Concerts in Suma

So last night we went to go see Fountains of Wayne at the Tarrytown Music Hall, probably the first live concert I’ve gone to in the past year. So why did it take me moving to the suburbs to go see live music. I have two theories.

First, less competition for tickets. If you try to go to a concert in the city, you pretty much have to be on top of the announcement if you want to get tickets. You can’t wait a few weeks after tickets come on sale and then pop onto ticketmaster or whatever to pick them up. I tried to see FoW at Joe’s Pub a few months ago when I saw an announcement on Facebook, and they were all sold out. Probably sold out the day they were put on sale. Just so many people in the city competing for scarce tickets. In contrast, I found out about the FoW concert about two weeks before it happened, went onto the Tarrytown Music Hall website, and got pretty good seats that day. There were still seats available the night of the show.

Second, and this is more psychological, is the overwhelming aspect of Manhattan — there’s always so much to do, so many places to go, that sometimes you shut down. A few years ago, I basically gave up on trying to stay on top of the restaurant/club/lounge scene, since it was becoming a full time job. And with all the various places to go see live music, it’s impossible to keep track of everything that’s happening to the point that you just stop trying. So there was a little of that.

In contrast, there’s not, ummm, quite so much to do out in the Hudson Valley, so it’s (a) easier to keep track of, and (b) easier to lock the relatively few events as appointments — sort of like “must see TV”.

Anyway, the concert was great.   One observation — a very different crowd from the one you’d see at Joe’s Pub.  Lots of people in their 50s, and lots of teenagers. I don’t know if that’s subscription based (i.e., people who live in the area might get subscriptions to see all the shows at the Music Hall), since the crowd seemed to know the band.  We’ll see if that holds up on other shows.

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A Hidden Advantage to Living in Suma, rather than Ma: Being Able to Get Tickets to Concerts

Okay, made my first move yesterday to bring a little “Manhattan lifestyle” to my new home in the suburbs. I’m a big fan of the band Fountains of Wayne, best known for “Stacey’s Mom,” and also known for (one of the member’s writing the greatest movie song of all time for the movie That Thing You Do. I tried to see them last year at Joe’s Pub, but it was quickly sold out.

Just saw that they’re doing an acoustic tour, with a stop at the Tarrytown Music Hall.  Picked up two tickets, couple of rows back in the mezzanine, for next Thursday.

So maybe that’s one of the advantages of the Move to Suma — you get some of the same bands coming through the area, but you can actually get tickets…..

UPDATE: It occurred to me that these lyrics from FoW’s “Little Red Light” were appropriate:

Sitting in traffic on the Tappan Zee
Fifty million people out in front of me
Trying to cross the water but it just might be a while
Rain’s coming down I can’t see a thing
Radio’s broken so I’m whistling
New York to Nyack feels like a hundred miles

-JR

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Who’s Moving to the Suburbs? Amy Winehouse, That’s Who!

You always want to be on top of a trend, right? Well, it’s good to see I’m not alone in making the move to the suburbs: crazy person Amy Winehouse is apparently also moving to a quiet suburb of London when she gets out of her latest rehab. Sadly, her purpose is not to bring her particular brand of falling-down-drunk to the suburbs; instead, she’s moving there to avoid the temptations of the city.

This sort of goes against my Suma philosophy, the idea that you can bring a little bit of your city to the suburbs.  My point is that I’m going to try to find something in the suburbs that feeds that pretentious, pseudo-hip sides of my personality that’s so deeply important to me.  Then again, my pretentious, pseudo-hip side doesn’t include a massive heroin problem (which I guess is what you get when you’re really seriously hip, not pseudo-hip), so my baggage is a lot easier to carry, like on rollers.

And I guess Amy would be moving to “Sulo,” not “Suma”.  But it makes me happy to know that celebrities are doing what I’m doing.  I feel validated!

UPDATE: This didn’t work out so well.  RIP, Amy.

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