Not that long ago, it was illegal to scalp tickets in the state of Minnesota. Everyone played by the same rules and paid face value for all ticketing wielding events from Twins to Theatre to Tina Turner Tickets. If you live in Minnesota and have ever tried to get into anything, specifically concerts, you know that it is now legal to scalp tickets in Minnesota and you pay nowhere near face value.
Minnesotans have noticed the ridiculousness of scalping and so has country music superstar Eric Church. On Friday, he issued a big ‘F U’ to scalpers. Church cancelled 902 scalped tickets to his September 16 show in Minneapolis and put them back on the market.
I have to say that I have never heard of this happening before. Typically, when tickets are on the market they are out of the control of the artist and his team. Apparently they still have some pull afterwards.
The posts on Church’s Facebook page and posts on Twin Cities radio stations announcing the coming of 902 more tickets was almost all positive. In fact, I only saw one negative comment which was nicely snipped by a fellow Facebooker calling the writer of a negative comment a scalper. Ah, Facebook wit.
The rerelease of these tickets will allow me to go to the show now with reasonable priced tickets at $57 a crack for lower bowl seating.
Eric Church has been a badass for a long time. It shows in his music being actual country music and he proved it in the way that he treated his fans in Minnesota. Bravo, Chief.
Now, if only a certain ex-Beatle that’s coming to Target Field in August would control the scalpers who are selling tickets to his show for over a grand before the tickets even go on sale to the general public, that would be great.
If you head over to Dinkytown, the best-known college village literally steps from the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, at bar close or any time in the later evening, you’ll see a lot of interesting stuff. Primarily, you’ll see a lot of college kids who have probably had a couple too many and are attempting to make their way home. That should have been the case on Saturday night.
At 6:30 Minneapolis time, the puck dropped on the NCAA National Championship hockey game in Philadelphia. Minnesota’s Golden Gophers played the role of Goliath, Union College played the role of David and, as usual, David won. Apparently, the Dinkytown dwellers were supposed to riot.
It was a likely scenario, right? They had just kind of, sort of had done just that when the Gophers beat arch rival North Dakota in the semi-finals. It was a riot full of, well, not a whole lot of rioting. Students were taking pictures with police officers, so obviously the enforcement wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with duties.
Flash-forward to Saturday night, throngs of cops and media showed up in Dinkytown; the former to keep the peace, the latter to report on the pending riot. The funny thing is that they caused the riot.
College students are the biggest group influenced by the theory of monkey see, monkey do. Students walk out of the bars and see police, mounted police, a State Patrol helicopter and a tank, seriously, and it hits them that they should be doing something bad. It’s what they are supposed to be doing, right?! That’s why everyone is there.
I assume there was probably a couple extra hundred people in Dinkytown because it was the National Championship game, but otherwise it would have probably been the typical Thursday-Sunday night on a college campus. Let’s not over-fascinate a common happening.
This brings me to the following example from KMSP, the FOX affiliate in Minneapolis – St. Paul, who had this beautiful piece of field reporting.
It shouldn’t come as a shock that drunken frat boys are the same to a lighted TV camera as a moth is to a flame. Did you seriously think you could go a legitimate live-shot in the middle of what you and your competitors blew out of the water and built up as a riot before the puck even dropped on Saturday night?
The University of Minnesota’s President Eric Kaler stating there would be a zero tolerance policy and announcing the extra police presence just added gas to the barely-lit fire. Let the kids be kids.
Do the police have to be there? Of course they do. Do they need to start attacking and pepper spraying? Absolutely not.
Does the media need to be there? Yes, it is a story. Is it right for the media to force feed a ‘riot’ days before it happens? No.
Drunken kids might have been a little rowdy, but all young people between the ages of 17-22 imitate what they see on their Twitter feeds, movies and TV shows. Say the kids were out of line, but don’t act like the adults in this scenario didn’t overreact.
Usually when I shake my head at Sid Hartman it’s on Sunday nights during The Sports Show, but we all received a special Sid bit on Thursday. Hartman reported in his Thursday column for the Star Tribune that the University of Minnesota would be building a $70 million practice facility for the Golden Gopher football team. Which would be a pretty big story, except it’s not true.
I wonder who’s angrier: Sid or the poor guy that has to ghostwrite all of Sid’s columns. Does Sid get the information for his columns and has someone write them? Did Sid totally dream this up? There are a lot of questions.
