All out on concerts and entertainment, fair ticket pricing, and scepticism around DJs.
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All out on concerts and entertainment, fair ticket pricing, and scepticism around DJs.
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Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Georgie 0:07
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I am your co host, Georgie and as usual, I’m here with Geoff.
Geoff 0:16
Hello. Hello.
Georgie 0:19
Hello, hello.
Geoff 0:20
Sip of water. You’ve been going to a lot of concerts lately. What have you been listening to?
Georgie 0:26
Dude, I went to—
Geoff 0:27
Why are you going to so many?
Georgie 0:28
Why?
Geoff 0:29
Gone to like five concerts in the last month?
Georgie 0:31
They are taking my money. Have I gone to five con... I will laugh if you’re correct.
Geoff 0:36
Yeah, I mean, is this a post-COVID “oh my God all the, all the like, artists are coming now”?
Georgie 0:42
I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t call it I wouldn’t call Richard Dawkins a concert.
Geoff 0:47
Who the hell’s Richard Dawkins?
Georgie 0:49
(laughs) Wait, what you don’t know who Richard Dawkins...?
Geoff 0:52
Who the bloody hell is Richard Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist.
Georgie 0:56
Yeah. Like, you know, atheist stuff and science stuff. And lots of—he wrote the book, The Selfish Gene.
Geoff 1:06
Right.
Georgie 1:06
Anyway. Don’t need to talk about it. But, wait, you know, Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Geoff 1:12
Yes.
Georgie 1:12
Yes. There you go. Richard Dawkins, I would say is like—
Geoff 1:17
In the circle.
Georgie 1:17
In the same sort of realm. Yeah. Nick wanted to buy tickets to see see Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Geoff 1:25
Uh-huh.
Georgie 1:25
And they’re, I think they’re about 100 and something dollars, like 180 dollars. So bit dear—
Geoff 1:31
Sounds reasonable.
Georgie 1:32
Depends, right? And this is where I’m going to talk about like cost of stuff entertainment. But they have a meet and greet ticket, which costs over $300 per person.
Geoff 1:43
Holy crap.
Georgie 1:45
The meet and greet. There were no real details about the meet and greet. So it was like—would you get a selfie?
Geoff 1:50
Get kidnapped by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Georgie 1:52
(laughs) Would you get to have a conversation with him? Like, you know, would you get to hang out with him? Would you actually yeah. Would you get a picture? Would you get an autograph? Would you get what?
Geoff 2:03
So what would you ask Neil deGrasse Tyson, if that’s the case?
Georgie 2:07
This is the thing, like I am not a huge fan of him respect his work. Obviously, Nick is a big fan. He was just straight up like, yeah, I’m interested. We haven’t bought the tickets, by the way. And I said, for me personally, just I am not interested enough to spend, to drop $300 on meeting him.
Geoff 2:27
Yep.
Georgie 2:28
And I said to me, why don’t you fund my ticket or whatever, he’s like, “you fuckin’ serious?” I’m like, you’re the one who wants to see him, and then like, in the end, we, he said, okay, maybe I’ll see if anybody wants to. Anybody else is interested in going with me. I’m like, yeah, that’s fair enough. You know, I said, I wouldn’t mind, I’m okay to spend for the normal ticket, which is 180. Now let’s let’s rewind about five, no, no, no further, further, seven years ago, a bit like further than that. I used to go to a lot of concerts because I used to be a concert photographer. Full disclosure got into most of those for free. But there were others that I just went to for fun and because of the kind of music I was into, which was more like local Australian music—
Geoff 3:10
Locavore?
Georgie 3:13
The tickets—
Geoff 3:13
A loca—
Georgie 3:13
Audio?
Geoff 3:15
Audiophile?
Georgie 3:17
Yeah, I found that those tickets were not that expensive. They would be probably like most of the time between 50 and $100. Which is fair enough. And I wasn’t really into stadium bands. And I think when I saw Foo Fighters one time they—
Geoff 3:33
Yeah, Foo Fighters? Who are they?
Georgie 3:34
(laughs) Wait. I cannot tell if you are trolling.
Geoff 3:40
Nah, I’ve seen them like twice once by accident.
Georgie 3:42
What the fuck? You saw them, you saw them more times that I have?
Geoff 3:45
Was it Foo Fighters. See now I can’t—oh, no.
Georgie 3:48
Are you—
Geoff 3:48
No. Something monkeys?
Georgie 3:50
Eskimo Joe?
Geoff 3:50
Eskimo Joe-ing.
Georgie 3:50
Wait. Monkeys?
Geoff 3:51
Yeah it was Eskimo Joe. (laughs)
Georgie 3:52
Have you seen, wait, are you talking about Arctic Monkeys?
Geoff 3:54
I think I’ve seen Arctic Monkeys as well.
Georgie 3:56
I’ve seen them twice. Anyway, yeah, they’re those bands we just mentioned. Actually, Eskimo Joe probably as well, I don’t care about them though. They’re all like, kind of really popular kind of like, OK Coldplay’s a bit like next level, I think but you can expect to pay well over $100 for a ticket.
Geoff 4:17
Yep.
Georgie 4:17
So we saw Hans Zimmer, like probably about seven years ago. Can’t remember, a long time ago. It was definitely before the pandemic. And those tickets to me seemed quite expensive. I think it was somewhere, maybe $150. To see Hans Zimmer.
Geoff 4:32
Yeah.
