Mayor Proposes Charity Concert To Raise Money For Cash-Strapped City

Remember how well Live 8 went off? I mean, I don’t know if it achieved whatever it was supposed to achieve. Actually, I don’t remember what it was supposed to achieve. Dropping the debt? Helping feed African children? Making people wear white wristbands for a week or two? Hmm. I think it was about awareness, maybe. And, boy, am I ever aware of Africa!

Anyway: Live 8 in Philadelphia went off very well. The concert was (amazingly) pretty enjoyable, there weren’t any huge riots where people destroyed everything around them, etc. But, really, should we push our luck with another huge concert idea?

The mayor thinks so. In fact, today he said talk is underway for a FarmAid-style concert to raise money for the city! Catherine Lucey calls it “PhilAid,” and I don’t think we’re going to do any better than that. Somebody register philaid.org, quick! Crap, too late!

“I was in a conversation where it was suggested that there are tons of stars, some from Philly, some might come to Philadelphia,” Nutter said today. “It entails a whole lot of work and effort and is not necessarily something you can build a budget around. Whatever you would generate would be a onetime thing.”

I guess if this is supposed to raise money, it can’t be out on the Parkway. So, ah… the Linc and its horrible sound? Or maybe they could charge a ton for tickets and hold it at the Kimmel Center? Or how about the Robin Hood Dell East, that concert hall the newspapers are always writing about!

Mayor Nutter says the discussions are very, very preliminary (read: it’s not going to happen). That’s probably a good thing, because you know they’d organize this thing and then it’d eventually lose money.

Could a PhilAid concert come our way? [Clout]

Photo by Lucius Kwok used under a Creative Commons license

Pa. Upholds Right To Pay Out The Ass For Concerts

The Pennsylvania legislature recently passed a law guaranteeing protecting when buying concert tickets over the Internet.

It’s a state law that says if you buy tickets for, say, the Philadelphia Kixx over the Internet and the show is cancelled or the tickets are fake or not the ones you paid for, you get a refund. How this is going to be enforced if you buy tickets from eBay power seller s3xyd00d469, I do not know.

There’s no cap on the premium ticket sellers online can charge, so a $16 Phillies playoff ticket can go for $500 if it’s that in demand. Of course, buying a Phillies playoff ticket is like the King of Mexico: It’s a scenario that could possibly exist, but in reality does not. (There was some sort of word for this, “neither [x] nor [x]” I think. It was in sophomore year geometry class. Naturally, the only thing I actually remember is “King of Mexico.” I don’t even know how many sides a triangle has.)

Also, if you’re scoring at home, selling tickets over the Internet: God bless America. Selling tickets outside the stadium: Illegal.

Pa. Regulates Resale Of Tickets Sold Over The Net [KYW 1060]

Third Eye Blind Doesn’t Pay Its Parking Tickets

What were you doing this weekend? If you were one of the 2,000 kids, many of them Penn students, lucky enough to have a ticket, you were rocking out at the Ben Folds/Third Eye Blind concert!

A few of you have emailed me to ask just why I’m picking on Ben Folds. (There have been quite a few fewer complaints about Third Eye Blind, natch.) Nothing wrong with Ben Folds, or even with Third Eye Blind. It’s just: Hello, Penn held a concert with two artists who Y100 played in about 1997. In fact, I saw Ben Folds at the 1998 Y100 Feztival. Y100 doesn’t even exist anymore, except on XPN, I guess. And the Internet, too. But even so, I don’t think Y-Rock on XPN (or whatever) even plays either band anymore.

What I’m trying to say is… wait, hmm? Penn kids weren’t quite as jazzed by the concert as expected. Hey, maybe these kids are a little smarter after all!

The show was plagued by a long wait, cramped quarters, speaker problems and, of course, swooning Third Eye Blind/Ben Folds fans.

“It was crowded - someone passed out on me,” College freshman Rose Feinberg said. “I think it could’ve been in a bigger location, but I noticed that a lot of people started to leave before it ended, so, by the end, space wasn’t an issue.”

In the end, though, the Daily Pennsylvanian says the show was pretty well-received. But the Philadelphia Parking Authority is, apparently, Everclear fans.

In the end, though, Third Eye Blind’s life was a little less than semi-charmed [boooo!—dmac] after receiving a parking ticket during the concert.

“They parked in a spot and we had it marked off for us, but I guess there was some confusion with the Philadelphia Parking Authority,” [concert organizer Matt] Mizrahi said. “We’re going to take care of that. They won’t [have to] pay the ticket.”

Dammit. I wish I was a, uh, celebrity. Or at least a mainstream alternative pop/rock band on a major label in the late 1990s. Then I could park wherever the hell I wanted to.

Mixed reviews for Fling show [Daily Pennsylvanian]

Penn Kids Gonna Party Like It’s 1999

The lineup for the annual spring fling concert at the University of Pennsylvania has been set, and what a lineup it is!

Yes, that’s right, the two biggest acts on the planet will come to Philadelphia and play on Penn’s campus: Ben Folds and Third Eye Blind.

I could only imagine the conversation went something like, “Hey, we need to get the biggest semi-popular pop-rock groups from the late 1990s. Who can we get?” (And I like Ben Folds. I saw him at Spring Fling when he played it seven years ago.)

“Both Ben Folds and Third Eye Blind were very popular on our Facebook searches and on our student-body survey, so we think that everybody will be really excited about them,” said Wharton senior and SPEC director Catey Mark.

Ben Folds, the DP reported, was excited to play with Third Eye Blind. Oooh!

Third Eye Blind to introduce Ben Folds [Daily Pennsylvanian]

Wha? House of Blues at 16th and Washington?

I can’t even really add anything to this. Via Phillyblog:

I got a flyer today advertising a meeting about a proposed House of Blues at 16th and Washington! [...] It’s not a hoax…I went to the meeting tonight. The stuff on Chestnut is apparently the restaurant - this is the concert venue. It is indeed on the south side of Washington, using the old Southwark company buildings. SOSNA would have no say since it’s south of Washington.

Grasso owns the whole block, and the House of Blues will occupy the space on the south side of Washington, between 16th and 17th. It will go all the way back to the property lines of the houses on Ellsworth.

I get the impression this is a done deal. There was a community meeting, but the developer already owns all the space and apparently it doesn’t have to go before the zoning board. So the meeting seems to be pure formality.

As could be expected, there was a lot of excitement but also a lot of people upset about parking and sound issues. There were several people who own houses on Ellsworth that butt up to the back of this proposed project, and they were understandably concerned about sound bleed. The developers laid out all the methods of containing the sound within the buildings, and it sounds like they have a good handle on it.

There goes the neighborhood!

House of Blues at 16th and Washington!? [Phillyblog]