O.A.R. Adventure

A couple months ago, my brother sent me information that one of my favorite bands –O.A.R. (of a revolution) – was playing in D.C. on the 29th and 30th. I had not seen them in concert despite repeated attempts. It was getting frustrating. I promptly emailed my friend, Jason (affectionately known as Nute) – who is also an avid fan. We began to make plans to see them. Sort of. He said he might be interested, and by the time we had decided that we wanted to go, the concert was sold out.

A couple weeks before the show we were scouring eBay and other sites for reasonably priced tickets. We found them for $90 - $125 a piece. Now, even though this was a favorite band of mine, there was no way we were going to pay that much for a ticket. We were looking for 4 – for me, Rach, Nute, and his girlfriend – Diane (affectionately known as ‘Dano’). We had all decided that since face value was $35, and if we got them through Ticketmaster they would have added almost $10 for processing and tax, that we would pay, maybe, $50. We couldn’t find anything even remotely close to that price.

Despite that, Nute and Dano still planned on making their way to Baltimore on the 29th. We wanted to go to the show on the 30th. It was looking very bleak come Wednesday night. By this time most of the shows listed on various sights didn’t even include the 30th. And the ones that did were still at outrageous prices.

So the morning of the 30th rolled around. And we were still looking. We didn’t want to go down into D.C. with no tickets with the hopes of picking up 4. This would be a difficult task for 1, and for 2 – it is not uncommon for people to hawk counterfeit tickets. And we didn’t want to be screwed. Nute hopped on his laptop and found 2 tickets on eBay for $50. That was for both. The problem was that the seller was in Philly, and we would have to go get them. Even though Philly is just a couple hours away, doing this for just 2 tickets just wasn’t logical.

Just when we were starting to lose hope – Nute started IM-ing a friend from college who lives in D.C., and she pointed us to a message board. We promptly got on and posted the need for 4 tickets. Within a half hour we got a call. A guy with an British accent, had 3 tickets (the fact he had a British accent has nothing to do with getting the tickets, but made the process seem more like a mission - a la Bond or something). He lived on the way to D.C. and we could get them for $50 a piece. The ball was in motion. This was Phase 1 – according to Nute (he likes to do things in “Phases”). We started to get ready. We felt okay about going down there with 3 and just trying to find 1 ticket. That was better odds. They were all General Admission, so seating didn’t make a difference. As we got ready we kept an eye on the phone, maybe someone else would call.

We had to pick up the tickets at 6 at this guy’s apartment. The doors opened at 7:30pm. His apartment was just about 20 minutes outside of D.C. So we had a little time and went to eat. Then things started to get interesting. It was about an hour to get to the British guy’s place. We left the restaurant about 5:00. This worried me, because traffic can be nasty. However, apparently there weren’t many people working this close to the holiday (none of US were – so this made sense... at least to me), because the traffic wasn’t bad. Finding the apartment wasn't difficult either. I slept most of the way, riding in a car will do that to me.

Rach and I didn’t think we’d even get this close to tickets, so we were still a bit skeptical. We were at the British guys place by 6:00. Then it got to be 6:10 and we gave him a call. “I will be there in, literally 10 minutes,” he said. I guess in England a minute must be on some wacky metric time, because it was easily 20 minutes before he showed. We had no clue what this guy was like, so Nute wanted me to get out of the car for 'backup.' The guy was pretty nice. He gave us the tickets and showed us an email from the person he originally got them from, he was going out of his way to show us he wasn’t screwing us over. He said he did attend the show the previous night and offered advice: there will probably be tickets availably to buy from others, but don’t make it obvious you are trying to buy them. The security people will take all of your tickets and rip them up. He was like our wise sage you see in movies when people go on quests. You know the ones where they seem to have a little too much information, but all of it is key in completing the journey? Phase 1 was going well.

We decided that driving in D.C. was a pain. We didn’t know where we are going, and the club was supposed to be in a bad part of town. All of these factors led us to park in a nearby garage and make a call for a cab. We were 7 miles away from the club. We went to a nearby Holiday Inn to get the number for a cab.

