Seriously, I was done. I was out of the game. I was a monastic abstainer, done feeding the “great live music racket,” free from $12 beers, liberated from “convenience fees” that are less about convenience and more like muggings, with a tidier user interface. I had willingly foregone the “Classic Tales of Yes” tour in 2024 because I refused to pay $180 per seat to hear 90 minutes of Tales from Topographic Oceans live from start to finish. (I did buy some merch off their website, though. I’m still a fan after all.) I had reached enlightenment. I had ascended beyond Ticketbastards and The Monopoly.

Unfortunately, I was apparently on their email list.

“Oh, Yes is coming to town again this year. Oh, they’re doing the Fragile album in its entirety again.” Nope. Not this time. Then a friend (nice person, questionable life experience, always gets me into trouble) said she had never seen Yes live and always wanted to. Now, I should have done the responsible thing. I should have said, “That’s okay. YouTube exists. There are professional shoots of the 2013 tour when they did Fragile in its entirety last time. The new guys sound almost exactly the same.”

Of course, I didn’t. I dropped $350 on a pair of VIP tickets like a man who has learned absolutely nothing from the previous 14 times he’s paid to see that band. Yeah, whatever, we had fun, none of the “Only Jon Anderson” yuppets keyed the car, I got a couple of cool stories from the evening, and the concert was great. For a brief, shining moment, I convinced myself that maybe, just maybe, this whole live music thing still had a place if done in moderation.

That was the relapse.

Because once you break the seal, the insidious emails start coming. “Hey. Remember that thing you said you were done with? Yeah, Cool. By the way, Deep Purple and Kansas are on the same bill and coming to Indy.”

Oh, fantastic. Just casually assemble two of my most long-loved bands and drop it in my inbox like it’s a coupon for a free pizza.

Here’s the part where I’m supposed to be strong. I’ve seen both bands before. Hell, I’ve seen them in what we all lovingly refer to as the “classic lineups,” which is code for “the version the sheep on the Internet insists is the only legitimate one, regardless of current reality or the fact that it’s not even the original members.” In this case, when someone finds Rod Evans or Lynn Meredith, I’ll probably pay for THAT show too. Point being, I should say: “Been there/done that. I’ve completed the experience. I am free.”

But logic is no match for keyboards. This isn’t about nostalgia. This is about watching two of my favorite players, Don Airey and Tom Brislin, on the same night, absolutely committing crimes against physics with Hammond organs.   

I’ve never seen either of them live, so naturally, now my brain is doing that thing where it starts building a completely rational case for financial self-sabotage. This is Don Airey, the guy who helped write “Air Dance” for Black Sabbath. That jazz-prog jam they, apparently, threw together in an afternoon when they were strung out on various chemicals and ran out of ideas for metal riffs. This is Tom Brislin, who absolutely smashed it in Yes and, to date, is the only member who has ever responded to a Tweet of mine. “Honestly, can you even put a price on watching two of your heroes finally taking a front seat in two great keyboard-forward bands on the same night?!”

Yes. Apparently, you can. It’s a few hundred dollars plus fees per person.

I’m sure we’ve all felt this pain, right? There’s the ticket price, which is already offensive. Then there’s the “service fee,” which I assume is for the service of TicketMonopoly allowing me the honor of giving them money. Then the “facility charge,” which I’m pretty sure is just Everwise Amphitheater saying, “We exist. That’ll be $15. Then they charge my car $30 if it is going to be anywhere within earshot of the complex. We won’t even go into the $12 cans of beer, $18 warmed-up convenience-store food, and $35 for a $3 sweatshop-made t-shirt that will fade and fall apart after a half-dozen washes. Seriously, by the time the evening is over, it feels less like buying a ticket and more like settling a lawsuit you didn’t know you were involved in.

And I hate it.

I hate knowing they’re playing me. I hate being able to see how the entire machine works, from the nostalgia economy to the algorithmic marketing. I hate that I keep falling for it like a guy who swears he’s done with junk food while holding a pizza.

Yes, I probably have a problem. I know I don’t need to hear “Smoke on the Water” again, but I’d love it if they whipped out something from Rapture of the Deep. I don’t need to hear “Carry On Wayward Son” again to validate my existence, but I’d kill to hear “Mainstream” live.

Really, I just want to see two great keyboard players absolutely go to war with an instrument I love. I need to see the fingers, the phrasing, and the little choices that don’t make it onto the album. I need to watch Don Airey throw in something reckless and grin like he got away with it. I need to see Tom Brislin navigate parts written when he was in diapers and give them a fresh coat of paint around the trim so they hold up to modern ears. You know, the cerebral stuff prog nerds live for. Heck, check my social media history. I praised both Absence of Presence and =1 on social media, making me a pariah to the “If it Doesn’t Have Livgren or Blackmore, it’s not the real band” crowd. So, I don’t see this tour as “just a legacy act cash grab.” Now there’s the faint, dangerous possibility that something new might happen on stage. Something unscripted. Something worth being there for.

So, suddenly, my “done with the fee machine” stance starts to feel less like a firm stance and more like a brief phase I went through. Sort of like how I did “Dry January” up to that point on New Year’s Day afternoon when my buddy texted to see if I wanted to go grab a pint.

Now, thumb hovers over the “Buy Tickets” button like it’s a moral decision, telling myself I hate this system, telling myself I’m not going to keep feeding it, all while calculating whether I can justify this as a “professional development expense” for my music career.

I hate this …

… but I’m probably at least grabbing lawn seats.