Getting a report on a building wrong is not the end of the world and reading the comments congratulating Sid on the great scoop and then seeing those people realizing that it had been reported as false later in the day is pretty fun, but it’s sad to see. It’s another punchline to the punching bag that has become Sid Hartman.
Sid Hartman had to be pretty good at this journalism thing at one time, he has a statue outside Target Center for crying out loud, but he hasn’t been for a while now. As a 20-year-old Minnesota sports fan, Sid has always been in my life. Since I’ve been conscious of who Sid Hartman is, so about 10 years, he’s been a laughingstock.
I don’t know if Sid actually wrote the column or even if it is his own information, but it’s just sad to see this happen to the 94-year-old man. It appears Sid is probably on the retirement tour with the estate sale and Sid Hartman Day at Target Field and I wish he’d go out on top, at least the best way he could.
The man was the General Manager of the Minneapolis Lakers when he was 27 in 1947, think about how cool that is. I really wish I wasn’t shaking my head.
I don’t want to claim that I can see into the future, but I might just be able to see into the future. My future sensing might only apply to Minnesota Golden Gopher football, which is not the best thing to be able to see the future of, but I guess that I’ll take it.
On September 21, 2013 I tweeted the following:
The question on all of our minds now: Where is Phillip Nelson going to transfer to? #Gophers
A view of the football field at TCF Bank Stadium during Gopher football.
As a music geek, I love a good drum line. I find it pretty cool for a bunch of people with one type of instrument to make a whole song sound full. I’ll never love drumming more than I do than the fact that Drum Corps International has to move their annual date for their competition at TCF Bank Stadium on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Why? Per a press release, Drum Corps International was knocked off for ‘a major concert’.
The Strib points to Prince, Garth Brooks, Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and Kenny Chesney as the potential headliners at the second major concert to happen at The Bank.
I’m going to power rank who I want it to be and you won’t be surprised, but the thought of one out of 50% of this group happening is amazing.
6. Pearl Jam – I’m not a Pearl Jam guy. I haven’t listened to a lot of Pearl Jam. There is no Pearl Jam in my music library. Sorry, Pearl Jam.
5. Kenny Chesney – Kenny is extremely popular in the country music world, I know because I live there. Kenny has been to Minnesota two years in a row at Target Field, he doesn’t need to come again. Plus, currently Chesney has no tour plans for this summer making him a so-so candidate in the first place. If Kenny has a fantastic opening act, I’ll go. I like Kenny just not enough to break the bank.
4. Prince – The Strib pointed out that Prince hasn’t done a major show in Minnesota in a long time and it would be cool if he was the guy. I don’t know if I would pay super bucks to see Prince, but it’s a for sure sellout. Prince puts on a hell of a show apparently, too.
3. Bruce Springsteen – You know it’s a good list when I put Springsteen at number three. I love Bruce and if it’s Bruce, Lord knows that I’ll put a lot of good money down to see him again. Bruce is the live king and he’ll be on tour in America later this summer. This might make the most sense on an already on-tour basis. The Boss and the E Street Band just slip because of who else is on the list.
2. Paul McCartney – Sir Paul is one of the performers on my bucket list and, to paraphrase something Springsteen said in a recent interview, you can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. McCartney isn’t going to be around forever, no less touring forever, and I want to see him before one of us leaves the game. The ex-Beatle is still figuring out 2014 tour plans, so this would be a good thing to start the setting of his plans.
1. Garth Brooks – I’ve been a Garth Brooks fan my whole life. I’m young enough though that by the time I was of concert going age that Garth Brooks had taken his hiatus to spend time with his girls in Oklahoma. I’m ready to see Garth. It’s one thing I’ve been looking forward to in my music loving career since I can remember, the problem is that this probably won’t be the venue. Garth will come to town, I’m 110% positive of that, but this is before his big she-bang in Ireland. The Strib points out this would be a good tune-up, but when Garth does something, he does it big. Other than maybe a couple more Vegas dates, I’d expect Garth to fire it up in Ireland and keep it trucking until the big rig runs out of fuel. I hope I’m wrong.
Contrary to rumors elsewhere, Bruce Springsteen will not be the concert’s performer. Neither will beGarth Brooks. Baseball is still considering concert performers. The show is expected to include multiple acts.
If it truly is going to be multiple acts, that means there’ll be little to no big names. Have fun with that lovers of mediocre bands.
Collin Kottke: All-Around Swell Guy 
