The great John Fogerty, one time leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival, is coming to the UK. He’s playing gigs in London, Manchester and Dublin. I’ve seen him three times before, at the Hammersmith Apollo, Wembley Arena and the former Scotiabank Arena, now the Canadian Tire Centre, in Ottawa which sounds more like Kwikfit than a concert hall. He will be 78 when he hits the UK in a tour to celebrate the fact that he has won back the publishing rights to his own music. I am desperate to go. His music has been with me since the late 1960s. But I’m not going. Sod it. Ticketmaster, the monopoly masters of tickets for everything and anything, have simply pissed me off too much along with the extortion racket called our railway system.
It’s not just Ticketmaster, it’s me. But they didn’t help matters. Quite aside from, rightly, having to plough through myriad passwords and codes, they were constantly trying to sell me the most expensive tickets. I set a top limit of £100 for the Manchester show and eventually I found a couple at £65 each, which these days is very reasonable. The usual ‘fees’ were then added, making each ticket cost £80 but I was still prepared to go with it. But finally, as I clicked the final button to confirm my tickets, I was timed out. The message might as well said, ‘Be quicker next time, you old fool’ but I just didn’t want to put myself through that again. Anyway, just for fun I decided I’d check the train fares because I really didn’t fancy driving all that way for a gig. That was even more fun.
People are always telling me, if you book ages in advance you can get some real bargains. Well, you could have fooled me. Even applying the saving due to my old Old Codger Railcard, the train would have taken the strain for a mere £175. This was the cheapest off peak price. Laughably, the National Rail website does give you the opportunity to purchase ‘other cheap fares’. Call me a scrooge but I do not regard £175 for two people as cheap. But there’s more.
I would not travel to Manchester and back from Bristol in a single day so a hotel would be required. To be fair, the Premier Inn option is quite reasonable – around £71 for one night, including breakfast, but already, for one concert, we’ll have shelled out somewhere in the region of £425, which doesn’t even allow for sundry expenses such as eating and having a pint of ale or two. Given how expensive everything is these days, I reckon I wouldn’t have had much change from £500. If you live in and around Manchester, I reckon £160 for two people to see one of the great legends of rock music would be reasonable. £500, less so. I could have a short break in the sun for that. I think I probably will.
Dear John, and all that. I absolutely love your music and I do know that this could be the last time you tour over here. But I am not made of money and I cannot justify all the expense around the gig. I’m so glad you’ve got your publishing rights back at a time when other artists of your vintage are flogging theirs. I’m sorry I’ll miss you but that’s how it goes sometimes. Rip off Britain and its rip off railways saw to that.
