The concert that should not be
The title of this post is a Metallica pun, taken from their 1986 album Master of Puppets. On this date five years ago, I had a ticket for their show @ MSG. Only thing is, I sold the ticket. It’s something that I hate myself for doing to this very day.
We go back to June 2009. At this point, I had tickets for the aforementioned show and for U2 @ Giants Stadium on 9/24 since March. Both bands were on my list of musical artists I wanted to see but had not gotten the chance to do so until this point. The fact that both were happening in the same period of time was a added bonus. I let things stand for a while until a concert announcement that month changed the situation.
It wasn’t just any artist that announced they had a concert coming up, it was Sir Paul McCartney!. He was performing at Citi Field on July 17 & 18th that year for the first time since The Beatles played Shea Stadium on August 10th 1966. I am a big fan of The Beatles and I make no secret of it. If not for them, my taste in music would be quite different. As the announcement came out of nowhere, I was left wondering how I should proceed. Should I bite the bullet and buy a ticket even as the cheaper seats for both shows were gone faster than I could blink my eyes. So I came up with the idea of selling one of the two tickets on Stubhub and hope I would get the money from the sale to buy a ticket for Sir Paul’s concert. I wanted to go so badly.
Except there were two big flaws to this plan. I had to decide which ticket I would put up for sale. I spent a lot of time going over in my mind which one I should choose. It eventually came down to seating. The ticket I had for Metallica was in the 400 section of the arena whereas the ticket for U2 was in the 200 section of Giants Stadium. So I decided to keep the latter as it didn’t hurt that Muse was the opening act for U2 and put the former on Stubhub. The other big flaw was finding someone to buy the ticket. I would find someone but it wouldn’t be until the end of June. Although I broke even on the sale, it was too late. Both shows were sold out. Making things worse was the fact that there was a third show added on July 21st. I couldn’t go to that as I was taking a Paralegal Studies class at Queensborough Community College at the time and that night was the night of the Notary Public Seminar. So I sulked my way through that evening and more so after the Q 66 bus passed by the stadium that night. Each time I need a reminder of this mistake, I pop in my copy of Sir Paul’s show from the first night, “Good Evening New York City” that I got for my birthday that year.
The story has a mostly happy end. I did go to see U2 w/Muse @ Giants Stadium and enjoyed the show despite the hassle it was to get to and from the venue. I would eventually get to see Sir Paul in concert at Yankee Stadium two years later and it was and will forever be the best concert I’ve ever been to. And after this, I created the “Metallica” rule: If I have a concert ticket in my possession, I’m not giving it up, period. There is also a new addendum to this rule, “Saudade” named for Thievery Corporation’s recently released album and the fact that I won tickets to their show at Hudson River Park’s JBL Live @ Pier 97 in August but didn’t go to the concert. If that’s the case, I will make every effort to go to the show. It’s better to have the experience and all that comes with it for better or worse than not do it and wonder what might have been.
