Last Blogger

I’m back from vacation. We had lots of things on our schedule but the main highlight was the Aerosmith concert in Charlottetown.

Aerosmith is one of those bands. They put on a hell of a show and know how to work a crowd. They sounded awesome and had some arrangements that were very interesting and new to me. Overall, I had a fantastic time listening to them even though the view wasn’t good.

To the promoters though I give a huge thumbs down. The overall organization for this concert was a disaster. Lines were ridiculous to get in, both in length and how they worked. Having 3 people scanning tickets when there are 5000+ people in line just doesn’t make sense. The signage for the main entry once you got in was at belly height. 35 000 people were there… You can’t have belly height signs. The port-a-potty set up had two sets of them facing each other with about twenty feet between them. Picture that for a second. Then when it was time to leave, there were somewhere on the order of 15 000 people in line on a side street waiting for a shuttle to get back. Many people got in line and waited, but a few thousand decided to cut line. The two cops they had their to watch 15 000 people were completely ineffective bottles were heard smashing everywhere and people trampled through people’s front yards/gardens to skip the line. The crowd was getting pretty vocal and physical when it came to the line cutters and I’m very surprised that nobody got into a fight. It had all the makings of a big brawl, yet people had enough sense to keep things down to swearing and yelling at each other.

As for the acts the promoter booked, aside from Aerosmith and 54/40 I was pretty disappointed. I was even more disappointed with the order of those that were chosen. Serena Ryder was way too early. From what I’ve heard of her, she sounds like a very good artist. They also had someone named Christa Borden (who’s promoter was the concert promoter) on in a prime time slot and she was awful. She played mostly covers. Covers, at a big concert like this as an opening act for Aerosmith. She spent most of the in between songs thanking her promoter, and boy she had better because no one else would have booked her for this, let alone put her in a prime time slot. Her crowd banter sounded like a stunned 15 year old who was desperately trying to make friends. 54/40 is a great band and should have been on way later, at least in Borden’s slot if not Cheap Trick’s (right before Aerosmith).

Overall, thumbs up to the acts who knew what they were doing and a huge thumbs down to the promoters who botched this one to no end. All I heard in line while waiting 1 hour 45 minutes for a shuttle were people commenting on how stupid this was and how the Rolling Stones concert in Halifax was much, much better organized. I didn’t go to that one, but my wife did and she agreed 110%.

If there’s another concert in Charlottetown, don’t bother. I know we won’t.

(1 votes, average: 1 out of 5)

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