Eddie Izzard @ The Orpheum

Eddie Izzard. Was Fucking Hilarious.

The venue was not

We bought the cheapest seats in the Orpheum, 2nd to the last row in the balcony right by the light booth. We would have gotten somewhat closer, maybe, if we hadn't had to buy 4 tickets, but I doubt it. If we'd made the jump from $45 to $65, we would only have gained maybe 10 rows, so it still wouldn't have been worth it.

So as it was, we dropped over $200 with fees for 4 seats. That's not unusual. What was unusual was the amount of noise. Lights are hot, I get that. So the door to the booth was open and there was a 30" fan blowing hot air at me. It was white noise, and it made the show harder to hear, but I could still hear most of it.

What was worse was that the Fucking Lighting Jackass was on the phone for better than half the show. He had one of those low booming voices that even if he'd been trying to be quiet, still drowned out anything coming from the stage.

Dude was a dickhead. Guess what, yeah, your job is HOT, the Orpheum gives you shitty air handling. If you don't like that, then do this. Take a can of spraypaint, paint a circle on the stage, tell the performer "If you want to be lit, best not to leave this circle", set the light, close the door and leave the fucking booth. Don't sit there on the phone the entire show.

If this had been an audience member sitting on the phone talking all night, we could have easily had them tossed. How do you get the light guy bounced from a show he's lighting?

Toward the last 10 minutes or so a security goon came gallomping up the wooden steps to the booth and told the guy to shut up, people were complaining. Guess what, too late, too late by an hour.

The cheapest tickets in the house tonight were $45.00 + fees. The second cheapest were $65, still in the back half of the balcony. The highest available face falue right now for the next two nights shows looks like $71.

If we are Extremely Conservative and estimate the average ticket cost at $55, that means the gate for this show was $152,000. The Orpheum appears to be a LiveNation venue, which means, guess what, they get paid as promoter and as the venue. I believe they don't farm out their beer concession. Tonight, and every night, is very profitable for this venue.

BUY THIS ASSHOLE A FUCKING $1,000 AIR CONDITIONER SO HE CAN KEEP HIS FUCKING DOOR CLOSED.

Or give us our money back.

Or both.

Or give him a trach. Fix the glitch. The people in the three rows around me were all pretty pissed.