I saw a sign that said "Indie Music" for a section at Borders the other day.

TV on the Radio was touring western Canada in last month, and in my former city of Saskatoon I saw that they were initially slotted to play Louie's Pub, a 200 person capacity venue at the university (where I saw Frank Black, among others). It was then bumped to the Odeon Event centre which has a roughly a 1000 person capacity. This is Saskatoon.

I recently saw The National at The Metropolis in Montreal and was dumbfounded at how packed it was. I later found out that it sold out. Don't know the capacity - maybe 3500 - but I found it surprising since they had no album to promote and I just didn't realize they were that big. I had just seen Bloc Party at the same venue with a smaller crowd, and I though Bolc Party was the bigger act. Great show BTW.

When I was 8, I saved up my lawn mowing money, and my mom took me to Turtles at Shannon Mall. There was a little section in one corner called Alternative, and I remember rifling through it, seeing all these bizarre band names, including RHCP, The Buzzcocks, Echo & The Bunnymen, the Velvet Underground, and I can't remember who else.

absolutely. this is my mindset as well. i've spent close to $400 on admissions this year already, so i have no qualms whatsoever ganking an entire discography from those bands.

I rarely have issues with ticket prices. There have been a few I have passed on due to the price, but they weren't absolutely ridiculous like what they were charging for the Dane Cook tickets in Omaha.
I'm way more apt to go see a band play a small venue for half the cost or the cost of their CD, than I am to actually buy that CD at retail cost.

I definitely find myself going to far less shows than I used to.
I don't know what it is, likely a combination of growing up and not having the money, even though my income exceeds what I ever had in the past. I think it's just different priorities and it has to be a really knockout act for me to want to go.

I manage to do well scoring free tickets with my friends in the business. It's also a matter of my city being huge and just being tired of going all over for venues.

Ticket prices do seem significantly higher to me now. I just got 2 tickets to bat for lashes and it was $51 with everything. that's crazy!
That said, I am probably not as in to the smaller up and coming bands like I used to be so the bigger bands are going to play the bigger venues. Plus this is NYC so even super indie acts play bigger venues here.

case in point: I was going to get a ticket to see phoenix w passion pit at Rumsey Playfield in September.
it's $32 before ticketmaster charges, etc.
EFF THAT!

I had no interest in going, I just used to keep track of local event ticket prices as part of my old job. The ticket prices for Dane Cook were quite outrageous, $35 for nose bleed and near $150 for front row. I wouldn't pay $150 to watch him blow his own head off, which would entertain me more than anything in his set, nor do I think any comedian should command that sort of price.

I don't buy ticketmaster tickets, it is alway e-tix around here, so a $3 surcharge on a $15-$20 ticket doesn't really break the bank.

I just won tix for TV on the radio/grizzly bear for tomorrow night...so yay, free!

A couple more examples

White Stripes on the White Blood Cells Tour played a 1000 or so venues
Strokes on the Is this It? Tour played small 500 or so capacity venues (albeit sold them out immediately)
Interpol on the Turn on the Bright Lights Tour played similar venues

All three played arenas on their last tours. I guess i can somewhat see the first two even if I would have thought WBC and Is this It? were among their biggest albums. Interpol playing an arena though? WTF?

isn't this kind of a rehash of the kings of leon thread(s) a couple weeks ago?

the strokes played an arena in the US? i think the last time they came through here they played a mid-sized auditorium.

arcade fire last time through played the largest venue in town other than the basketball arena...around 2500 people

bands that are on the cover of rolling stone play big rooms

even if you don't like them

Yeah, I guess my question would be WHY are you surprised by this? At least with those bands. Those bands pretty much broke through (at least by college radio and music critic standards) around '02. That's 7 years ago. They got major hype and ink around that time and since then have been touring and putting out well received records.

Eventually some bands from the beginning of the decade were going to become pretty big.

Just for kicks I looked at an album like REM's Murmur. It came out in '83. It was insanely well received by critics and college radio but only sold around 100,000 copies. Cut to 7 years later and they're playing arenas (or close to playing those venues)

Obviously, I'm picking a success story but still. There were plenty of other bands that came out at the same time ('02) that aren't playing arenas. I mean, Spoon or Hot Hot Heat aren't (a couple of bands that got lots of love from that year)

Also, The Replacements came out with Hootenany in '83 and 7 years later they were playing big venues and on MTV and mainstream radio.

Just saying that a lot can happen in 7 years I guess.

Chase sums it up better than me.

I guess it was...except that I thought that was just about KOL and not a general trend. I didn't read that thread too closely because i've never even heard a KOL song.

Strokes, White Stripes, Interpol all played the LA Forum on their last tour.

The difference is REM started selling a ton of records, getting a ton of Radio play, etc. They were much more well-known and popular 7 years later. Document Sold over a million records and Out of Time sold 12 million.

I admitted White Stripes and Strokes aren't the best example and that i'm not THAT surprised by them. Although to Chase's point about Rolling Stone covers, weren't they on the cover back when they were playing smaller clubs? Are they really more popular now then they were in 2002? I think the Hives are even playing bigger venues now than they were in 2002.

And this has nothing to do with whether I like or don't like those bands. I don't dislike any of the three.

it depends on the city.

Bands that sell out 3-5k venues in NYC usually play 1-2k venues in Atlanta...or they will play the same size venue and do multiple nights in the bigger city...

The strokes last show in ATL was for 3500 people. Interpol was at the same venue.

However Atlanta loves Jack White and even the raconteurs could easily play a smaller arena here...or a much larger theatre,

i think the jack white love is universal. his new band (dead weather, right?) is playing two nights here at a 1,400-person theater. both nights were announced at the same time. that didn't make much sense because a) do they even have a record out? b) they could've easily played a larger venue one night only.

you guys are reading way too far into this shit.

White Blood Cells isn't even close to their biggest album; Hell, "Seven Nation Army" is one of the biggest rock singles of this decade and it came out after that.

Yeah maybe not. It was the breakthrough record for them though and it went Gold. The others after it may have sold a little more, but I doubt its by a wide margin.