Georgie 4:32
At a big theatre, not a theatre, stadium, I suppose. Qudos Bank Arena, I think is what it was. And that was the first time I was like, oh, wow, that’s a lot of money. And I’m not like, really into Hans Zimmer. Like I wouldn’t go and see him again.
Geoff 4:46
Yeah, I mean, it’s just a dude in front of like some keyboards and knobs and stuff.
Georgie 4:50
But he composed all this music, but yeah.
Geoff 4:53
Yeah, he’s not gonna compose it for you right now. Like...
Georgie 4:56
No. Yeah, it was for me that was pricey. For me buying a concert entertainment ticket over like, in the 100 to 200 range was pricey. And in another experience, we wanted to see Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden in New York. And the tickets sold out really quickly. But because we were going to travel to New York anyway, we were like, oh, there’s a lot of, we realised that a lot of people reselling them.
Geoff 5:21
Ahh.
Georgie 5:22
Yeah. And we were like—
Geoff 5:23
Scalpers.
Georgie 5:24
Let’s just, yeah, let’s just fucking go for it. And that, theoretically, it’s the most we paid, we ended up paying like $500 each, really good concert. But like, obviously, I wouldn’t spend that much money. So now—
Geoff 5:37
The value of music.
Georgie 5:39
Yeah. Now I understand that. There’s these artists, these musicians, these performers, they, they need to make money, and we can support them by seeing them live. But I also think it’s worth considering how much you would value the experience. And if you would, really, if you would really like spend that much money to see a certain person. I was talking to a friend of mine, she said, someone I think her partner, asked her, how much would you pay to see Taylor Swift? Like, what’s the what, how much would you pay to see her—
Geoff 6:09
Would you pay a thousand dollars?
Georgie 6:10
She just straight up, she straight up said, I’m, $1,000. If I get to see, Taylor Swift live, $1,000 would not bother me at all.
Geoff 6:17
Shit.
Georgie 6:18
And obviously, people have different value on these things. So when we were talking about Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I said to Nick, what if I buy this ticket? I’m going to feel like a phony, not a big fan. What if someone else really wanted that ticket? You know, and then I also feel like it’s kind of shit like that they’re charging for a meet and greet. And people cannot, may not be able to afford that. But they might be the biggest goddamn fan. It’s like, you know, I’d actually even like buy a ticket for someone now that I’m thinking about it.
Geoff 6:45
It’s like, the accessibility of these things have gotten has gotten quite out of hand. What’s another thing that’s kind of like, want to do so, the accessibility kind of like conv, like conferences are like industry conferences are like getting—
Georgie 7:01
Fucking expensive.
Geoff 7:02
...more and more expensive? Like almost, you know? Probably north of five, $700 like a ticket per person or something like that. Basically a concert.
Georgie 7:11
I’m pretty sure it’s more than that.
Geoff 7:12
Yeah, like $1,000 If you want to get recordings or whatever. But yeah, it’s getting like quite inaccessible to people in the industry who don’t get their way paid by their companies and still want to upskill and stuff like that. And, yeah, music. The music industry, obviously, is getting to a point where it’s not even Taylor Swift that’s pricing these things, right. It’s not even Taylor Swift.
Georgie 7:42
Ticketmaster.
Geoff 7:44
The evil Ticketek, Ticketmaster. And you get the you know, the whole concert thing with what’s his name? Was it Drake? No, it wasn’t Drake.
Georgie 7:54
Yeah, what’s his face?
Geoff 7:57
I don’t know. What’s his name?
Georgie 7:58
Yeah. We talked to—Travis Scott.
Geoff 8:00
Travis Scott. Yeah, it was Travis Scott, where they just outs oversell the entire stadium, and then people die and stuff like that. Anyway. So yeah, I think we’re supporting supporting artists that you enjoy, supporting anyone whose work do you enjoy, I guess you always got to ensure the livelihood of people who produce things.
Georgie 8:26
Yeah, I also have to say—
Geoff 8:28
This is extortionate.
Georgie 8:28
...that like, some some of the—ooh, crap kicked my desk, is that going to be the record—it is. We never edit this shit. The band Smashing Pumpkins, I saw them back in 2012. They were big in like, I guess the 80s, 90s. So I saw them in like 2012. I was kind of, I wouldn’t say disappointed, but it wasn’t like the best, the best concert, or even up there. Because you could kind of tell that they were promoting their 2012 album. But everybody wanted to hear the old stuff. So I’m at the edge of the mosh pit, like behind like the big like, crowd of people who are really into it. And I’m like the first row of people who you could tell literally only gave a fuck about like the old music that they played at the end. And you can see that because like, as soon as I started playing the old hits, it was like, yeah!
Geoff 9:22
Yeah.
Georgie 9:23
And they’re coming back again this year. And I thought, hey, hey, let’s see gonna see them. The tickets were $209.
Geoff 9:31
Ah, man.
Georgie 9:32
And they were like three other I think three other artists on the bill that I didn’t honestly didn’t really care about. And now the frontman of Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan, has gotten into some like wrestling union or he created his own wrestling union and there’s gonna be like a wrestling thing there. And I just thought you know what I you know, love your old music from the 80s and 90s. But I just cannot justify spending $200 to watch what you would do in 2023.
