A Misty-Eyed Love Letter To The Concert Ticket Line, And The Friends We Made Along The Way

What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to?

A huge question sure, but my answer comes easy. And it has nothing to do with how well the band played, because this gig became legendary well before I ever set foot in the venue. It was etched into my heart as soon as I took my physical spot in line to buy the actual tickets to the show.

It was a “secret” gig by The Strokes in 2005. It was the kind of show you’d find out about the night before in street press and then camp outside a record store just to even have a chance at snagging a ticket. You remember the feeling. No? Oh that was fifteen years ago. Oh god.

This was before Australia’s internet became incredible — #61 fastest broadband in the world baby! — and securing a ticket to a hot show involved more than a random stab in the dark as you clicked on a link at 9am, hoping to be that lucky fan that gets a ticket and not a timed out browser. Back then you’d be damned if anyone would score a ticket instead of you. The safest bet? Physically queuing up at a ticketing outlet in order to secure tickets.

But how far were you willing to go? Would you settle for setting your alarm for the crack of dawn, wading through the suits at Town Hall and heading to the Ticketek office in Hyde Park in the cool misty morning? Or could you perhaps convince your friend to go in your stead, as I managed to do for Chili Peppers tickets? What if they get there in the morning and the line is 50 people deep already? Were you desperate enough to go into full camp mode in front of the outlet the evening before, sleeping bag and thermos in hand?

You would know full well that as soon as that clock hits 9am and tickets go on sale as the store opens, you were definitely, for real going to whatever gig you were desperate to see. The practice of sadly logging on and rapidly refreshing your browser to get out of the virtual ‘green room’ to get tickets before the whole fucking crashes was, thankfully, years off.

Nup, there was none of that. This time, the tickets were right there in your goddamn hand. All your planning had paid off, you bloody genius.

This Is It

Yet sometimes you weren’t afforded the time to plan. Such was the case with the aforementioned secret Strokes show. Hell, you would only find out about it if you were a fellow keen bean, scouring every listing in every street press and blog. I found out the day before. There was barely any time to rally the troops. If we’re going to this show, I told them with a steely eye, we’re going to Red Eye Records to line up for the tickets. Like, right now.

The sheer amount of people lining the entire city block outside Red Eye Records’ old King St CBD store suggested that some would have been too late to snag their tickets. The only thing worse than missing out on tickets is the knowledge that you spent all this time lining up in vain.

We sang along to every single Strokes song there was. We spent the evening chatting to strangers. We got to know them. We beat them at Monopoly.

But we were quick and decisive, second in a line that was easily into the hundreds. It was a public display of hype akin to a massive sneaker drop in more recent years. We brought sleeping bags, snacks, even board games. This was an unprecedented level of excitement for a show; it bordered on delirium.

I remember thinking that this was insane, that surely someone had told The Strokes how many people are lining up — they could have at least done a drive by to say hi.

They didn’t, of course, but that didn’t dampen spirits. We camped out, but we did not sleep. We didn’t even drink. It was painfully wholesome. We sang along to every single Strokes song there was. We spent the evening chatting to strangers. We got to know them. We beat them at Monopoly.

It was there that my friends and I got to know each other more than ever. We had shared this bizarre and strangely fulfilling act of camping out on the street overnight. My friends don’t listen to The Strokes anymore — the fanfare around the coolest band in the world is naturally not what it once was. But sure enough, every so often, I’ll get a DM from them sharing a random cute pic of Albert Hammond Jr. or Julian Casablancas from a fan page. No context needed, no comment usually follows. We simply exist perpetually in this uniquely shared fandom. And it all got cemented in that line.

Trying Your Luck

I’m not the only one who feels a profound rush of sentimentality about these moments. After reaching out to friends for their recollections, I have been inundated with cherished memories. People who made their mums line up for Kelly Clarkson tickets. People racing to the record store above the intersection at Chatswood buy Big Day Out tickets. Camping outside Club Marconi for Red Hot Chili Peppers tickets. Everyone had their own concert ticket line for the ages.

There is something to be said about how heightened the sheer panic of trying to get a physical ticket was. The relief and accomplishment in actually securing physical tickets produced unrivalled excitement.

Perhaps that’s an excitement that no longer exists, although I see something similar when adding last minute tickets to the door for sold out Polish Club shows. A rare modern occasion that does demand pragmatism and physical ticket buying — yet it’s not quite tantamount to camping and board games.

Admittedly, there were plenty of downsides and stresses that I’m thankful fans don’t have to experience anymore.

“I spent [a day’s worth] of Maccas income on a Splendour ticket that I bought in person at Red Eye,” former Secret Garden booker Adam Lewis told me. “Then dropped the envelope a few blocks away and didn’t realise ‘til I was at breakfast later on. Luckily found it, just lying on the street. Still freaks me out thinking about it.”

My friends and I wore the decaying wristbands emblazoned with “THE STROKES” on our wrists for weeks, if not months, after the show. It was a badge of honour — more than just a momento, it distilled a collective sense of pride and accomplishment that I’ve not quite experienced as a music fan since. A connection not only to the band we had made such an effort to see, but with each other. This community of like minded people who didn’t think twice about sleeping on the street all night just so they could go to a gig. That whole process was part of it. Maybe even more so than the actual gig.

I’m happy that Polish Club’s fans can conveniently purchase tickets online and honestly there is no band in the world that I’d camp overnight to see now. But I cherish the memory of the grimy ticket line, and I hope that fans still find rituals they can share in their concert-going experience that foster anything that comes close to the bonds I formed in concert ticket lines.

I honestly don’t remember as much as you’d expect from the actual Strokes’ set. But I assure you, it was the best.

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David Novak is the frontman of Sydney band Polish Club. Follow them on Twitter and Instagram. 

Photo Credit: Anthony DELANOIX/Unsplash