Andrew Smith

There are two words that describe The Fray’s performance pretty well: it rocked. They played nearly all the songs on their album, as well as a cover of The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby, and tasteful performance of “Summertime” (that one Jazz song) played solo style (i.e., lead singer and piano). You could also see them fairly up close. Enough to recognize their faces.

However, I don’t have anything good to say about the venue itself, or what we (meaning myself and my two sisters) had to go through in order to see The Fray perform.

Complaint the first
I live in Arizona. I live near Phoenix. Which, by implication, means that it is normally hot in the Summer. Apparently, there were a lot of people who wanted to see the Fray, which, by implication, means that the line to the theater was, well, very long. By now the more observant of you will have deduced that my sisters and I stood in line while the sun, even as it was on its way to set (think late afternoon), broiled us to a crisp, tasty delight.

We stood. We talked. We sweated. Repeat.

Of course, it’s unreasonable to blame the theatre for the temperature outside, so I won’t do that.

Complaint the second
The auditorium, if you can call it that, was really a large, rectangular room, complete with concrete floor and a very poignant lack of seating. If you squeezed people together so there was a minimum amount of two inches between them, you could probably fit four hundred people in the room. And that’s what they did.

I’m a friendly person. I don’t mind talking to people. But I need my space. There was not enough space. The lack of space was so exorbitant, that it would not be far-fetched to claim it drove you to claustrophobia. It also made the room considerably hotter.

So here we have several factors. First, we’re all very warm. Uncomfortably warm. Hot, even. Second, we’ve been standing and waiting an hour for the opening band to play. Not The Fray themselves, the opening band. Third, we’re unacceptably close to people we don’t know.

Complaint the third
I should have brought earplugs, because I really don’t like music so loud you can’t hear it, or decipher the words, or even recognize notes and chords. This equals hearing damage. Hearing damage isn’t cool. Neither is loud music. Turn the dang speakers down!

But of course they can’t do that, and of course it’s not really reasonable to request it, and of course I didn’t know beforehand it would be that loud. I mean, I still enjoyed the songs The Fray played because I’m familiar with them. I know the words. I sang along. But I like sound to be clear and crisp, not overbearingly loud and boisterous. You’d get better sound quality by listening to the record.

Complaint the fourth
I really, really wish I knew what the theatre was like before I went there. Of course, their website doesn’t give me a clue what the building looks like, what the inside looks like, whether or not there are chairs or some kind of acceptable seating so that you can wait conveniently for the show to start. Of course, I guess they’d never put something on their website that says…

When you arrive at the theatre, you will wait in line for a very long time underneath the blazingly hot sun, and stand helplessly as the ultraviolet rays discreetly give you skin cancer while you hope very sincerely that the ants on the sidewalk don’t crawl up your shoes, on to your legs, and onward to places they shouldn’t be (and you don’t want to find them).

Our demeaning staff will frisk you and have you take off your shoes so they can be sure you aren’t carrying knives or popsicle sticks. Once you finally get to the auditorium, you will stand and wait as other people of unknown and possibly questionable character squeeze in way too near to you.

Afterwards, you will stand, do some more standing, and stand again. Additionally, you will stand and, after a bit of quiet consideration, you will decide to stand some more. After the standing, you’ll stand again, and, while looking at your watch, you will see that there is still half an hour to go before the opening band plays.

After both performances by both bands, you will walk out of our shady little joint, your ears ringing, and your back and feet screaming in agony. You’ll be completely beat. Tired. Exhausted.

Won’t that be fun?

The moral: know what you’re getting into before you order tickets.