Geoff 10:06
Yeah. It’s like, going to see someone, you like their music, but that they might not be the best performer or like the most exciting performance. So yeah, what do you what are you paying for exactly? You might as well just know I prefer to watch the stuff on YouTube. To be honest. I don’t think I’m missing out on anything on live music. We talked about my tastes in—
Georgie 10:35
(laughs) Rookie.
Geoff 10:36
Yeah, in which case like, none of it seems appealing to me. So, at the end of the day, I don’t want to shell out too much money. Or if any money, to going to see these people live.
Georgie 10:51
What about comedy?
Geoff 10:53
No, you can watch it on Netflix.
Georgie 10:56
Yes, it’s true, it’s true.
Geoff 10:58
That’s interesting, though. So Chris, Chris Rock came out with his newest special. I don’t know if it’s actually on Netflix or anything yet. But he basically does a whole Will Smith bit.
Georgie 11:11
Oh, of course.
Geoff 11:12
Yeah, yeah. Well, the thing is, he’s not talked about it for like a whole year. And so he has a whole Will Smith bit. And so I watched that on on YouTube. And he did it live. So I kind of didn’t make that the, I don’t see the, I don’t see the connection as to why, or rather not the connection, the, the difference between live and like a special. And so I was listening to the this random YouTube channel who was like talking about it. And they said he had the ball—he had balls to do this live. Like, neither of the comics on this in this podcast said that they would do anything like this live. And I was like, okay, so when you watch and, so, their point is essentially, if you do it on TV, if you do it for TV, you should always edit. And if you’re doing it live, you you do it live for the live audience like.
Georgie 12:15
Yeah, it’s like different experiences, the way you’re delivering the comedy.
Geoff 12:19
Yeah. And the interesting thing they said was that is because people who watch TV comedy have a different expectation to people who go to see live comedy. In live comedy, people expect some rough edges, like they’ll mess up a joke, or they they won’t like land it as well. But on TV, people expect everything to be super clean. No hiccups, everything lands well. And it’s like the perfect performance essentially goes on TV.
Georgie 12:54
Yeah.
Geoff 12:54
So him doing it 100% live, no edits for TV seemed like a mistake to them.
Georgie 13:03
What!
Geoff 13:04
Yeah, because he messed up the Will Smith joke. He messed up one of the, one of the jokes in the—
Georgie 13:09
OK so they were they like reviewing the special with Chris Rock, but they were—
Geoff 13:14
No, they weren’t reviewing it. They didn’t, they weren’t saying like, “Oh, he should have done this better or that better”, or “he shouldn’t have messed up or he should have messed up”, oh no, who would want to mess up? But they were basically just saying, they were saying like, oh, he, like it was good. They just said it was good. And they weren’t trying to pick it apart or anything. But one of the guys who listened to it didn’t even notice that he messed up the joke even though Chris Rock himself said, “ah, messed up the joke”. But yeah, as like a professional comic, apparently. Like, it doesn’t seem like a wise move to do a TV special, unedited, slash live.
Georgie 13:56
I don’t really care. But I think I’ve I think I’ve seen more comedians live then I’ve seen actual, like, comedy specials. Because what I see on, on YouTube or whatever, is just like snippets of like one joke or whatever.
Geoff 14:15
Yes, I don’t... I have never seen—have I never seen a comic live? Yeah, I don’t think I’ve went to see someone do live comedy. I don’t know. I just don’t value live, live thing—
Georgie 14:28
Interesting...
Geoff 14:30
The whole, I get it though, you know, everyone’s enjoying it at the same time. Kind of like how we were talking about Hamilton and how there was a time where everybody was enjoying it simultaneously. And that like really made it hyped and fun to be part of. So I guess that’s you know, concert vibe, but I’d rather spend money on other stuff, I have different priorities in my spending. Yeah.
Georgie 14:56
That’s fair.
Geoff 14:58
So concerts. What are you going, what are you going to see? What have you seen?
Georgie 15:02
I saw Carly Rae Jepsen last week.
Geoff 15:04
That’s right. That’s hilarious.
Georgie 15:06
Why is it hilarious?
Geoff 15:08
I don’t know. Cuz she’s the she’s the Friday chick.
Georgie 15:11
No she’s not?
Geoff 15:12
No she’s not. She’s, Call Me Maybe, she’s Call Me Maybe.
Georgie 15:15
Yeah, she actually like, that’s what people know her for. But her music is actually very good. It’s very catchy. Nick had a good time. Like he, I usually drag him to fucking screamo shit that is just like, super not approachable. Nah I’m exaggerating. I tend to like hard rock and like metal stuff and very obscure music.
Geoff 15:40
Tune into our episode three of where we talked about music. I think.
Georgie 15:44
Is it three? Yeah.
Geoff 15:46
It’s very early.
Georgie 15:48
Yeah.
Geoff 15:48
So you went to see Carly Rae Jepsen recently?
Georgie 15:51
She was fucking good. I was so excited.
Geoff 15:53
Was good performance.
Georgie 15:54
It was very good. Yes. She was a great performer. And that’s the thing, right? Like we also, I think I might have mentioned, we saw Elton John, like last month.
Geoff 16:01
Oh, yeah. You were out in the rain—
Georgie 16:03
Not even—yeah, not, yeah, not even like big fans, but he just puts on a good performance. And like Now Nick is listening to his music like just day to day and like, that’s pretty funny, because—oh, there’s like this thing about listening to music before you go to a concert and listen to music after you go to a concert and being like, “oh, why are you doing that? You’re going to like see them later. Why are you doing that? You just fucking saw them?”
