I write my usual contact and ask if I can make it onto the guest list. That’ll only get me two spots. I go on Craigslist and see that some tickets are going for $150 apiece. I email several people who are pricing them more reasonably, and through a rapid succession of replies establish that I’m to pay $150 for two, in Washington Square, at 7pm. “Let me know if anything changes, please!”, he says. Exclamation point.

In the meantime I haven’t heard back from my colleague about the guest list, when out of nowhere arrives an email from Robbie, who manages promotions for one of the openers and can get me on their list. So, that’s it then, right?, two plus two is four. Unfortunately I don’t have the phone number for the guy I’m meeting in Washington Square, and I haven’t heard from him in hours. So I just have to arrive there at 7 on faith that he’ll, I dunno, be like standing on the corner waving two tickets over his head? Just as we’re about to hop into a cab to go meet him, he emails: “Hey man, I had to get rid of them earlier b/c I am about to leave town. I’m sorry for the late short notice.”

So, fuck, I run back onto Craigslist and find another pair going for $150, I email the guy offering him $170, he agrees, we’re to meet outside The Paradise at 8.

Get there, not on the list, opener doesn’t have a list, make some calls, pay the guy (+$10 for luck), get some calls, drink some beers, wait, wait, plead, fib, wait, get some calls, shit. No guest list. Shit. Sell the tickets at an $80 loss.

Ride despondently down to PA’s where, rather than drowning in hipsters and seeing a middling band at a sold-out show sponsored by WFNX, we see Vialka, who are incredible.