Zane Lamprey
W/ Steve McKenna and some other dude
Drinking Made Easy Tour
House of Blues Anaheim
3/10
Zane Lamprey, the host of the show Three Sheets (which has been on the Travel Channel and Fine Living Network, soon to be on the new Cooking Channel), is out on touring, trying his hand at comedy, and has invited the show’s “legend” Steve McKenna and “comedian” Marc Ryan to go with him. By “legend,” I mean Zane’s drinking buddy, who is the source of the phrase “Steve McKenna’d” (which means “fucked up”) and by “comedian,” I mean he wasn’t funny.
Steve McKenna “opened” the show, where he basically came on stage, drank beer out of a giant goblet while wearing a Viking helmet and no shirt, and talked about how he’s the real Steve McKenna and he was, in fact, Steve McKenna’d. This lasted about 10 minutes before Lamprey scorned him off the stage to make room for Ryan. I wasn’t too broken up about the short opening as all I could see was about nipple-up of McKenna because the “standing room only” area of the House of Blues was only surrounding the railing of the second floor. House of Blues was kind enough to remove ALL of the barstools that usually line the railing, creating 4-5 rows deep of people standing and trying to look down.
Now, if joking about drunk driving and anal-rape while your girl’s passed out drunk are really funny to you, cool, that’s great. His set was not actually that long, but I seriously got bored listening to a voice that I had no face to place with it, as he stayed mostly to stage left, making him nearly invisible from where I was standing. I was over it, and by the time Lamprey was set to come on, I was ready to leave.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Three Sheets. I really do, I DVR that shit whenever I’m sober enough to work the remote, tell my friends about it and know the purpose of Plebleus. I love booze, I love learning about booze, and I love seeing foreigners drink. It’s a well-rounded show for me. Again, as the crowds squished even tighter together, I could barely see the stage, which wasn’t AS bad, but half of the jokes were visual gags based off of videos and an elaborate PowerPoint displayed on the screens that usually broadcast the performance itself.
Have you ever gone drinking with a friend of yours who is particularly knowledgeable about something you know nothing about? Ever listened to them trying to explain something? Mix that with Carrot Top-style visual gags (based on PowerPoint images rather than props) and you have what I sat through. Well, stood through. Zane’s pre-gaming was evident as he often jumped the gun on the visual gags, or fell behind, missing the timing by a pretty significant margin. There were a lot of mishaps, and we were to bear with it since it was the first night of the tour and they were still ironing it out. Maybe rehearsing would have helped. Laura and I walked out and instead had more fun watching the Disneyland fireworks show.
As a side note from the actual show, Racket’s had a long-standing tradition of getting indignant, and this evening added to it. While I had a review ticket, an amiga expressed an interest in also attending the show, as she loves her some comedy. I told her I’d go half on a ticket, and as the HOB website said tickets were $25 day of, I figured we’d each pay $12.50 and that would be that. Upon arriving to the box office, I was informed my ticket would be $30 and the fella said there was a $5 convenience fee. As my friend was on her way, I got the ticket anyways and took to Twitter and berated the House of Blues Twitter account (@HOBAnaheim).
They responded to my concerns about paying a “convenience fee” AT the box office, saying that that fee goes to keeping the venue nice. As having worked with concert promoters for several years now, I know that’s bullshit. The “Facilities Charge” of $2.50 that was itemized on my ticket is intended for that, added to the $22.50 of the ACTUAL ticket price to make $25. The HOB then sent me a link to Ticketmaster saying what a convenience fee was, and I sent them back the TM FAQ page which states that they are generally not to be found at the box office, as it’s a fee for the convenience of not having to go to the box office to get the tickets.
I’m glad that this Live Nation (of which HOB is an affiliate) and Ticketmaster merger is not impacting consumers like EVERYONE knew it would. And on top of everything, add in the $9 PBR tallboys and I’ve decided that I’m sticking to the Chain Reaction and the Grove of Anaheim for my Anaheim shows from now on. Chain does not charge a fee for tix at the window, and the Grove charges a single dollar to help pay their employees. This night was crap.
-Jonathan “The Emperor” Yost
