Some interesting stuff out this week, you can tell Christmas is coming.

Dio at Donnington UK:  Live 1983 & 1987

I’ve been looking forward to this.  The 1983 set should be great and I consider the 1987 show to be a bonus.  Not much to say here, you know what you’re going to get, I guess the only question is the quality of the live shows.

Alter Bridge, AB III

I really liked the singer’s stuff on Slash’s recent solo album but I despise Creed with all my might so I’ll give this one a pass for now.  I may change my mind once I hear some songs off of it.

Bing Crosby, The Crosby Christmas Sessions

I have way too many Christmas albums as it is but this might be something to pick up.  You know the songs are going to be great but I could do without the David Bowie duet that I got sick of long ago.

Poison, Nothing But a Good Time

Since when do 2-disc releases count as box sets?  More stuff just rehased from Poison.  I love a lot of the stuff they’ve put out over the years but they’re getting as bad as Kiss with all the repackaging they do.

Queensryche, Empire (20th Anniversary Edition)

I’m on the fence on this.  I already have the album but this rerelease comes with a live bonus disk from the Empire tour and that just might be enough to get me to buy this for a third time.  The main drawback is that $27 (on Amazon) seems a little steep for just an extra disk and some other crap they throw in the packaging.

Helloween, 7 Sinners

I don’t own any Helloween albums and that’s not likely to change, but my hat’s off to them for their longetivity.

Kid Cudi, Man on the Moon II:  The Legend of Mr Rager

Kid Cudi is one of those artits who keeps popping up on Pandora and I like what I’ve heard so far.  I should probably pass on this one and pick up his first album (hopefully used).

Crossroads Guitar Festival 2010

Beat Buy has an exclusive version with 40 (I think) extra minutes.  This thing was a must buy just by the lineup (Jeff Beck, Ron Wood, Derek Trucks, etc), but all the others have been great and hopefully this won’t be an exception.

It’s probably just me, but this is the first thing I thought of when I saw the Emerson Quartet album cover.  Then I giggled a lot.

A few weeks ago the Def Leppard/Poison/Cheap Trick tour was announced with a date scheduled at Kansas City’s Sprint Center.  I’m debating whether or not to go - I would like to see Def Leppard and Cheap Trick but I saw Poison about ten years ago on their first reunion tour and that was plenty for me.  I’ve never seen Def Leppard or Cheap Trick live before (although I did have really good seats to see DL on the “Hysteria” tour until they canceled due to the El Paso Incident).  The thing is that you know that Cheap Trick will only have around 30 minutes to play so I have to keep that in mind.

Really though, the Sprint Center?  I’m constantly surprised at the acts that fill up that place (Bon Jovi, Tina Turner) but based on the tickets currently available they may have overestimated the demand for this bill.

Anyway, I came across the three ticket packages available for Poison.  Essentially here’s the breakdown:

- If you spend $270 you get a seat in the first 15 rows, about $50 worth of Poison merchandise, and a $25 voucher for more Poison stuff.

- If you spend $470 you get a seat in the first 10 rows, a “preshow Poison backstage tour”, about $75 worth of Poison merchandise, and the $25 voucher.

- If you spend $620 you get special seating at the side on the stage during Poison’s set, the seat in the first 10 rows, the backstage tour, the $75 worth of Poison merchandise, and the $25 voucher.

On top of that the last two packages also include early access to the Poison merchandise booth, although it’s been years since I’ve seen any kind of crowd at a merchandise booth - probably Paul McCartney in 2002.

I also like the wording of the backstage tour - you’re not guaranteed to meet anyone from the band so if no one shows up you can’t complain.

The first package seems like the biggest scam.  Poison’s essentially being a scalper for the first 15 rows and then they throw in some other crap to call it a package.

I know that things like this have been going on for a while.  Kiss had some crazy package where you paid a load of cash to get a good seat and one picture of the band - with their camera.  I’m too lazy to look it up but I think that was after Ace and Peter left the band so you weren’t even getting the original members.  I had a friend spend $250 to meet Tesla a few months ago, but that didn’t seem like a scam because you got to watch the sound check, they promised you would meet the band, and from what I heard they hung out for a while and spoke with everyone.  They gave everyone some CDs and a DVD too so it seemed like a good experience.

First off all three of these packages seem excessive for a band like Poison.  The descriptions are worded so that you might end up getting screwed over.  Like I said, it seems like the band is essentially just scalping their own tickets.  I just checked eBay and you can get second row on the floor for $250 apiece.  Not first 15 or 10 rows, you know you’re getting second row for sure.

Obviously they can do what they want, but it just seems like they’re trying to squeeze every dollar out of their biggest fans.