Geoff 16:26
Yeah.
Georgie 16:26
Like, there’s something about it. Like for me personally, like, I think I don’t really tend to listen to them so much after the concert. I think it’s always before. I don’t know. Actually. No, it really depends. But, eh.
Geoff 16:40
I listen to a lot of Boys Like Girls before going to the concert. Because I think during concerts, it’s hard to discern songs, if you—
Georgie 16:54
And it sounds different.
Geoff 16:56
Yeah, yeah. Like, watching, like listening to the bloody Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.
Georgie 17:03
(laughs)
Geoff 17:03
And I’m like, they keep telling me that this is their famous song, but I have no fucking clue what it is. And then I listened to it again afterwards in like, on the, on the disc and I—not the disc, on the, on Spotify or something like that.
Georgie 17:18
Yeah.
Geoff 17:18
And, and I was like, still don’t recognise it. But even with all the—
Georgie 17:23
The lyrics, we started talking about the lyrics.
Geoff 17:25
Oh, my god. But yeah, I think it’s, it’s easier to enjoy it if you know, like the music well enough. At least to like, understand that the song they’re singing now is x song.
Georgie 17:42
Yeah, yeah. Like when I saw Arctic Monkeys, there was one song where they started playing the drum beat and a bit of a riff. But this was definitely not in the recording. But they just kept playing it but everybody knew what fucking song it was. Because they knew that song well enough to be like, well, they’re doing like this what do you call it? On the intro, but like a pre—
Geoff 18:02
Yeah.
Georgie 18:02
Whatever, warming everyone up and everyone was getting excited, waiting for beat to drop kind of shit. And I think if you don’t, yeah, if you don’t know a song that well, when you see it live, you’re just like—
Geoff 18:12
Alright.
Georgie 18:12
What song are they playing, what song are they playing, and then suddenly you’re like, “oh”. But yeah, the reason I sometimes listen to music after a concert is because I just remember how good it sounded live. And—
Geoff 18:22
Yeah.
Georgie 18:22
I used to not understand this when I was younger. And people would say, “Oh, the live version is so much better”. Or “you should listen to the live version” or “the live version is really good”. Or “it’s better live”. I just really didn’t understand that until I started going to concerts. I’m like, oh, I see what you mean.
Geoff 18:37
Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 18:37
Sometimes they change it up a bit. Sometimes it just sounds very good. Like, whether it’s very true to the recording or if they change it just a little bit.
Geoff 18:46
Yeah, yeah. When we when I listened to Boys Like Girls music now. It’s more like oh, like you get the memory. So, it’s kind of an added bonus I suppose, of it. But yeah, so you’re going to see another another band?
Georgie 19:05
Yes. So okay, I’m not shitting on them. But this band I’m seeing tonight is called Teenage Dads.
Geoff 19:11
(laughs)
Georgie 19:12
My friend was like, are they teenagers and dads or were they teenagers and dads when they started? Are they both? I’m like, I dunno. Where are they from? Sydney? Melbourne?
Geoff 19:23
I dunno?
Georgie 19:24
Anyway, we, yeah, we saw them support Lime Cordiale. Last time we saw them and I thought cool. The tickets were affordable. I think they were like, $40. Let’s go. And like, the truth is I don’t listen to their music a lot. I just feel like it’d be a fun show to go to. But it has made me think about how like, yeah, spending money on entertainment events like these, and whether you think they’re worth your money or whatever. I feel like maybe in the future I would be a bit more selective about bands that I see and I’d only go to one ones that, like I really, really want to see.
Geoff 20:03
Yeah.
Georgie 20:03
But then there are concerts I’ve been to where I’ve been like, oh fuck, I don’t feel like going, and then I go and then it’s really great. So there’s that too.
Geoff 20:10
Yeah. So we were, my partner was thinking of actually going to see BlackPink live.
Georgie 20:19
Oh, yeah.
Geoff 20:20
But man, I signed—
Georgie 20:21
Very expensive.
Geoff 20:22
I signed up for the notification and I didn’t get it and it was like sold out.
Georgie 20:26
This is so annoying when this happens. Yeah.
Geoff 20:27
I was like, Well, I just remembered. Maybe like a month ago. I checked the tickets and like, well, they’re all out. Oh, well, not too, not too heartbroken about it. But I would have liked the notification that I signed up for. And I think, you know, what, if they’re gonna be a monopoly, I guess this is why they’re, like this is what they get as part of being a monopoly is that they don’t have to, like, do anything good really. They have no—
What do you mean?
No competition to improve their services. Like they don’t need anything because everybody needs to use them.
Georgie 21:03
Ticketmaster,
Geoff 21:05
Ticketmaster, Ticketek
Georgie 21:06
Ticketek is different. I think.
Geoff 21:08
Who owns Ticketek?
Georgie 21:10
I think they’re Australian.
Geoff 21:12
Yeah, me too.
Georgie 21:12
Ticketmaster is the shitbag. Oh, wow. 1.1 stars. We love it.
Geoff 21:17
Yeah. Everybody loves it.
Georgie 21:18
Complete shit.
Geoff 21:20
Maybe this is service that you get when you get, yeah, “very poor customer service. Not sure how this company operates without customer service in Australia”.
Georgie 21:28
Yeah, I think I looked at this like I think I was missing a ticket for a postponed show. And I was like, How the fuck do I like contact you people?
