1990-09-16: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

Opportunity awaits in NYC provided youâ€™re in the right place at the right time.  Two things before I carry on.  One, I must implore, this story, being over twenty five years old, now qualifies as folk lore.  The only certainty I can bring here is that I was on the receiving end of one of these tickets & this is the story I was told during the show.  Two, Ray Ackerman.  I must give a nod to our taper & the stellar pulls he produced from a venue that is not the easiest to make a quality recording in.  The ambiance he has produced is the just the right dichotomy of room & music.

Outside the Garden, a couple of hours before showtime, 7th Avenue was crawling with a sea of pedestrians.  All pouring into Penn Station, making theyâ€™re way back to their two car garages, 3.5 kids & the suburban mortgage.   The police were attempting to keep everyone moving so as not to bottleneck the main entrance to Penn Station, aka no loitering or get trampled by a horse.  It was pretty unruly & made for a tense setting.  It was there that two scalpers got into a scuffle.  As they argued some pushing & shoving ensued causing these scalpers to let their guard down.  This much I witnessed.  I saw the cops move in & that was my cue to high tail it outta there.  

The next part of the story I was told.  As the scuffle ensued a young hustler came in from behind & broke one of the scalpers belt pacs off & ran with it.  He dove into Penn Station & got lost in the masses.  As the story went on this young dude wasnâ€™t a head but a dope sick street kid.  In addition to a windfall of cash, this junkie made off with a stash of tickets as well.  With his eyes set on a big score, he sourced some smack & then tried to unload the tickets on some heads.  Someone had the notion to tell him that the tickets were fake & talked him out of them for some additional dope.  Those tickets were then dispersed under the guise that no money exchange hands cause the tickets were â€˜taintedâ€™.  Not to mention there was a pretty good chance they were fake.  I donâ€™t know who this young dude was but the ticket I got this night came to me by way of him, at no cost.  In fact, anyone & everyone that was looking for a miracle this night got one.  The presumption was that the tickets were fake so if you were gonna try to get with it put some hard cash behind it.  I donâ€™t know if that happened with every ticket or how many tickets were liberated.  All I know is that me & few of my mates all scored one & got in.  It seemed like everyone on tour got it on this night too. 
 
My assumption is that all the liberated tickets went into the right hands & nary a penny exchanged hands, which is why we referred to this MSG run as the good karma shows.  I guess the stars aligned over the Isle, making the dance party behind the stage particularly good for this show.  I do think the majority of the tickets were fake cause there was a big crowd of people behind the stage.  Where else do ya go when ya don't have a seat??

Joe.