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I learned something new yesterday. Well, several things. Firstly and foremostly, always think twice about what it is you’re calling a radio station to win. Tickets to Lollapalooza: call. Passes two a movie premier: yeah sure, call. Tickets to UB40: wait, who?

UB40 is, well shit, I don’t really know who they are, either. If you’re my age, you probably know them mostly for their cover of Elvis’ “(I can’t help) Falling in love with you” which was used prominently as the song in 1993’s Sliver, which was primarily used by me as an excuse to see Sharon Stone naked and engage in recreation with my newly functioning testicles. Their breakout hit, however, was 1983’s “Red, red wine.” Anything else they’ve done other than that or since then is completely beyond me.

A brief Internet query will tell you UB40 is the most successful reggae band of all time in terms of record sales (over 55 million), chart positions and touring schedule. And yet, I do not know anyone who owns a single UB40 album. Must be an English thing.

I don’t know what my deal was last Thursday when the DJ on Indie 103.1 said “I’ve got two tickets for UB40 this Sunday at the Greek Theatre, caller number 20 and they’re yours.” I don’t know why I was so eager to pick up the phone and call, but I did. It was an error in judgment, much like that time I dropped an n-bomb during an African American studies class in college.

And once I had the tickets I couldn’t not go to the concert, either. I won them fair & square and I felt compelled to attend since my expectations were so low. I have found in my 25 years on this dying planet that it’s the things you expect to suck that are the ones that usually wind up blowing you away.

I also don’t think I would have been able to sell these tickets, either. Because, well shit, it’s UB40. I mean, c’mon. At that point so close to the concert, nobody is going to be searching craigslist for UB40 tickets. There wasn’t anybody on the day of the show that was like, “You know what, fuck it, let’s go see UB40.” Secondly, I don’t know what I would have even said in my craigslist ad: I have two tickets for sale for the UB40 show this Sunday night at the Greek Theatre. Am only selling because it’s UB40 and they suck. It was clear I had to attend.

Luckily, I got to my seats just as the band took the stage. When I say the band, I mean ten guys. That’s right, ten. It takes ten dudes to make music that would be more appropriate in a Crystal Light ad. Their music sounds more or less like crappy, white reggae, which is exactly what it is. Case in point, you know it’s going to suck when the band has two saxophone players. No band needs one sax player, let alone two.

And then you’ve got the crowd, a bunch of forty-something yuppies in collared shirts. And they danced, well, they danced in a way that only white forty-something yuppies can dance. The best way to describe it is zombies on painkillers. Maybe that’s what it was, maybe everyone there besides me was on hard drugs. That’s probably the only way someone could enjoy shit like this. Hard drugs are probably the only thing that would motivate someone to drop $35-$65 a ticket.

So there I was, feeling out of place and not on hard drugs, waiting for them to get through their set. I figured they’d play the two aforementioned songs last during their encore. It’s basic common sense for a band to save the best for last, and I wouldn’t mind sitting through the set for them.

But goddamn, it was torture. Every song sounded exactly the same. I found myself wondering during the end of the second song if they were still playing the first. It was bad. I could sit down at a guitar and write a song comparable to a UB40 song in 5 minutes, and I suck at guitar. Instead of UB40, they should call themselves We Got High and Listened to Bob Marley a Lot in High School. That has a nice ring to it.

After what may have been six songs or maybe just one long song with an applause break after every four minutes, they played “Red, red wine.” And that was enough for me. I had to leave, song from the movie Sliver be damned. For the first time in my life, I walked out on a concert. It’s something I never thought I’d do. But then again, I didn’t pay for these tickets.

I don’t really feel all that guilty for walking out on a concert that I got to attend for free. I still can’t figure out what business Indie 103.1 had with giving away UB40 tickets. Indie plays, well, indie. Indie rock, to be exact. UB40 ain’t indie rock and I have never heard Indie play UB40. They wouldn’t even play UB40 to be ironic or funny, either.

I only feel guilty for the joy some other lucky listener, perhaps a true UB40 fan, could have had with the tickets. I’m sure there’s a huge UB40 fan out there in the greater Los Angeles are who had not yet bought tickets for the show and happened to be listening to Indie 103.1 at that exact same time but just couldn’t get to the phone quick enough. Yeah, probably not.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 9:36 pm and is filed under Music, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.