Coventry II: Radiohead at Nissan Pavillion

Sunday night's Radiohead concert at the Nissan Pavillion in Bristow, VA, 30 or so miles outside of DC, went on as planned despite the relentless rain storm/monsoon that caused significant flooding inside and outside of the venue. Many stories have emerged of the major CF that was the roads entering the venue that night. Sometime before 11:00 PM, as Radiohead began the first (lengthy) encore of two, fans who had still not reached the venue were told by police officers directing traffic that the show was over and that they would have to turn around and go home. Sounds an awful lot like what happened to me a few miles outside of a town you may have heard of called Coventry. Fortunately for me, it wasn't actually raining at the time those mounties had me turn my car around and I was still able to catch the concerts live from the air-conditioned, not-muddy New Rochelle, NY cinema. I also received a FULL refund, a Danny Clinch photo album signed my all four members of Phish, and a free download of both nights' shows. And what has Live Nation offered to compensate the poor souls who had scored impossible to obtain Radiohead tickets with stories like this:

Anonymous said...

The POS concert promoters, moron traffic controllers and the weather made yesterday a living hell. 4 hours of stop/go traffic up 66, getting rerouted because of a road closure only to hit more traffic. We finally made it to University Blvd, which had more stagnant traffic of course. We turned around finally after my wife was on the verge of tears. F U Nissan. $175 well spent.

...according to the Washingtonian blog, those who were not able to make it into the venue for the Radiohead show would be offered LAWN SEATS to Radiohead's concert in NEW JERSEY in AUGUST on a TUESDAY night. I don't know if you've seen a map recently, but Camden, NJ is 180 miles away from the Nissan Pavillion. That trip would cost a small fortune in gas and a produce a Shaq-sized carbon footprint. Needless to say, LN's offer isn't being taken too well. I'm willing to bet that this is not the last we'll hear of this story in the coming days.

** Best quote I've read from a concertgoer who left the show early due to the conditions: "Bear Grylls would've died out there." **