* Tim also played the Fox NFL Sunday theme during Over Exposure
Another record setting night for cost per song. You may remember this post from 9/5/08 at Sully\'s:
Your Breakfast statistician is also obliged to report that this was the most expensive show ever in terms of cost per song. With a $10 cover and 8 songs played, that\'s $1.25 per song. That is stratospheric for The Breakfast, in fact, they had never broken the $1 mark before.
Well, you can kiss that record goodbye! There were 3 prices tonight. The show was advertised as $10 adv/$12 door but the only way to get the $10 ticket was at the box office. If you bought advance on Ticketmaster it was $15.05! I think I\'m the only person dumb enough to have done this. (Nothing better than getting screwed for buying in advance, thanks TM.) So with 7 songs played my cost per song was $15.05/7 or
$2.15 per song. WOW! Over the $2 mark! Phish doesn\'t even break the $2 per song mark most shows. Most people paid $12 at the door, that\'s $1.71 per song, still astronomical.
I also have to believe this was the most expensive show ever at cost per minute, though I certainly cannot claim to have data on this. The show was approximately 90 minutes, so I paid $15.05/90 or 16.72 cents per minute. Considering that your standard Breakfast show runs about 170 minutes of playing time and costs about $8, that\'s about 4.7 cents per minute. So this show was 4 times more expensive than your average show. Ouch.
At least I was the only serhead in the house with a good drive time:show time ratio. This is a stat we all deal with a lot. Since my drive time (both ways included) was only about 10 minutes I was sporting a nifty 10/90 or .11 DTST ratio. (You want this number to be as low as possible.) But everyone who came from CT or Albany was looking at about 300/90 for an ugly 3.33.
SO THE POINT IS:[/COLOR][/B]
With so many people fighting through dismal cost-per-song and drive time:show time numbers, I think the effect on the crowd was evident. The show was good, but was not the holiday tour throwdown of Middle East shows gone by. The show was exhausting at some points. You know those shows where they jam out every section of everything? It can be challenging as a listener. You and I can handle it, but some people can\'t keep up and it saps the crowd. You get jam > WUIAC, OK, that\'s 10 minutes of jamming. Then Gravity goes through about 3 minutes of "song" before a 8-10 minute jam, and when it looks like they\'re coming back into something song-like (vocal "liquid brain of zen" reprise) the "gravity is my frieeeeeeeend" jam goes off for 10 more minutes. Now you\'re looking at about 25 minutes of straight jamming broken up only by 3 minutes of the beginning of Gravity. Again, you and I like it, but this can be pretty challenging to a crowd. OE as well, every single section was stretched out, especially the ending sections. Great to go back and listen to, possibly exhaustive if you\'re standing in a crowded room.
Moral: Most shows are best in person and the recordings do them justice but cannot totally recreate the madness. But some shows are actually better on recording than in person due to venue factors. This show will be better on recording. Download away!
