Wow, am I bummed out!

We purchased tickets MONTHS in advance to see Don Henley with the Pretenders and the Stray Cats, for tonight August 7, here in Albuquerque.  Doesn't that sound like a great show? It was what I'd chosen for my birthday celebration.

Yeah, well, we just found out on Saturday afternoon (August 4) that the show, scheduled for the new Santa Ana Star Center, was cancelled.

We'd gotten our tickets through GetTix.net, and I must say they were super-prompt in refunding our money, in full ... thank goodness, because it was major $$$! Henley's show tickets are $80 each.

So I'm glad to get that money back, but, given that GetTix knows my name, address, telephone number, credit card number and email address, couldn't they have let me know the show was cancelled? They apparently knew about this at least a couple of weeks ago ... couldn't they have dropped me a line?

Then, too, because the Santa Ana Star Center is about an hour and a half's drive from where we live in the East Mountains, we'd also decided to splurge on a hotel room at the Tamaya Hyatt Resort nearby. It's really gorgeous, check out this photo gallery:

http://tamaya.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/gallery/photos.jsp?icamp=propPhotoGallery

Anyway, it was their incredibly helpful staffer who let me know about the cancellation ... if not for her, then I suppose we'd be sitting alone in front of a darkened amphitheater tonight!

She checked the Don Henley website, and found that the concert was still listed at that point; she checked the Santa Ana Star Center website, which didn't mention the show at all; then finally she called a friend who works the box office at the Santa Ana Star Center, who finally told her the deal was off. I mean, is that service above & beyond the call of duty, or what?

Anyway, after talking with the darling concierge, I took a few minutes to loudly freak out, then called Hyatt Reservations to cancel the room. Unfortunately, we lost the $50 deposit, but if we'd called 2 minutes later -- really, literally! -- we'd have lost the whole night's fee. The resort is beautiful, but not cheap; again, a little advance notice sure would have helped.

Finally, I checked Don Henley's website myself. As of this morning -- the morning of the scheduled show -- it appears that he'll be playing in El Paso, instead. Sigh. Sounding like a broken record, I'll repeat, with a little advance notice we could have rearranged our schedule and made the show there. It's just over 4 hours' drive from here in Edgewood to El Paso, and we were on the hook for a hotel room anyway ...

O well. The good news is, we're going to see Billy Bob Thornton instead! He's playing tonight with his band, the Boxmasters, at the El Rey Theater in downtown ABQ. Cheaper ($20) and easier (20 minutes away), and I can have my birthday dinner at my new favorite restaurant, the Slate Street Cafe (instead of the highly-praised but big bucks Corn Maiden at Tamaya).

Billy Bob is touring to promote his new CD, Beautiful Door, which at least four reviewers on Amazon think is his best ever <grin>. In the discussion forums, one person listed it under "Rock concerts that disappointed", while another calls it the "best concert you've ever seen"! Should be interesting.

If it isn't cancelled, that is!

What to do differently next time? Well, I guess you just have to check, and double-check, and triple-check on musicians!

Next time I'll watch the Eagles fan blog at http://eaglesfans.typepad.com ... they have better tour info than Don Henley's own website, plus they've got great reviews of the show we aren't gonna see ... boo-hoo!

Happy scavenging,

--Margaret a.k.a. MaggieBelize