I just researched the ticket prices for the Counting Crows/Maroon 5 show at the Ford Amphitheatre on Fri., Oct 3 — info I needed for my blurb in next Wednesday's MusicWeek section — and I’m ready for a nap. Exhausted, I tell ya.

Here’s my saga:

First I went to the Ford Amphitheatre website and clicked on the concert. Easy enough. Once there, I scrolled down to several icons that said “Buy Tickets.” Each of these required me to join the Live Nation Ticket Club and fill out some info. Pass. I scrolled down a little farther to an icon that said “Ticket Info,” but it was just general stuff about the box office and such.

I tried a few other clicks. My only conclusion was that you cannot find out ticket prices on the FordAmp website without joining a club.

So I called the general phone number. After waiting awhile, I got a woman in the box office who wasn’t sure why I could not get ticket info on the website. She quoted me ticket prices over the phone, adding that buying them at the box office window was the cheapest way.

In descending order, the prices went:

This article appears in Sep 24-30, 2008.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...