There’s something I have learned over the years about riding in a cab. Always act like you know where you are and where you are going. The more clueless you seem, them more likely they are to take the “scenic route” to milk you for money. The cab arrived. Rach, Dano and I sat in the back. Nute sat up front. One of the first things Nute does is proclaim that we have no clue where we’re going. Phase 2 was off to a rocky start. Then, on top of that – after telling the cabbie where we were going he seemed to have no clue either. Did I mention it was 7 miles away? Nute then – helpfully – handed him the directions we downloaded from Mapquest. Ugh. Rach and I looked at each other with trepidation and Dano giggled. I then just shook my head.

Dano was nursing a little hangover, and needed to stop at a convenience store for some medicine. We were going to do that first. We pulled out of the Holiday Inn, and Nute asked if there was a 7-11 around. The cabbie said “yeah.” Well, in my vision about a half a block away, I could see it. And on the other side was a CVS pharmacy. I pointed it out – but maybe not audibly enough. The cabbie and Nute were still talking about how there’s one down the street – and then – we drove right on by it. I turned around and pointed at it and repeated “there’s one right there.” But we continued to drive. Again, Rach, Dano and I exchanged looks. The cabbie took a right, drove a little, took another right, drove a little and took another right… and lo and behold there was the SAME FREAKING 7-11! The cabbie had just driven us no more than round the block – in a not so subtle manner. I said something like “Hey, we were just here.” I looked at the meter. Apparently a ride around the block was $5.00 for 4 people – in case you have ever wondered. Nute hopped out to run inside. The cabbie turned on the dome light to examine the directions (7 miles away – he tried to explain that he was a Bethesda cabbie and didn’t go into D.C. “Hogwash” I thought…ok maybe I thought something a little more harsh, but it meant the same). At this point Dano, Rach and I started to whisper about ditching the cabbie and just driving ourselves. I wanted to say something to the cabbie about screwing us over, but decided against it to save us further problems if we were going to stick with him. Which we did. Again we were on our way.

I have never, ever, had a cabbie not know where he was going. It seemed preposterous to me. I figured this had to be one of the job requirements. There are only 2, right? Have a driver's license and know all the roads in a 50 – 75 mile radius (depending on where you are a cabbie). There doesn’t seem to be much more than that. I mean there doesn’t seem to be a dress code, or education level required. Just 2 things; drive and know where you are driving. I figured this guy either a) was pulling our leg or b) was a complete moron and got the job through his uncle or something. At this point both scenarios were equally plausible.

We all chipped in to help the cabbie find his way as he drove slow like he was looking around, stopped at non-existent stop signs and clumsily made his way. Rach, Dano and I continued to shoot looks at one another. We were pointing out street signs and such. As we approached the cabbie tipped his hand that the club we were going to was in a bad part of town… well… how did he know that? We had been hoodwinked. Figures. But we got there. So Phase 2 was complete – finally. We all informed Nute that it was better to act like you know where you were going in the cabbie situation.

The line to the club wrapped around the block. The doors were not open yet, and we started walking to the end. We get to the end of the line and start Phase 3 – finding one more ticket. We decided that I would hold onto the three we had and Nute would search for number 4 lest he be stopped by security. He didn’t have to go far. As we were deciding a guy walked by us to someone directly behind us saying – “Hey this guy up here (not us) needs a ticket.” Nute turned around and said – “Ill buy it from you right now.” By that time, the other guy was there, and the seller – who was obviously drunk – wanted to start a bidding war. Luckily for us the guy we were up against was cheap. He wanted the ticket for less than face – so our offer of $50 was not matched and we had our fourth ticket (later the cheap guy agreed to buy a ticket from a girl for $40 and “mistakenly’ gave her a $20 and a $5 – she noticed).

Oddly enough a little later a girl who was with the person we bought the ticket from had hers torn up by security because she had alcohol. I guess she could have then used that ticket – heh heh heh.

From that point on – things went smoothly. We got in the club, go a decent place and enjoyed the concert thoroughly. We had – in a day – gone from no tickets and no hope to seeing an awesome show of one of our favorite bands in a cozy, small venue – for what we wanted to pay. The experience was great.

We hailed a cab to go back to the hotel. Despite our previous advice, Nute again pulled out the Mapquest directions. Thankfully, we got a better cabbie (though we learned more than we wanted by overhearing his cell phone conversation with his ‘woman’). The cab ride back cost us $10 less than the ride there. Interesting huh?

Nevertheless, all things considered, things went better than we had expected. And like Rachael said “Now we have a good story too.”