I screwed up and bought tickets to two shows on the same night.

Option 1: Pavement/Sonic Youth/No Age @ the Hollywood Bowl

Option 2: John Cale Performs Paris 1919 with The LA Philharmonic at UCLA's Royce Hall

I think I'm leaning John Cale based on liking Cale more than Pavement and it being more of a one time thing. I might be able to sell the Cale tix for more for the same reason though. Also, I have an extra ticket to whatever show I go to since fem g is out of town and it would probably be easier to recruit someone to the Pavement/SY show than to Cale.

What would you guys do? I'm not sure I'll follow the advice but I am interested in it either way.

Well--Sonic Youth is kind of my favorite band, plus they're great live. So that is my quick and dirty obvious recommendation. Fuck Pavement. But, uh, obviously Sonic Youth is not appearing to be a factor in your decision... so if it is simply Pavement v. John Cale, I think John Cale is kind of the more pressing of the two.

cale's show sounds like a one-off and the pavements appear ready to do several rounds of this reunion tour much like the pixies. i caught the pavement show, and while fun, i'd much rather catch cale do the 1919 record.

Not true. I'm much more of a SY fan than a Pavement fan. If this was a Pavement/No Age show, I doubt I would have bought tickets even before I realized I had a conflict with the Cale show. Pavement is the headliner though and will play for much longer and I do at least in theory still like them.

are you in this to see a good show or make money?

i vote cale, and so answer my dilemma for wednesday:

van dyke parks
vs.
mice parade

hum

Mainly to see a good show. I dropped a couple hundred on these tickets which was a mistake though so everything is a consideration. Bottom line, I need to decide quick so I can at least sell one of the sets.

Van dyke parks

It'll be easier to sell the No Age/SY/Pavement tix. I voted for going to see the Pavement show, btw.

Sounds like you want to see Cale more, so really that should be the answer.

Yeah.

How do the two venues compare in size? If it were me, I'd want to go to the less huge one which I'd assume would be John Cale.

I vote Cale. Sounds like a rare opportunity.

Also, that album is great. I understand the dilemma though. Still, my gut says do this. He's already pushing 70.

I'm sure he'll do some other songs too.

It's definitely true that if I didn't own tickets to either and had someone offer me the Cale or Pavement/SY show, I'd choose the Cale show. I'd enjoy either though and am almost positive I'm eating the extra Cale ticket if I go that route. Based on what I see people asking for on craiglist for the Pavement/SY show, I wouldn't get back all I paid. So I'm looking at $100 plus for my tickets to cale plus whatever hit I take on the Pavement/SY tickets (maybe $30-40 plus any commission if I decide to sell via stub hub). I might be able to recruit a friend for the Pavement show and then sell the Cale tickets (maybe even for a profit -- hard to say I don't see anyone really selling tickets but I'm sure the orchestra section is sold out).

So its not really a desire to make a profit, Its more a question of do I essentially want to pay $130+ to see cale or $60-70 to see pavement. Of course, there's no guarantee I can sell either for what I'm thinking so I dunno. Maybe I should just see cale because that's who i prefer to see, and not worry about the money aspect.

i was not terribly impressed with van dyke parks last night, but i picked that over a few other shows, so i'd probably make the same decision without that foresight.

Oh you could fit almost ten royce hall's inside the hollywood bowl. John Cale is definitely playing the smaller venue. Going to see a show at the bowl isn't just about the music. If it were, you'd never see a band like Sonic Youth there. You'd wait to see them at a much smaller place on their next tour. I have pretty good tickets to both and both are seated events though so its not like choosing a small club versus an arena.

Post both sets on craigslist at face value or slightly above so you have haggling room, and see what sells first, and sell the sets as sets, not to be broken up.

See what happens.

-Phil

That's actually not a bad idea. It has the added bonus of making it more likely that I'll actually sell one of them rather than waiting too long while i try to make up my mind.

Paris, 1919 is among my favorite albums of all-time. I like Pavement.

I would go see Cale without so much as a second thought.

This is all that matters in this scenario. Everything else has to do with money. It's money - you'll make more.

I think if you post both sets for sale, craigslist will decide that you should go to john cale. Or craigslist will decide that you can sell either set of tix and you will choose to go to john cale.

I tried that yesterday and had not a single response. I was hoping to get my money back which seemed reasonable at first thought because they are better tickets than are still available through ticketmaster. When I think about it though, I doubt I'd buy from craigslist unless the show was sold out (which I don't think it is) or the tickets were steeply discounted. So I reposted the Pavement/Sonic Youth tickets offering them at a 30% loss. I suppose I could go a little lower than that but i'm not going to deal with trying to meet up with some weirdo to do the exchange unless I'm at leasting getting some decent coin back.

Either way, looks like I'm going to Cale unless my Cale ad I posted yesterday gets a very late response.

When is the show? Unless it's tonight, you're giving up sort of easily.

ditch 'em both and go to the demolition derby.

Its Thursday. They are physical tickets though so I have to meet someone to do the sale and I don't have a ton of free time between now and Thursday to do that.

So I ended up selling the Pavement/Sonic Youth tix for $75. They were $110 Face Value Tickets ($130 after all the ticketmaster fees) so I was hoping for more. I could have probably gotten more if I'd held out and been more of a stickler but I didn't want to put anymore time into it or risk not getting anything.

I made a good pick going to Cale though.



I thought it was a pretty great show, especially the first half and the encores.

Here's the set list for anyone interested (read: Todd):

First half:
Child's Christmas in Wales
Hanky Panky Nohow
Endless Plain of Fortune
Andalucia
Paris 1919
Graham Greene
Half Past France
Antarctica Starts Here
Macbeth

Intermission:
Hello There
Heartbreak Hotel
Ghost Story (with Mark Lanegan)
Ship of Fools (with Ben Gibbard)
Gideon's Bible (with Ben Gibbard)
Win a Few (with Mark Lanegan)
Whaddya Mean
Catastrophic
Secret Corrida
Hedda Gabler

Encores:
Gun/Pablo Picasso
Chorale

And here's a review from the LA Weekly. I seemed to like it more than the reviewer. It was pretty amusing watching the orchestra stuck up there on stage while Cale and the rest of the band were jamming in the encore.