Sunday, November 06, 2005

Godskitchen, Movies and Ticketmaster.

Mel and I had been looking forward to going to a decent rave for some time now. We went to see X-Press 2 a few weeks ago in Spirit but I wont really count that. Last Sunday Godskitchen was in town (well, actually the point). Fergie, Ferry Corsten, Lisa Lashes and Armin Van Buren where the main DJ's for the night. The music was great – it was about 2 years since the last time that I went to Godskitchen in The Point. There is something cool about loud music, huge lasers and about 6,000 people dancing. For me, Lisa Lashes was the best. She finished off with hard house remixes of the Prodigy's “Voodoo People” and Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirits”. One thing that wasn't so cool about it was the hordes of track suit bottomed 'ravers' that looked like they had fallen out of bed and put on their clothes from last nights football game. I think some sort of dress code is needed. (Or at least a ban on track suit bottoms and football jerseys!)

Has anyone noticed how crap the movies are lately? A new cinema (with the worst website ever – geocities 99 all the way!) opened up beside us recently and it's been difficult to try and come up with a movie that I want to see. It's got 9 (at least, I think so) screens and I've only seen “God of War” and “Serenity”. Both good shows – but for me, “God of War” is the only must see.

Fergal and I have gone to California for 2 weeks on Edgespace business. Every time I go over there, I always check ahead to see who is playing around the Bay Area. I was astonished to find that U2 where actually playing in Oakland during our time there and that there was tickets (albeit, only the really expensive ones) left – so I booked a couple. It's crazy! Ticketmaster, on two tickets, charged $35 in 'inconvenience' fees! I'm using the web to book tickets which I know to be a lot more cost efficient then them having either a physical presence or phone operator available, and then they charge $35 dollars for convenience. They also charge the event organizer (although I could be a little off on this) about 5-7% of the tickets face value. So, for two tickets, they got about $60 - $70. Then, after all this, they send me an email 4 days later to say that my card didn't go through, even though I had seen the tickets on my credit card statement! Another 10 minutes 'convenient' phone call to the US and another international $2.50 charge to my card and it's all sorted out. Ridiculous! (But not the worst customer experience I've had recently, but I'll come to that later...)