BNQT Must Listen: Foster the People

by: Cici

Sound repetitive? It should. We featured Foster the People when their debut album came out back in May. Jury is already in; they are amazing. Oh wait they're my favorite band. Thankfully I have a pretty decent story to back up this incredibly biased, although very factual, account of their live show at the El Ray Theatre, in Los Angeles, California, on Friday, July 8th. It all started with a dream and a hope..

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The show sold out months ago. I actually knew it was coming up and was waiting for tickets to become available, but then of course missed the date and it sold out instantly. The El Rey Theatre only holds 900, and after being a guest on Jimmy Kimmel and playing the SXSW music festival this year, Foster the People tickets were gone immediately. I scoped out Craigslist a bit, but tickets were going for absurd prices so I figured I would just meander by the theater on Friday and see if I could stumble by a ticket. Luckily the El Ray is pretty close to where I live, so at 7 on Friday night I skateboarded down to the venue hoping to find some overwhelmingly nice person looking to get rid of their ticket for face value. Not going to happen. I asked the two scalpers lurking around the street corners "how much" to which one said "$100" and the other said "$150". I almost passed out, but wait..the story gets better. I parked myself on said skateboard, on said street corner, and just watched what these guys do and, no joke, two Urban Outfitters clad girls bought two tickets at a100 bucks a pop. Foster the People. They're my favorite band, but $100 a ticket? That's like 4 pairs of Vans.

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A very quick hour later.. Alas it's pretty fascinating stuff watching these scalpers work - one was wearing a Kroq sticker (which made his shirt look like official Kroq garb) until a security guard approached him and asked "you work for Kroq?", to which he honestly said "no". I think he ran away after that, but he was back soon after and in a plain black t-shirt. An hour later they took some sympathy on me saying to go stand in front of the venue..often people with extra tickets pull up in front and unload tickets. Instead the same scalper came up to me, pointed to some skinny kid on his cell phone and said "he has an extra ticket; go get 'em". Okay. Low and behold skinny kid did have an extra ticket, asked how much I could pay for it and I said "everything in my back pocket", i.e. $46. Granted I probably could have haggled him down but 1, I'm new to this. 2, I'm not a good liar. I really had $46 dollars in my back pocket.

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After that skated over to where my friends were at a local bar to give them my board, briskly walked back to the El Ray, and 20 minutes later the curtain parted and Foster the People played their whole album. They didn't have much choice; they only have one record out and needed to fill a 40 minute set. I, as you can presume, sang along to all the songs and danced by myself at the back of the venue with a bunch of people who were too cool until their 'hits' came on. Overall, amazing night. One last note, I know we all avoid the people after the concert standing outside with fliers as if they had the plague, but just take that stuff. First off, that's their job and unless you take it, they're kind of screwed. Secondly, I swear from time to time you will find some valuable information. Like.. Rise Against, Lauren Hill (in all fairness I thought she was dead) & Muse playing a festival? Who knew? L.A. Rising, Saturday July 30th. You will probably hear about it here.