Once upon a time, there was a band called
Weezer who released a highly anticipated album to not so great reviews, but that was
ok, because they were still popular and people still liked them. This was due to the fact that the volume of their work was such that, taken in context, their newest album was still
'good', but it wasn't great.
This accurately describes the situation in one town,
Phoenix, Arizona. The local
alternative rock radio station,
KEDJ,
The Edge 106.3 & 100.3 arranged for Weezer to come and play a show, sort of a
send off for the new tour, which was hyped as being presented in venues of
odd variety. So anyway, the radio station decided that the only tickets to the
concert (take note that I say concert here, they said this also, it will be important later) would be given away on air to fans. The concert was to be held at
Rawhide, a local
western themed amusement park, with fake
shoot outs and
stupid costumes and it was to be called the
Weezer Round-Up at Rawhide.
Needless to say, some fans were ecstatic that they would get to see the band live, and hopefully hear their favorite songs. Some were very annoyed that they could not simply purchase
tickets, but alas, even in
fairy tales, not everyone can be happy all the time. The night of the
concert rapidly approached and the fans were very excited. When all the tickets had been handed out and the night had finally arrived, those few fans who did not receive tickets
hatched a
plan. They would go down to Rawhide and attempt to get into the concert anyway, because they were sneaky and willing to go to any length to see Weezer. So those sneaky
fans went down to the park and purchased tickets to enter. They waited until the sun had set and the main park had closed, and they hid in the area where the band would be playing. There were many of them, and the
radio station didn't seem to care. Finally, the band came on and everyone was happy. They sang along to
the Sweater Song and got to hear a new tunes, but were still hopeful that Weezer would
grace the audience with the hits which had defined the band. But, to the
dismay of the fans, Weezer only played for twenty minutes. The
evil trolls at the radio station had lied, it was not a concert. It was a
signing, and the band would only sign a
keepsake for their fans if the fans
preordered their new album, at
twenty dollars per preorder. Needless to say, the fans were upset. Tables were thrown over, feelings were hurt and all through the night the sound of an angry mob chanting '
Bullshit!' could be heard. The next day I heard this story and I was sad, so I wrote this
song:
Which I have since removed (Sun, April 21st 2002)
It seems that as always, there is more than one side to the story. Given the perspective provided by time, I feel now that Weezer is just trying to be a band in an industry that doesn't particularly like bands, they only like
money. This situation was really the fault of the radio station (
the Edge,
KEDJ, which has since been sold and changed into an all
Spanish format) more than it was that of the band. Therefore, the (if I can be so bold)
scathing song parody which appeared here was never really appropriate. To read Weezer's response to this situation (thanks to
carbstah for bringing this to my attention) take a gander at:
http://www.weezer.com/karlscorner/archive13-May2001.html