Brian Eno is coming to Asheville on Saturday, October 29th at 2:00 p.m. as a peripheral event tied in with Moogfest 2011. This has caused me no end of anguish and cognitive dissonance. Eno coming to town and giving one of his “Illustrated Talks” should be a reason for elation, but to date, it has caused me only wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I remember that the rumor or Eno coming to speak at Disney World in the early 80s had my friends in Orlando hanging on the notion for weeks until it faded away. Brian Eno is a major, major player if you’re anything like me or my associates. We have Eno albums, books, boxed sets, Roxy Music albums, Eno Productions [except U2]. You name it. Eno is a prime mover in the fields that interest me and my friends. He hasn’t played music live in over 35 years. Even if he’s coming to talk, it carries the status of Event.

Nevertheless, this year he’s part of the Moogfest concert festival that is taking over downtown Asheville for the second year in a row. I passed on Moogfest last year. First of all, rock festivals give me the hives. The idea of spending several days jammed shoulder to shoulder with thousands of smelly, sweaty, beer-swilling music fans is utterly repellent to me. It’s bad enough going to large-ish shows of several hundred to a thousand that happen at The Orange Peel. Even at that relatively intimate scale, open cups of beer very precipitously towards my direction by careless louts, and I’ve been on the receiving end of a spill or two. It’s bad enough merely smelling beer much less having it actually touch my skin!

Although I love synthesizer music, what did Moogfest offer last year? Lots of rappers [?] and no one I cared about. Laptop rockers! Wet nosed punks! When this year’s Moogfest was announced, I gave the cursory glance at the lineup and saw that only Suicide and Tony Levin’s Stickmen were bands I’d care to see live. And a Chapman Stick is not exactly a Polymoog, is it? Would I put up with long general admission queues to see any of this? Easily, no. It would have to be an act on the level of an Ultravox or John Foxx to get me to pony up the $200 [!!!] for a weekend pass to gird my loins for the coming musical battle. I’m talking Core Collection here! And not acts I’d seen before. Last year they were having DEVO, who I’d dearly love to see for the first time, but not under those circumstances. As the day approached I was having fits, but fortunately [?] Bob 2 cut his playing hand just a day before they were due and they had to cancel. Crisis averted. [Except for Bob 2]

This year a few weeks after announcing the lineup, they sprang Brian Eno on me. Triple ugh. His art installation “77 Million Paintings” was coming to Asheville and the opening coincided with Moogfest 2011, and was exclusively for pass holders that weekend. Well, no worries. I’d be more then happy to see it the following weekend without rubbing shoulders with 10,000 other people! But wait, there’s more! It transpired that Eno was also coming to Asheville to give an “Illustrated Talk” that weekend, also concurrent, but apart from Moogfest. This was going to be hard, but I’d still want to pass. Paying $400 for weekend passes for me and my wife [who also likes Eno – a LOT] would only get me on the shortlist to buy passes for the talk before they went on sale to the general public [at an undisclosed fee].

I went home and told my wife “you’ll never guess who’s coming to Asheville.” Guess number one was Neil Young. “No, bigger,” I replied. Guess three was Bowie [close]. Number four was Bryan Ferry [closer], so she arrived at Eno by guess five. Pretty good. I then told her the conditions and she pointed out that we could buy the passes for $400, then sell the tickets once we got the Eno tickets. My wife had effectively talked me into doing this. Besides, in a worst case scenario, how much would we have paid in travel, food, and lodging costs to see Eno speak in a real city? The $400 Moogfest cost was actually chump change, in this respect.

“Well, duh,” I responded. So we went online at the prescribed time to buy the Moogfest passes on TicketMonster® and after jumping through the usual TM burning rings of fire, we eventually had passes. Then came that wait for Eno details. Several weeks passed, when I got an e-mail yesterday from the fine, fine Moogfest mailing list. As it turns out, we now had the gory details regarding the Eno appearance. He was appearing at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium on Saturday, October 29 at 2 p.m. for his talk. Tickets would be $35 for the general public but only $15 for Moogfest pass holders. The tickets would go on sale today at noon for 48 hours before Friday, September 9th, at which time any remaining tickets would be on sale to the general public for the $35 price point.

By this time, my wife had already lined up an alternate event she had registered to attend on that Friday and Saturday. Her event would last through 5 p.m. so she was hoping that Eno’s talk would be held on Saturday night at the earliest. Uh, no dice. Worse yet, buying an early pass mandated that entry to the event also required the Moogfest wristband in addition to the actual ticket for admission, which I had not ever planned on having. So getting tickets early before sellout ran the risk of me having to eat the cost of the $200 tickets without re-selling them to people who cared before the weekend arrived. Grrrrrrrr.

So once again, my wife suggested we buy the early tickets, but to also try for general admission again this Friday in order to possibly re-sell the Moogfest passes with a pair of Eno tickets to accompany before the event unfolds to sweeten the deal. So here is where it stands currently. I have two weekend passes for Moogfest 2011. I also have two passes for Moogfest passholders for Eno’s talk on October 29th. I will try to buy two more Eno talk passes this Friday, September 9th at noon for $35 each. If I get those, then I will be able to re-sell my Moogfest passes along with the Eno passes for slightly below face value to some lucky person with an interest in abusing themselves for a chance to see the likes of Tangerine Dream or The Flaming Lips perform during Moogfest.

Phew!

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p.s. I have spared you the horror tales of actually buying tickets via TicketMobster® as the experience was like unto a form of TORTURE.