You may remember how disappointed I was when I couldn’t get my hands on a ticket to see P!nk for her May 2018 concert. Tickets went on sale in October 2017, with a “verified fan” service that was supposed to make it impossible for scalpers to get ahead of ordinary people. Instead, immediately at the 10 a.m. sale time, all tickets from the venue were sold out! In May 2018, it was announced that another Vancouver show would be added to the end of the tour and, yet again, I couldn’t get a ticket. Finally, when they added a second 2019 show — success! I would wait a year for the show to come, but I had a couple of tickets!
To explain the ticket fiasco, I came across this article detailing a CBC News/Toronto Star investigation that exposed some practices by Ticketmaster that seem to promote scalping. Ticketmaster has a professional ticket reseller program with access to TradeDesk, a web-based inventory management system for scalpers. The undercover reporter was told that “Ticketmaster’s resale division turns a blind eye to scalpers who use ticket-buying bots and fake identities to snatch up tickets and then resell them on the site for inflated prices.” The reason? Ticketmaster makes its money through fees. And those fees are higher on the higher-priced resale tickets. Not only that, but if a ticket is sold twice, Ticketmaster makes its fees twice! No wonder it was so hard to get a ticket direct from the venue!
In any case, I did mange to pick up a pair of tickets, and on Saturday night, my younger son and I finally went to see P!nk! (My son’s a heavy metal fan, but he is always up for any experience that comes along.) Our seats were up really high but had a pretty good view straight down onto the left-hand side of the stage. There were also some great screens to supplement the view — see the tour poster that was being shown on screen before the show started. (I’m using an iPhone 6s, which is not the best camera so please forgive the lack of crispness to the shots, especially with the spotlights.)
There was a DJ (KidCutUp) to warm up the crowd — not really my thing as I prefer to hear the old songs without a dance beat superimposed, but people seemed to enjoy it and at least he was doing the mixing live. The opening act was Julia Michaels, who I also quite like, having been introduced to her song “Issues” over on Fatima’s blog. She’s a songwriter with lots of success (she co-wrote Justin Bieber’s “Sorry”), but she’s only been performing herself for a couple of years. I really enjoyed how thrilled she seemed to be to have that big crowd appreciating her songs and lighting up their cell phones on request.
P!nk, of course, was the main attraction, and she didn’t disappoint. She and her band gave a solid 2-hour performance, complete with 10 dancers and stage sets that were like you’d see in musical theatre.
Surrounding the stage was a walkway in the shape of a heart, and P!nk made sure that she directed her performance to all parts of the audience. Being a mum herself, she also made a fuss over the kids who were close to the stage, introducing them and signing autographs for them during the show. When she introduced her dancers one-by-one, the last person she called was her 7-year-old daughter, Willow, who ran out onstage and gave her mum a big hug before cartwheeling off again!
P!nk is a trained aerialist and quite often is high above the stage, singing and swinging with only silks and no harness. (I can’t even imagine the insurance cost!). One of her songs featured P!nk with (and even standing on) one of her male dancers on silks above the stage. She actually stopped the song and began again after being out of sight for a few minutes because their timing was off. Later, she told the audience, “Thanks for understanding that I didn’t want to die.”
It wasn’t just an acrobatic performance, though. Her singing was fantastic. Here’s a little sample video I took during one of my favourite songs, “What about Us”. (You can hear the guy behind me shouting singing along.)
The highlight of the show was when P!nk was harnessed to the ceiling of this 18,000 seat arena, flying over the heads of the crowd. (We were in the “nosebleed section”, so there was no flying over us!) Remember, too, that she is singing flawlessly the whole time, even when suspended upside-down (as she is on the right)!
The show was definitely worth the money and the wait and I wouldn’t hesitate to go and see her again. Her new album, Hurts 2B Human, comes out on April 26 and she played a couple of teasers for us. Here’s one of her catchy new songs on a video she released at the end of March.
I’m off to pre-order the album on iTunes now.
I'm Feeling This 
Sue wow!!! Holy moly what a wonderful concert that looked like! I really like Pink! A lot. She is fearless and funny and frank and just adores her kids and husband Carey. Your phone is the same as mine and mine never takes as great pictures as you do!! 😘❤️
Thank you for sharing your night out w your younger son w us here and hope he had a bad ass time as you did!!
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Yeah, it was a great show. I wish I’d been closer, but still the seats were pretty good. I like P!nk a lot too. She is very strong and confident and I love her voice. I was pretty happy with the pictures, now that I’ve figured how to reduce the light, otherwise the spotlights make it impossible. But one day I’d like to upgrade my phone. My son enjoyed it too. He likes “So What” best. That’s what she was singing when she was flying over the audience.
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“So What” I think is very close to her personality and was of course when she and Carey were on the outs for awhile before Willow and Jameson were born. I love her honesty and integrity as a person and performer. Just no BS from her at all! I would be so afraid of heights but I know she’s done this aerial flying since her previous tour before Willow was born right?
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I think she’s done it for many years. I had vertigo badly a few years ago (the spins without having a drink!) and it’s still lurking in my brain when I tilt my head wrong, so aerial stuff won’t happen for me. Not to mention how physically strong she is!