Geoff 21:36
Here we go. Ticketek, a global leader in ticketing and technology, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia.
Georgie 21:43
Okay, but I think Ticketmaster was the one with all of the issues.
Geoff 21:46
Oh yeah, yeah, that’s all the ones with the issues. But I think Ticketek’s just as big as a monopoly in these areas, anyways. Like what other way do you buy tickets in Australia?
Georgie 21:55
Uh Moshtix is another?
Geoff 21:59
Moshtix!
Georgie 22:00
Yeah, I like, I like them. I don’t know. I just never had problems with them.
Geoff 22:06
Moshtix, we used to get these for oh, yeah. See, there you go. The Supernova all the like, the conventions and stuff use, use Moshtix. So that’s—
Georgie 22:15
Yeah I think the smaller, smaller sort of venues and stuff use Moshtix.
Geoff 22:21
Yeah, Moshtix. Oh, shit. No way. Oh—
Georgie 22:25
What, you wanna go to Supernova?
Geoff 22:27
Well, I mean, I stopped going because well, kind of over it. But it seems like and the thing is, I don’t have very much celebrity idolise, or idolism, what was it?
Georgie 22:41
You don’t idolise?
Geoff 22:41
I don’t idolise many celebrities so although I know them like like this guy in the middle. What’s his name?
Georgie 22:48
I actually have no clue.
Geoff 22:50
Karl Urban. Karl Urban.
Georgie 22:52
I don’t know him.
Geoff 22:54
You don’t even know who Karl Urban is?
Georgie 22:55
No.
Geoff 22:56
I don’t know who he is either. Besides the fact that I watched The Boys. He’s Australian.
Georgie 23:00
Oh I think you did tell me about The Boys.
Geoff 23:02
He’s Australian? He’s New Zealand-ish sorry.
Georgie 23:06
Is he related to Keith Urban?
Geoff 23:09
I think he is?
Georgie 23:10
Oh shit.
Geoff 23:11
Karl Urban. Xena Warrior Princess. Lord of the Rings, right? He’s in Lord of the Rings. Is he related? Karl, Keith Urban? No, I don’t think he is Karl Urban, Keith Urban. It’s like top question, right? Guess who shares Ks... what’s the answer? No. They’re both from New Zealand. 72, Keith Urban’s five years older. Geez. Finally get your answer...
Georgie 23:46
Is this one of those stupid websites?
Geoff 23:47
It’s like really really long. Who are these people?
Georgie 23:50
And just tell me the answer. It’s no.
Geoff 23:53
They, “we have established they are not brothers. Neither do they have any kind of...” oh my god like it’s 1000 words to say one word. Yeah, he’s in a bunch of stuff. What would you have watched? Pete’s Dragon? Thor Ragnarok?
Georgie 24:10
Haven’t watched that.
Geoff 24:11
Oh man.
Georgie 24:12
Oh my god. I literally haven’t seen any of these. Open up the “see all”.
Geoff 24:15
Star Trek? Lord of the Rings, you didn’t watch Lord of the Rings?
Georgie 24:21
Oh wait, I did. Yeah.
Geoff 24:23
Eomer? Eomer. Karl Urban...
Georgie 24:26
Who the frig is that? I’m not the Lord of the Rings fan in this household. That’s Nick.
Geoff 24:33
Anyway so, Karl Urban, for those of you know who Karl Urban is, he’s he’s coming. There is also, what’s his name Steven Amel, Arrow? Yeah, Arrow’s coming. This woman looks familiar. Oh, she’s from Mandalorian.
Georgie 24:55
That’s right.
Geoff 24:55
She’s from Mandalorian. So yeah, anyways, so. Actually, on that topic about, like Nick wanting to go, like go meet and greet, but not you.
Georgie 25:06
Yeah.
Geoff 25:06
My, like I would go with friends to supernova who really liked meeting all these actors like from Lord of the Rings and stuff like that. So I would get the regular ticket and they would just buy all the extra stuff that they, to go see meet them get photos and whatever stuff like that and they just they just go off and do that and then come back and say, “Hey, I got an autograph”. I’m like, yeah cool.
Georgie 25:31
I think it’s different at a convention though. Like I think the Neil deGrasse Tyson thing is just like watching him do a talk. And so I’d have to get a whole extra seat somewhere else. So I’m like at that point I’m like—
Geoff 25:40
So if you spend the extra money for the upgraded ticket—
Georgie 25:43
Yeah.
Geoff 25:44
You’re in a different section?
Georgie 25:45
Yeah, you’re in like a seat right in front of the stage.
Geoff 25:49
Oh, yeah. That’s weird. They shouldn’t tie those two together. Like why, you just price people who want us to have a good seat—
Georgie 25:57
That is a good point—
Geoff 25:58
Versus people who want...
Georgie 25:59
Yeah, at music concerts, they do this. They have a meet and greet package that costs, like 100 bucks extra, but, but it’s all floor standing kind of shit.
Geoff 26:06
Yeah, that’s ridiculous. Music industry has got to get on. Get on top of it. Of course, they’re milking your money, because they’re like, oh, you want to meet them? Pay for the better seat?
