Metallica Delhi and what really happened today.

I paid for my ticket and saw what happened at the concert ground today. Metallica could not have got a more sane audience. The barricades had broken shortly after the gates were opened. This was long before the ground was even filling up with people. Those with slightly cheaper tickets were separated by another set of barricades and restricted to an area that was 200-250 metres away from the stage.

With people waiting for 4 hours since the gates opened at 3:30, you would expect people to be slightly agitated by the announcement that the concert was being postponed because of technical difficulties. There was no damage to the equipment because they’d taken all the equipment away before making the announcement. The only chaos that we could notice was people swearing and throwing their bottles on the stage when the announcement was made.

The media continues to quote unverified ‘sources’ and maintain that it was the audience that prevented this concert from happening today. I was actually pretty shocked at the way the Metallica crew were reacting, at one point even coming out to say “Let me call someone you can understand.”

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The organisation was obviously poor specially given that we had bought our tickets in August. But it’s interesting that so many people who have no idea about what happened like to think that its Delhi’s crowd that created an atmosphere unsuited to conduct an event of this scale.

Update: So Parikrama notes and YouTube shows evidence that couple of monitors were indeed trashed but much after the announcement. Note that all that stuff was insured. $1.1mn was made from just 20000 tickets worth 2750 each. There were 10000 other tickets sold too. Three months since we bought these tickets. Enough time to create barricades that would work against those leaning on them. The barricades were not really the ‘technical difficulty’. The real snag was the organisation and redirecting the blame towards the audience is a nasty move.

Update 2: Concert positively cancelled. Now waiting for refund.

Update 3: Metallica ticket amount refunded on credit card statement including processing fees. Good they took responsibility of the situation.

Steve Jobs - 1955 to forever.

In an exam I recently took, there was a writing section where I had to word an essay explaining whether past experiences are important when thinking about solutions to problems of the future. I explained how all solutions are a sum of what we have learnt - a background that only history is able to provide. To understand the context of any problem reasonably well, or to be able to call something a problem before you can start solving it you need be on a path guided by your past even if it’s just your recent past. I went on about scientific advancement and how it was only possible to move forward if we had something we previously understood that was worth questioning. Like a template I wrote about how we no longer think the world is flat and how we now understand and accept gravitation as we should always have.

Suddenly though as I wrote about Newton I realized that I could also mention the other Apple. My essay ended with a 200-word tribute to Steve Jobs with the last line being: “He pushed the human race forward.”

I knew there was a disconnect between the two parts of what I had written; I was happy ending my test then because that is what I wanted to write. Today was sad because I woke up at 6:30 to the news of Steve passing away. I was shaken for most of the day. I felt a little better later in the day when I checked my email and learnt that I had got a full score on the part of the test I described above.