was only for two weeks) but they were playing at the Paradise Rock Club! Small venues are always more exciting and have a much more personal feel when compared to their larger rivals. While struggling to contain my excitement, I frantically clicked purchase on Ticketmaster… after all $12 seemed like tiny price to pay to see my favorite band perform during their second tour in the US…
SOLD OUT.
I felt exasperated, disappointed and completely surprised that anyone here had even heard of The Kooks, let alone snatch up all the tickets to their show before I even had a chance of purchasing them. Undeterred, I decided I would try my luck elsewhere. My first though was sold out.com or StubHub. I have a few friends who have had luck with these in the past. After finding nothing, I desperately turned to the last place I could think of… Ebay.
Now don’t get me wrong, Ebay is perfectly respectable and is a fantastic place to purchase just about anything. Except for concert tickets that is. Swallowing my pride in online deal hunting, I committed myself to going to the show no matter what price I had to pay… and pay I did. Heavily. $120 later I got two tickets to go see The Kooks on Sunday, May 13th and honestly, I think it’s money well spent. I don’t usually enjoy being raped financially but I have a feeling the show will be well worth it. I’m just disappointed I didn’t check sooner and grab a few tickets while they were $12. I also feel shamefully stupid for not checking to see if they were touring in the UK when I was there.
Nevertheless, lesson learned.
Ryan, don't feel so bad, I once paid 750 for
JoeRyan, don’t feel so bad, I once paid 750 for two tickets to U2…. yes i was heavily influenced by the significant other.. after getting there at 6 am in december, and having already 180 people in front of us, we made friends with the girl from dublin in front of us… not undetrstanding a word she said, we smiled and nodded to be nice. to get into the elipse, they divided up the lines and randomly scanned tickets to get into the center part (elipse) turns out her ticket scanned, and ours didnt.. she turned around and asked if my girlfriend wanted to come with her, (you could take 1 other person) So I pushed her up and said go ( she is the huge fan) and the girl asked the gaurd if i could come too, they pushed us through and hurried us along.. we ended up standing holding onto the rail in front of the stage with only the security gaurd between us and larry mullen jr. INSANE.. they put on an incredible show.. unforgettable and totally worth it. that was the night john kerry showed up too. SOOO, ENJOY your tickets and may the extorsion of ebay bring you luck and happiness.
(we even bought tickets for the next show a month later for 450 but decided we were too broke so we sold them back on ebay for 475.. hehe share the love)