Thread by @j035ich5pach

Last night, I made a new best friend. My wife and I were sitting in our seats, waiting for the KISS show to start, and (we will call him) “Ken” comes to our row & says “you’re in my seats.”

He was nice about it, so I pulled up my tix on my phone, and sure enough, we had an issue. This show was supposed to happen either SEP/OCT of 2020, but was cancelled due to Covid. It was rescheduled for SEP 2021, but Gene caught Covid, and it was rescheduled to last night.

So we head to the box office, and I discover that Ken is a big KISS fan too. He’s a little older than me, and his first show was on the Creatures of the Night tour, after Ace left the band, at Pine Knob (now DTE theater where we were) back in 1982. He was 15.

Despite Ken being a big KISS fan, he’d really only seen them in every genre, so last night was his “6th or 7th” time seeing them. Like me, he knew last night would probably be our last chance. It was my 32nd time seeing KISS.

So we get to the box office, and talk to the attendant about our issue, show her our tickets, etc. I bought mine through Ticketmaster when they went on sale (2020), Ken bought his in July this year with the Gametime app.

The lady behind the glass does her thing, comes back to the window and tells me I’m good to go (can keep my seats), but Ken has to PURCHASE A NEW TICKET! Both of us were like

I turn on my my charm, and tell her it’s BS, that surely there was something they could do help the situation, it was neither of our fault, and that the box office had tickets set aside for these situations. She tells us to go to guest services.

Ken and I head over to customer service, and we meet John. John is a 25 year employee at the venue, we explain the situation to him, and he says the best he can do “right now” is put us in the pit, right in front of the stage, but we’d have to stand the whole time.

Ken and I look at the guy and both of us are younger than John, and we both say “you think I can’t stand through a whole concert?” We ain’t old, mf’er!

We agree to it, but now I have to go find my wife and see if she’s good with the new arrangement. So, John, Ken and I head back to find my wife, and on the way back, I ask Ken about his “friends” who came to the concert with him. He had 3 seats & only one of his overlapped w/me.

He texts them, and they had all split up from each other and found friends they knew but would meet him at their seats…

We get to my wife, she’s all in, and John goes off to work out the arrangement with the other ushers. He comes back and says “due to Covid, we can’t put any more in the pit, but come with me.”

So we follow John and he takes us to the center of the venue, and we start our descent toward the stage. We keep going. Closer… Closer… I look at my wife, and I said

I ask Ken, “what about your friends?” He smiles and says

We ended up sitting in center stage, Row G, 7 rows behind the pit. In my 32 KISS concerts, the BEST seats I’ve ever had. Ken and I were pretty stoked!

And now, some scenes from last night…