At 9 am on Thursday the 6th of September tickets for Oscar Winner Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band (Featuring Nils Lofgren and him from the Sopranos) in the Odyssey Arena Belfast had sold out. By 9.16 a variety of tickets were available on internet auction site eBay at upwards of four times their face value. Tales abounded of the farcical nature of the allocation – People vainly queuing overnight, the fact that only one person managed to get tickets FROM THE VENUE ITSELF! The BBC’s switchboards lit up as a collective wail clamoured out to anyone, Talkback, Steve Nolan, even the flipping Northern Ireland Assembly to right this wrong, this travesty, this injustice all the while decrying the speculators, Ticketmaster and the corporate bookings system. Feelings run high at the moment, living under the spectre of the touting bogeyman -in fact I wouldn’t be hugely surprised (given the resurgence of past activities) to find some fella tarred and feathered outside the Odyssey with the legend ‘I am a Ticket Dealing Scumbeg’ scrawled on a placard. As some kind of community action, obviously. The agencies involved issue a consolatory statement with one hand and tote up the interest on 10,000 tickets at upwards of £50 a pop with the other. And we all agree that it’s a terrible thing, right? Wrong.

Well at the risk of sounding unpopular lets have a simple lesson in Free Market Economics. " A free market describes a theoretical, idealised market where the prices of goods and services is arranged completely by the mutual non-coerced consent of sellers and buyers, determined generally by the laws of supply and demand." Now stop me if I’m wrong but I find it hard to believe that each and every person who pays the (admittedly exorbitant) fees the internet speculators demand (and they will be paid. I predict not one seat will go unfilled on the 15th of December) is being personally threatened with a billy club until they pony up their credit card details. People would not be selling the tickets at £200 apiece if people would not be willing to buy them. Houses on Belfast’s former ‘Murder Mile’ in North Belfast would not be changing hands for upwards of £800000 if there wasn’t anyone willing to pay it. That’s capitalism, baby and in the immortal words of Eric Lee Boucher ‘It’s tough kid, but it’s life.’

"Wah!" you cry "It’s different! It’s the Boss!" But why is it different from any other service? I quite fancy travelling to work today in a chauffer driven Bentley but that’s not going to happen. "Wah!" you cry again, "But it’s art!" Now I’m getting annoyed at your squealing, shush before I slap you. Again, without labouring the point, I wouldn’t mind having a Warhol original to brighten up the front room. As it stands I have British Sea Power poster (which came free with the vinyl edition of their 2005 sophomore effort ‘Open Season’) and a picture, cut out from the Guardian of the world’s smallest man (He Pingping, 2"4’) shaking hands with the worlds tallest man (Bao Xishun, 7" 9’).

And behold the arguments as to why exactly those without tickets deserve one. I own ten Springsteen albums and I didn’t get a ticket. I’ve seen him 8 times and I didn’t get a ticket. And my personal favourite – I didn’t get a ticket, now I’ll have to ask some friends who can get them from corporate hospitality. This poor misguided soul inadvertently hit the nail on the proverbial, simultaneously getting to the crux of the issue while crucially ignoring the fact that these ‘corporates’ that he hopes to ride the tail of accounted for a good portion of the ticket allocation. Here the ugly spectre of the ‘Prawn Sandwich Brigade’ (Sadly not one of the surrealist army units that fought on behalf of the Republicans during the Spanish civil war, rather a term coined by opponent maiming footballer Roy Keane to describe the section of the Manchester United fan base more concerned by the corporate hospitality than the mechanics of the match) raises it’s head.

Now I’ve been a beneficent of the odd guest list or three and several times experienced the sheer manna of corporate hospitality but I speak as a sometime music hack (And I’m still hard pushed to name anyone that can top the largesse shown by a certain mobile phone service provider – business class flight, 5* hotel and open bar action) who has been ostensibly (and I use the term loosely) working. But I don’t count myself as one of the ‘entitled’. A colleague of mine told me about the fabled VIP after-show for last year’s ViTal festival "You know who’s going to be there? The son of the guy that provided the plastic cups. And his mates. And no-one else." When everyone involved demands a cut, that doesn’t leave a great deal of pie left.

It doesn’t help that the Boss is one of the holy grails of gig promoting. I once read that the publisher’s philosopher’s stone is to land a book that people who don’t read will buy and crucially, not always read.. This is a concert that people who don’t gig will go to, regardless of the fact that they’ll be confused and upset as to why ‘Born in the USA’ is being played acoustically (it’s so that the ‘real’ meaning of the song will come through, man). it’s the same reason why November’s post ‘Foundations’ Kate Nash gig will pack out while last spring’s concert by said songstress was so poorly attended the venue left complimentary tickets under the (pre-smoking ban) ashtrays the week beforehand.

Sadly such generosity will not be repeated in this case. Those who have will enjoy, those that haven’t will gnash their teeth and wail.