At last, the track listing of the highly anticipated Arcade Fire’s album ‘The Suburbs’ has been revealed:
‘The Suburbs’
‘Ready to Start’
‘Modern Man’
‘Rococo’
‘Empty Room’
‘City With No Children’
‘Half Light I’
‘Half Light II (No Celebration)’
‘Suburban War’
‘Month of May’
‘Wasted Hours’
‘Deep Blue’
‘We Used to Wait’
‘Sprawl I (Flatland)’
‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’
‘The Suburbs (continued)’
Yesterday, the following was posted on the website of Store.Universal-Music
‘Pre-order The Suburbs now to qualify for an exclusive pre-sale of tickets to a secret intimate gig in London during the first week of July. All those who qualify will be offered the pre-sale on a first come-first served basis and, should you be one of the lucky people, you will be provided with a link to buy tickets for you and a mate.’
The terms ‘secret’ and ‘intimate’ always look very tempting for fans, but what about the UK fans who had already pre-ordered the album? Too late for them, or they can always re-order it again to get a chance to be part of the pre-sale for this secret show, which will be on July 7th by the way.
Also pre-ordering does not guarantee a ticket for the show of course, it is on a first come-first served basis. I caught a complaint from a fan on a message board:
‘Do you know what, I actually think this is a bit of a crap way to do this. It’s the kind of marketing ploy that if someone else did, it would annoy me. I’ve bought the album with the poster, now they want me to buy it again to get the link for tickets. Where’s it going to end? Enough I say!’
I don’t know who is exactly responsible for this marketing trick, but if the venue is tiny like the term intimate seems to suggests, a lot of people will not be able to get tickets and a lot of fans may well be sorry to have been pushed to buy the album twice.