Marty: There was another Ozzy concert we were going to see. I can’t remember everybody on the bill.
Chris: Was Whitesnake there?
Marty: Whitesnake was one of them. There was another band too, but I can’t remember who it was.
Chris: That was probably one of those three- or four-band arena shows.
Marty: Exactly. My cousin Joel was with me, this guy Doug that I used to work with, and a couple of other people.
Chris: Where was this?
Marty: Springfield. We parked and started walking toward the concert. All of a sudden, we see what looks like confetti flying off the bridge above us.
Chris: Confetti?
Marty: That’s what it looked like at first. We’re looking up like, “What the hell is that?”
Chris: And it wasn’t confetti.
Marty: It was concert tickets.
Chris: Actual tickets?
Marty: Actual tickets. They were falling onto the street and all over the ground.
Chris: That sounds like somebody’s scalping operation just collapsed.
Marty: That’s what I figured. Somebody probably bought a pile of tickets, expecting the show to sell out, and then couldn’t move them.
Chris: Especially if people were ignoring the scalpers and buying directly from the ticket window.
Marty: That’s exactly what was happening. There were people outside trying to sell tickets, and everyone kept telling them, “No, thank you,” and heading toward the ticket booth.
Chris: Then suddenly the sky starts raining tickets.
Marty: We started picking them up. But we didn’t know if they were real.
Chris: So somebody had to test one.
Marty: I did.
Chris: Of course you did.
Marty: I took one to the entrance, handed it to the guy, and it worked.
Chris: That answered that question.
Marty: The guy at the door told me, “You know, if you go back outside, you can’t come back in with that ticket.”
Chris: And what did you say?
Marty: “That’s okay. I’ve got plenty more.”
Chris: That had to confuse him.
Marty: I walked back outside and told everybody, “Yep, they work!”
Chris: So then you started handing them out.
Marty: We were giving them to people waiting in the ticket line.
Chris: Just free tickets?
Marty: Free tickets. I’d say, “Hey, do you want tickets?” And they’d say, “No, we’re going to buy ours.”
Chris: Because they assumed you were scalping them.
Marty: Exactly. I had to tell them, “I’m not asking you for money. Someone threw these off the bridge.”
Chris: That probably sounded completely believable.
Marty: Until somebody took one, went inside, and realized it worked.
Chris: Then everyone wanted one.
Marty: Pretty much. People were thanking us and heading into the show.
Chris: Did anyone try to pay you?
Marty: A couple of people offered to buy me a beer or a concert shirt.
Chris: What did you tell them?
Marty: “No. Enjoy the show.”
Chris: That’s probably the best possible outcome for a ticket someone had already given up on selling.
Marty: Exactly. Whoever owned them had already lost the money. At least the seats got filled.
Chris: Though Doug apparently still saw a business opportunity.
Marty: Doug sold a couple.
Chris: Of course he did.
Marty: Tickets were probably eighteen dollars back then. He sold a couple for ten bucks each.
Chris: So most people got a free concert, and Doug covered part of his evening.
Marty: That sounds about right.
Chris: Springfield had some interesting concert history too.
Marty: Oh, definitely.
Chris: Supposedly, parts of the Springfield concert footage were used for Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.”
Marty: I remember hearing that.
Chris: Some sections of the live audience material were supposedly recorded there.
Marty: Aerosmith filmed something in Springfield too.
Chris: Was that the audience singing “Dream On”?
Marty: Yeah. The crowd was singing it with them, and Steven Tyler would come in during certain parts.
Chris: Then it ended up in one of those concert videos showing different stops across the country.
Marty: Springfield only appeared briefly, but it was there.
Chris: That’s the funny thing about going to concerts back then. You never knew whether you were just attending a show—
Marty: —or accidentally becoming part of a music video.
Chris: Or finding your ticket falling out of the sky.
Marty: Sometimes all you had to do was look up.
(Both laugh.)