Georgie 26:17
Oh, and that’s the other thing, right? Like, when I was like taking photos at concerts, I would queue up and like, at the merch desk and talk to the—I know, you can’t do this for a giant stadium band like fucking Coldplay. Right? But, you know, at a venue like the Metro Theatre or something like I would, I would wait to say hello to like the artist or get a picture with them or something like that. And I found like, that was worth my time. And then it was, felt like I valued that. And it was free. Right, and like here I’m like, man, you’re just trying to take $300 off me to meet Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don’t know.
Geoff 26:57
Yeah, yeah. That’s a bit of a bummer. But yeah—
Georgie 27:02
Why don’t people pay like $300 to meet us?
Geoff 27:06
Alright, everybody, you want to meet and greet?
Georgie 27:08
Yeah.
Geoff 27:09
We’ll be in—
Georgie 27:09
This is my address, jokes.
Geoff 27:11
We’ll be in Japan. So. So just to like, just get a get a free trip to Japan ish. But yeah, there’s a there’s a couple of YouTubers that call, are called TwoSet Violin. If you know them. No, but essentially they do. They do violin related content on YouTube. They’re from Australia. I think they live in Brisbane. They’re comedic. But essentially, like, ever since they started their YouTube channel, they had kind of quit being concert violinists and like being professional violinists. But their YouTube channel has gotten so, so popular that they got 4 million subscribers.
Georgie 27:57
Yeah, wow.
Geoff 27:58
They do, they they get they get loaned out. Like all the best violinist in the world get loaned out particular violins called Stradivariuses. These violins can range from 2 million to priceless. But essentially, they get loaned out to the top violinists to play at concerts. These two get loaned out Strads to the to like to play at their own concerts, they, they fly to Singapore, and they do concerts with like the, the Singapore orchestra or something like that. So I’m like, holy crap, like they’ve, they’ve really they’ve really come up and I forgot the point of my story. But essentially, yeah—
Georgie 28:47
They don’t have to pay for their instruments because—
Geoff 28:50
Yeah, because they’re that they’ve become so popular. But yeah, like they now now they get to do concerts, or rather they they hadn’t had a concert prior until like they got invited out to play in Singapore and then all of a sudden like their their career as like comedic violinists I suppose and roasting other violin players become became like an actual like touring, they have tours now. So yeah, they’re trying to make classical music more mainstream I guess.
Georgie 29:25
Nice.
Geoff 29:25
And their tickets, oh, right. So I think their tickets were like $1? Yeah, this was my point.
Georgie 29:31
OK, yeah.
Geoff 29:32
$1. They’re like we don’t care like, this is just so that you know that, it’s for local people will pay the dollar and then on I think you pay something else for online streaming or something. So yeah, they like very much taking a different angle on this. Was this... Yeah, they’re by no means the best violinists,, but they are they are quite, like, happy to do this kind of stuff. And—
Georgie 30:08
That is cool. That is cool. Much respect. I also think that maybe there’s, you know that pay pay what you want?
Geoff 30:15
Oh, yeah.
Georgie 30:15
Pay what you want should be a thing. I can’t remember if I’ve seen any recently.
Geoff 30:19
Yeah.
Georgie 30:20
For concerts, but yeah.
Geoff 30:21
For concerts, man. I don’t who would actually pay anything? I know video games have this pay as you want thing as well.
Georgie 30:29
Or maybe like, if you were an up and coming like musician in Australia, I’m just using Australia as an example. But maybe you have tiers. Maybe you’d be like, okay, you want to pay—oh, that’s what they did for like, I think was it Splendour in the Grass or Groovin the Moo, like one of the big festivals, they had tiers of tickets? I think like, I think you could pay for which how much you wanted to pay, but it was like, I think $99 and then $150, and then two, or something like that. And then there was a limited amount of the cheaper ones, obviously. But yeah, it’s not, it’s not new.
Geoff 31:07
Yeah, the there’s something in here, that it’s called the Humble Bundle. And essentially... I can’t find out where it is. What they do is that they have a $0 tier. Oh, yeah, I think here. So—
Georgie 31:22
Yeah.
Geoff 31:23
You pay, you pay at least $35 for 40 for these 46 items.
Georgie 31:29
Like usually, or, in here?
Geoff 31:31
In here. So if you if you give them $35, you’ll like you’ll get these 46 items. But you can essentially say like, I don’t like... $0. And you would get a like, basically, you have they have a set of games or whatever, three games. If you don’t, you can pay what you want for three games. But if you pay above $35, you’ll get six games. So—
Georgie 31:57
Yeah.
Geoff 31:57
They kind of like every, like you said, tiers, they have tiers from after zero onwards to get you more benefits.
Georgie 32:05
So it’s almost like a Kickstarter, except it’s already it already exists. Like—
Geoff 32:09
Yeah.
Georgie 32:10
Yeah.
Geoff 32:11
The other thing is that you get to choose how much money you can give to charity.
Georgie 32:19
So like as an extra added additional donation, you can—
Geoff 32:22
No, as in like, let’s say I paid $35, I can then check, adjust the donation amount. And there’s usually a slider here, but essentially, I can say right, I want to give extra to charity, where more money goes to the charity than it goes to the the organisation.
Georgie 32:41
Yeah okay.
Geoff 32:42
So yeah, in this one $16 goes to the organisation, but then you can reduce that amount to give more to the charities rather than the, than to the organisation. So yeah, there’s like a charitable aspect to this.
Georgie 32:56
That’s cool.