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Sue she is very very strong and tiny!! I would get vertigo no doubt. My sis in law at the Bon Jovi concert last May in DC got extreme vertigo even before Jon and company started and our seats were middle tier (actually great seats!!) and she sat the entire concert head in her hands holding my brother’s hand or mine. Very real indeed!
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Actual vertigo though? I had it for months. Couldn’t even lay my head back to get my hair washed at the hairdresser. The room would spin and I’d get so nauseated that I’d have to quickly sit up.
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Well that is what she self-diagnosed. It was scary b/c she freaked out the minute we sat down and we were a group of about 8 people. She missed the opening act and part of BJ b./c she hung around out by the concessions my brother said trying to get her bearings. But the way you describe it that you couldn’t lie back without getting dizzy months later , maybe she had an anxiety attack on the heights although we were not up all that high at all. She and my bro are going to the same venue to see The Rolling Stones (hopefully if Mick has recuperated enough from his heart surgery) in late May and I think she got floor seats for that so history would not repeat itself.
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Wow. That’s a weird thing if it’s never happened before. When mine first started, I was dizzy just walking around. That would suck to miss most of the concert, too. Hopefully she’ll be fine at the Stones. I saw them twice, years ago, and they were great.
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Yeah and Sue I mean he just had his heart surgery so I don’t know if May is going to be medically cleared. Maybe. They either are not aware or nothing has been publicly stated that the tour is postponed. It was so weird. I mean she was really freaking out but then got snippy with me going home on the metro, I mean yeah can’t win for trying in the Marsh family…
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The guy singing/shouting cute although Pink drowned him out. That is a great view you and your son had. There is a lot to be said for nosebleed seats!!
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The guy singing/shouting was not so cute in person. He and his daughter blew out our eardrums many times. In fact, I had to cut out the start of the video because of his screaming. And his girlfriend was wearing tons of perfume. And at one point, he had his phone resting on the seat back beside me while he filmed with a light on that drilled right into my right eye. Not cute at all! … But otherwise, the seats were not bad.
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Sue, oh no sorry about that. You didn’t give him the evil stare? Sometimes it gets to a point where being nice and quiet is detrimental and a negative. Trust me…
You got some fantastic shots though and the video is pretty damn good in spite of loudmouth.
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He got annoyed when I shielded my eyes from the light that was bringing on migraine symptoms. I heard him say “oh no! He’s got a flashlight!” And “I’m not filming YOU!”
Thanks. I was surprised the video turned out. Gave me a chance to try clipping a video and putting it on the blog.
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Sue, the video is great. I mean I can hear him some what but Pink! was clear and the video was fantastic. Migraines are the worst…
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Thanks!
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For whatever reason the “like” button isn’t loading. I’m glad you got to see her. This is also not the first time Ticketmaster has been exposed as involved in suspicious practices.
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That’s weird. Seems it’s working for others. Yeah, I was really happy to finally see her show. Definitely an experience worth having. Ticketmaster does a lot of things to make more and more money. This one annoyed me though because it really means that regular people have only a very slim chance to get a ticket at regular price for a popular show. I’m just glad I finally got tickets.
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Yep I am having the same problem and on Guylty’s blog too the last few days. I hit like and it bleeps and doesn’t light up. Any suggestions?
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I have a “like” from you on this post, though.
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Ok good. I finally got my WP app to start pinging and buzzing again. That had stopped like a week ago and I updated all my apps (I’m lazy about that I confess) and suddenly it is pinging again today. But on Guylty’s blog I can’t like a comment at all. It keeps bouncing back and even on my phone it bounces back and I have to re-log in every single time now after I write a comment and send. UGHHHH
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Huh. That’s not good.
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yeah.. I usually go directly to the Iphone over the weekend (key emoji action) so I’m gonna see how that behaves. I can like on My blog and Herba’s and and Kelly’s with no problems. I never had any trouble here before. Very weird indeed..
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All the blogs you mention except Guylty’s are at wordpress.com. Guylty has a custom domain.
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Ah, yeah all of a sudden last week I cannot “like” anybody’s comments on her blog. It bleeps back at me and on my phone it goes haywire. I also have to log in every single time now, email, password… do you have any thoughts what is going on? Troubleshooting tips?
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She gets service as part of her custom package, so it would best to ask her to contact her customer service. There are two people I know of who have this problem on wordpress.com blogs, and I don’t know what the solution would be, but I am guess it would start with someone contacting a software developer somewhere, so I’d ask Guylty.
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Great advice! She went to London for the weekend I believe so I will reach out to her next week. Thanks!
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(and the like button just reappeared)
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Wow, this looks and sounds awesome! How great that you got to see her! She’s coming to The Netherlands as well, but the June one is sold out (I was too late realizing she’d be here) and there’s an open air concert in August with tickets still available but we’ll be away in Spain for our summer vacation then… Maybe one day I’ll get to see her too,
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It was a really great experience. If you do ever get the chance to see her, I would highly recommend it. Not sure if she could do her high flying in an open air concert, though.
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