MUSE > DMB

I've been a casual fan of the Dave Matthews Band since they broke into the big time with Under the Table and Dreaming. I became a much bigger fan when I saw them live for the first time last summer. There were a pair of shows at the Tweeter Center in Camden, and they were both awesome. The first show was more of their "popular" stuff, their radio-friendly stuff, along with more of their fan-favorites. The second show they got a little more free-form. Taken as a whole, I realized why the band has such an enormous draw. Yes, there were lots of frat boys who were just there to get drunk. I very nearly beat up one of them, the nearest I've ever come to striking another human being. But we had awesome seats... second row for the second show.

Watching this band, who all so clearly enjoy what they're doing, and to watch Carter's mastery live... it was all thrilling. So when Jenn suggested that we both go out to the Gorge this year to see the shows, it was a no-brainer.

Jenn's been a Warehouse member for six years now, and as such usually gets really good seats. In the lottery for the 2004 tour, she got seats in the members' sections for two of the three Gorge shows. We thought we'd do at least that well this year.

The Warehouse lottery happened while we were away for Easter this past weekend, but we learned the sad, sad results when we got back today: We got zippy. Nothing. Nada. For all of Jenn's good patronage, for buying every freakin' CD they've ever released through the Warehouse, both of us having a prodigious catalog of the studio releases... despite all of that, Jenn received nothing. So the fate of our trip to the Gorge this year is very much in jeopardy.

Despite what the Warehouse says are its rules for the lottery (seniority counts first), a six-year member was utterly ineligible for tickets. So I have this to say to the entire DMB organization:

If this is how you're going to treat your fans, fuck you. You bilk your fans $35 a year just for the priveledge of being able to pay $65 for seats that are set apart from the people who will vomit on our blanket. We committed to paying that, for all three shows, for both of us. Jenn's credit card has been no stranger to the grubbers at your corporate offices over the past six years. Why now, all of the sudden, is our money not good enough for you?

I'd better never hear that a five-year-or-less Warehouse member was able to get even one Warehouse seat for the Gorge this year. Friends have told me that being a DMB fan was sort of passé. I dismissed them because I enjoyed their music. But if this is how they treat their fans, they deserve to have shit dumped on their tour van.