No Rock And Roll Fun

CREED: DEFENDING THEMSELVES. BUT LAMELY: Creed have started to realise that their pisspoor Chicago show could cost them an awful lot of money, and so have come up with a whole bunch of plausible sounding weasel outs ("come out fighting against their critics"). First, They've tried the 'I wasn't pissed and lying down on the job, I was - uh - making a personal gesture' approach - they admit that "some people might not have got it. They've tried bemusement - "While [Stapp] did say he was "fighting off illness" at the time, he said he watched the concert on tape and doesn't understand the fuss. "We didn't feel like it was an awful show," he said. "That's why it kind of shocked us."

And now, they've got their mummies, sorry, attorneys in to say that, even if it was a crap show, then the scummy customer is just going to have to suck on their titties: "Creed's attorney, Rob McNeely, described the claim as bunk. "Buying a ticket to a concert does not mean buying an entitlement or a guarantee to any caliber or quality of performance," he said. "And it has to be that way because of the nature of the arts." He compared the lawsuit to an Orlando Magic fan suing the team if Tracy McGrady had an off night and scored only 4 points. If judges were to rule that Creed's lackluster performance merited refunds, McNeely argues, it would be a "short trip" to the day when judges preapprove song selections for concerts. The same logic suggests judges shouldn't prohibit Stapp from rolling "around on the floor of the stage in apparent pain or distress" or passing out during the performance, as the lawsuit claims."

Except, of course, the lawyer is using a bad analogy: with sports, part of the attraction is that one team might be having an off-day, and when you buy a ticket to see a game, you're accepting the risk that you might see the team lose. (If it wasn't the case, why would so many Brighton and Hove Albion fans have bothered to renew their season tickets?). But with entertainment, it's more like employing a plumber or a wallpapering person. On a microlevel, if you booked a band to play your wedding, and they turned up and were shit, you'd have every right to assume they'd breached their contract and not pay them. The same applies for a band who you're hiring (as part of bulk deal) with the rest of an audotorium. It's news to us that we're buying tickets for events under some nebulous legal understanding that the band might not stick to their part of the deal - and, if this is the case, shouldn't there be some small print saying 'we might suck' on the tickets?

If our attorney said to us 'Hey, guys, just paying someone doesn't mean they're going to be good at what they do" before he has to go and represent us in court, we'd start to think we'd hired the wrong guy.