Geoff 32:57
Yeah, I think in this specific one that I’m showing, it’s like, pay $1.42 or more. So you pay $1.42, you get the basic amount, and then you pay more than that you can get up to $1,000 in value for $35. Essentially. Oh, here we go. Seven item bundle. $1.42 for seven items. $21.42 for 20 items. And then $35 for 46. So this keeps things accessible. I think it’s really interesting.
Georgie 33:26
That’s cool.
Geoff 33:28
But they do this for concert tickets? Oh, boy.
Georgie 33:32
I think that might go really badly, actually.
Geoff 33:35
Oh really?
Georgie 33:36
I’m just trying to think of worst possible scenario. Yeah, you know what, actually, that’s what’s gonna happen. People are gonna scalp tickets.
Geoff 33:42
Oh, yeah. You just pay $1.
Georgie 33:43
Yeah. And then yeah, but like, fucking 50 of them, resell.
Geoff 33:48
Yeah. Yeah, people. People are the worst.
Georgie 33:54
Yeah, I so, I think—oh, do you remember when Radiohead released that album? For quote, unquote, free In Rainbows? Radiohead In Rainbows album release?
Geoff 34:05
I don’t know if I’ve actually listened to a song by Radiohead, but—
Georgie 34:08
Oh you are terrible, terrible. Terrible, Geoff.
Geoff 34:12
Is it Creep? Probably.
Georgie 34:13
You would know Creep. Anyway, they released an album and I think it was 2008, maybe? Called In Rainbows. And this they just did, this was like on the rise of like, like it was after you could download shit on Limewire. But yeah, when people were starting to be like, hey, what if we did this? What if we release music for free? Whatever. So they did like a pay what you want for this new album, and you could literally put in whatever you wanted. And some people actually did put in some amount of money, but you could put zero and then get the album and download for free. And they did find out that a large percentage of, percentage of people bought the alb—“bought”?—got the album for free. But it was kind of like this revolutionary thing at the time that like, that no artists had done before, really. And they’re a pretty big, they’re pretty big band. But that’s like, for that’s for downloading music. For concert tickets, I feel like if a really big, like well known artists did that, it would just result in a lot of people scalping the tickets, whereas maybe a lesser known, a lesser known artist might, it might work out a bit more fairly.
Geoff 35:31
I guess the problem is that tickets to a concert is limited by like nature. You can’t have an infinite amount of people in there. So you can’t really like, promise an infinite amount of product. Like for this stuff it’s very digital, right? You could pay $0 and download it for free. And that could go on infinitely. But at some point, seats will run out on the, on a concert, and it will have to stop, like.
Georgie 35:59
Yeah, yeah. Shit.
Geoff 36:02
Yeah.
Georgie 36:02
Idea ruined.
Geoff 36:03
Idea ruined. But we should definitely have that whole thing with the charity and the slider. Like you could pay that $300 for the ticket. But hey, if you’re not that big of a fan, of Neil deGrasse Tyson, slide that over to the charity and make yourself like, oh yeah, I’m paying $200 to charity and $100 to Neil deGrasse Tyson, we’re all good to go. But yeah, so, so was it like, was it? What? You went to something on Friday? Was it Richard Dawkins?
Georgie 36:36
Nah, I went to something. Wait, I went to something. Yes—yeah, yesterday. Yeah, I went to Peking Duk.
Geoff 36:43
Oh, Peking Duk. I know them.
Georgie 36:44
Yeah? Yeah? Yeah, not the Chinese.
Geoff 36:47
I know the food.
Georgie 36:49
No, ah. It’s... Yeah, there go. Yeah. Them.
Geoff 36:53
Wait, is it because you told me who they are?
Georgie 36:56
I may have. Yes, I may have. They do like pop electronic kind of music, which, like, I don’t actually...
Geoff 37:05
Yeah.
Georgie 37:06
I’ve done a lot of collaborations with other artists. Okay, probably. You might have seen them on some, some festival bill, as well.
Geoff 37:16
Yeah, maybe. Anyway.
Georgie 37:19
Yeah, that was good. It was like a rave. I don’t know. But I’ve also never been to a rave. It was, it was a kind of a new experience for me, because like I have been to, I think it was called. I think there was a festival called, is it Inside Out? Like, there was—
Geoff 37:34
That’s a movie.
Georgie 37:34
...a festival? Yes, as well. But I had two photographs, electronic music festival way back. And it was called Inside Out and I think Peking Duk were there and it was a lot of other electronic artists. So I didn’t really care that much, because I’m not usually into that music. But I just had to take pictures. But I got into Peking Duk because I think their music is a bit more pop. It’s just kind of fun. It’s not just them. They do a lot of like collaborations with artists and I think that’s why I found it interesting, though. They were interesting to see live because it’s not usually my kind of thing.
Geoff 38:07
Right? Right, right. Nice. So looking at Inside Out here. Chillin. The Veronicas? Whoa.
Georgie 38:19
Um. Yeah. Hmm.
Geoff 38:22
Tamworth, Adelaide and Cairns. Seems like they’re not interested in Sydney.
Georgie 38:27
Yeah, when I saw it—if I’m thinking about the right bloody festival, it was at Centennial Parklands.
Geoff 38:33
Oh. Yeah, pretty out of the way.
Georgie 38:37
I think Illy was there actually, but anyway, I don’t like I said don’t listen to a lot of this kind of music. So.
Geoff 38:44
Yeah, going to an electronic artist’s, like—
Georgie 38:49
Oh, yeah, I can have some opinions on this.
