We attended the Heartbreaker's concert a couple weekends ago at the Klipsch Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana. Petty and his band put on a solid performance that night. They played many of their hits and we knew most of the words. Petty never missed a note and his back up was spot-on, a little grey in the beard, but spot-on nonetheless.
Unfortunately the superb performance by the band was over-shadowed by the poor performance of the Live Nation-owned Klipsch Music Center.
First there was no order to the lines entering the center. The crowd was dangerously crushed together conjuring nightmares from the Who concert tragedy years ago here in Cincinnati. And we stood in "line" for over 45 minutes. Then we were FRISKED at the gate. And I don't mean with metal detector wands. This was a hands-on frisk. I'm pretty sure it is illegal for a male to frisk a woman. Just saying.
After being crushed in line for nearly an hour and going through the embarrassing frisking we were parched for a cold beverage. We were shocked to have to pay $11 for a 24 oz. can of beer. Good grief you can buy a twelve-pak for that much money! Of course we could have spent $4 for a 99-cent bottle of water. Yeah, that's real festive.
Here in Cincinnati we are blessed to have the Riverbend Music Center run by local sponsors. We are looking forward to seeing Ian Anderson there next month. But beware of venues owned by Live Nation. Their concessions, including the $60 t-shirts, the dangerous crowds at the entrance and the embarrassing frisking did a real disservice to Tom Petty and his band. We will never attend another concert there again.
