Anyway this morning I queued for Arcade fire tickets. After a number of tweets went out stating that they were to play a intimate gig in LA. They also posted that to stop people having to camp over night they would 'stagger the info' but then proceeded the night before to list three images which eluded to where tickets would be on sale. Ooooh now being from London (home of the best detective) and an ex researcher i thought I can crack the code, decypher the diagram, break the bastard.
However just by the power of google and what was quite obviously a postcode (zipcode) I a mere foreigner who didn't know any record shops in any area of LA (part from Ameoba) was able to find all three within about 2 goes. This was hardly the Da Vinci Code it was more the Duuuuuuur Vinci Code. The results came in at 9am the next morning confirming my suspicians.
So i turned up just after 9 to Echo Park. Saw a que and immediately joined it. It didn't look so bad. Stood there for a bit then the person 'in front' of me spoke to me. Ah I thought just friendly que banter. He pointed out to me that I'd joined the front of the que and that I was now first in line. Of course I pretended to know this (i didn't). Anyway he'd been there since 9 pm the night before. So much for not making people sleep over. I laughed and then walked along the line and joined it at the back (i believe this is the correct procedure). With the sun on my back and trying to get a signal to check whether I had any chance of getting a ticket I waited for the reassurance of other people joining the que behind me and thus not making me the last person.
After 1 hour the que suddenly moved only for me to be re-positioned in another que that was going the OTHER direction. I imagined that other people coming from the other direction had joined this que whilst we had made our way round and that in the end these people would cause me not to get a ticket.
So in the new que we waited. Tried to work out if the amount of people infront would take up the full 200 tickets. Made pleasant conversation about how delusional we were to even think that we'd be in with a chance. It's always reassuring to have other people who think along the same lines. Even if this line was too long and full of desperation. I saw a couple of people join their friends in the que ( is this allowed? Again I imagined that those people would be responsible for me not getting my tickets). Hang on though - the line was moving I could see the door area now. Like rowing for shore and finally seeing land. I actually thought we were going to make it. My British Queing feet weren't what they used to be.
I did a kind of standing in line work-out where you lift your left leg up, lift your right leg up, balance on the balls of your feet and down again, look at your phone, blow out your cheeks, and tut.
It seemed that the first 100 people had numbers and when the 100th went in and of course bought their two tickets. That was it. show was over, well show hadn't even started but it was over for us. After one last 'I'm not going until I hear it from an official' (like I was waiting for a whistle to be blown and a referee to come out and call full time). So that was it. I was about 50 people off in the end. But like somone said in the que earlier. This que is a bit like life. I then said well it's probably a reflection on my life in that I worked out how to get tickets but I was too lazy to get up and do something about it and half heartedly tried but kind of new that I wasn't going to get it.
Join me next week for another edition of queing with Jeremy. It's going to be sooooo exciting - see you at the back of the line.
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