Geoff 38:51
It’s a bit different. I went to a dubstep concert.
Georgie 38:55
Ah, right. But but you know, Flume?
Geoff 38:58
Ah vaguely. Yeah?
Georgie 38:59
Yeah. Like, I think he’s just—please don’t roast me but I’m roasting, I’m roasting him, I’m saying “just a DJ” with quotation, with my fingers in air quotes. As a concert photographer, I just didn’t really get, I didn’t really understand what the appeal was with photographing DJs. I’m like, they just fucking standing there with their decks and shit.
Geoff 39:19
Yeah.
Georgie 39:20
And it’s, you know, I get it. It’s, it’s a different kind of performance. It’s not to everyone’s taste. I have to admit that Peking Duk was very interesting that they had a lot of like smokin lights and coloured lights. And it was quite different to just someone with a fucking deck on stage doing some DJ shit.
Geoff 39:39
My problem with DJs and live is that you can’t tell whether or not they’re actually, you know, doing the thing. You can’t, like, because DJing is an art, like turntable music, like comb, not combining, something along the lines, I can’t remember what it’s called. In any case, DJing is an art but like I think a lot of DJs do not practice it. They sit there, simply Spotify DJs, as we call them.
Georgie 40:11
Haha. Yeah.
Geoff 40:13
But, but yeah, I think I would totally go do a DJ that is make that mixes live. That’s it, like, if they’re mixing live, then I’d be way more interested in going to see them live. Because generally when they mix live, I know they practice it and shit. But there, there is probably a chance that you hear something unique, kind of like when you were saying like in a concert, sometimes they don’t do the things that you hear on the on the um—
Georgie 40:39
Yeah, they kind of improvise a little bit.
Geoff 40:41
Ad lib and stuff, or they create something that’s slightly new for the concert specifically. So I think is more chances of like listening to something like that’s a rendition of what they’ve done previously at, at like, a live for a DJ that is actually mixing live. So I appreciate DJ art, but I man, the manager and DJs you see on Instagram that have photos of them in front of the decks and I just, the credibility kind of like, goes down.
Georgie 41:15
Is it just like for show. Because you can can you tell? Like...
Geoff 41:18
I don’t know, the, like the massive the massive like crowds and stuff, really. And you see them, like play? And just something about it doesn’t seem like they’re mixing live?
Georgie 41:32
Ohh.
Geoff 41:33
Yeah, it’s kind of like lip syncing, right? You go to a concert and you’ve you like, I can’t tell if they’re like lip syncing or not. And and I feel like if I can’t tell they’re lip syncing or not, it’s already down, like, negative in my books.
Georgie 41:48
That’s never happened to me. Like, I’ve never had that kind of doubt, I suppose.
Geoff 41:52
Yeah, I mean, nine times out of 10 they probably are. But like, whenever I watch live stuff, like live stuff on YouTube, and I’m like, are they lip syncing?
Georgie 42:02
Me? Yeah. And I think it’s easier to tell in real life someone’s lip, lip syncing.
Geoff 42:05
Yeah. Either way, I think there’s there’s an art to it lip syncing as well. I know that like, certain like, I think Kpop specifically, I don’t know about other places. But when you go see a kpop group, sing live, you know that certain parts of it is going to be like lip sync or even them not even lip syncing. They just play.
Georgie 42:28
What a disappointment.
Geoff 42:28
They play the music in the back. Because to for Kpop it’s more about their like—
Georgie 42:34
Dancing?
Geoff 42:34
All the dancing, all the performance. If they’re performing as best as they can, they can’t sing as good as they can. So it’s kind of like a trade off.
Georgie 42:44
Shitty.
Geoff 42:46
Unless you’re Beyonce or something.
Georgie 42:48
Oh, yeah.
Geoff 42:50
So—
Georgie 42:50
Actually, unpopular opinion. I don’t I don’t actually get why people are so obsessed over Beyonce.
Geoff 42:57
Yeah, I agree. Like in the last decade or something like that. I think her last good songs were I didn’t know. Was it, I can’t even name the song now. Single Ladies, you know that that kind of—
Georgie 43:10
Yeah, after that, I was like, so I tried to, I listened to her whole album that was released I think last year.
Geoff 43:16
Oh, yeah.
Georgie 43:17
I just didn’t feel it. Like I dunno, I didn’t—
Geoff 43:19
Just beeps and boops.
Georgie 43:20
Yeah, I don’t know. It wasn’t like to me it wasn’t really unique? I don’t know, nothing about it stuck out to me. Although I get it like she’s obviously a good performer—
Geoff 43:29
But don’t you understand Georgie? That was the point. She’s making a statement about how all music sounds the same. So she herself—
Georgie 43:39
Wait, are you sure?
Geoff 43:40
I don’t know.
Georgie 43:41
I can tell you’re trolling. Like what you want to like.
Geoff 43:46
And with on that note, you should should like like that we’re going to end this podcast.
Georgie 43:53
You’d hope so.
Geoff 43:54
So follow us on @toastroastpod on Twitter.
Georgie 44:00
You can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you find your podcasts, and the big Beyonce. She gets a shout out after I roasted her.
Geoff 44:10
Yeah.
Georgie 44:10
Fair enough.
Geoff 44:11
And new episodes every Monday.
Georgie 44:14
So see you next week.
Geoff 44:16
Bye.