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If You're Feeling Sinister...

Before my sour gripes, I'll admit to sour grapes: I wanted to attend the free Belle and Sebastian concert in New York City's Battery Park on the 4th of July, but I was unable to obtain tickets.

Pairs of free tickets were being distributed at four Starbucks locations (trivia: searching for "Starbucks" on stayfreemagazine.org yields 53 hits. Maybe 54 now. Or is that 55?) in the NYC area: Battery Park City, City Hall, Astor Place, and Park Slope. Having never seen the Scottish twee übergroup live, I took an early lunch and headed to the City Hall location, arriving at 11:40 for the scheduled noon ticket distribution. Alas, a sign indicated that there were no more tickets. Apparently the line, which had formed much earlier, was longer than anticipated, crowd control was an issue, so they just started handing out tickets. OK, fine, we don't want mass hysteria anywhere near scalding hot coffee or Pomegranate Frappuccino juice blend. Still, it would've been nice if they played by the rules and waited till noon.

At this point, I basically gave up. I toyed with the idea of the 5 p.m. ticket giveaway at Astor Place, but the mental image of a throng of sensitive NYU hipsters kept me away. Too many diagonal shoulder-strap bags in too small a space. And it just didn't seem worth the trouble. Twee bands have never been known for stellar live performances. Riding bikes with their best girl to a secret picnic spot, yes. "Cleveland, are you ready to rock?," no.

As a last-ditch effort, I poked around on the tickets section of Craigs List. This is where things got ugly. Remember, it is a free concert. Free. And yet, people are asking for $40 a ticket. $50 a ticket. The current high: $75 a ticket. In a posting that has since been removed, an individual didn't want any money for the tickets, just some—and I hope I'm remembering this correctly—"physical lady pleasure."

Folks, that ain't twee, that ain't indie, that ain't right. The only act of decency I saw on Craigs List was from a blogger who ran a contest to give away tickets, free. The blog picks up some new readers, and a couple of people get free tickets. I like that a lot.

Much blame must be placed on the River To River organization for creating this ticket fiasco in the first place. You can argue that we are savages, all of us, and will turn any situation toward money and sex sooner or later, and probably sooner. So, don't test us. I've been to two previous 4th of July free concerts at Battery Park. Yes, at last year's Laura Cantrell/Stephen Malkmus/Yo La Tengo lovefest, people were turned away. Perhaps this inspired a ticket system, and I'm sure the intentions were good. But don't give us a week to screw things up. At River To River's Castle Clinton venue, tickets are distributed on the day of each show, a few hours before the concert. It's an orderly system, and works very nicely. No money. No sex. Well, maybe behind the Castle, but that's none of my business. Perhaps a ticket giveaway on the morning of July 4th would work. The current system doesn't.

I will conclude with the eternal question: Doesn't anyone in this city have a job? Who are these thousands of people able to stand outside coffee shops for several hours in the middle of a workday? OK, OK, sour grapes.