Where to buy tickets for the Tower theater Philadelphia

The ticket booth at the Tower Theater only opens the day of the concert (a couple of hours before it starts) if there's still any tickets available, so for all I know you'll have to buy your tickets on the web (well, one other option I've just found out: some Boscov's and Macy's have Ticketmaster in the customer service dpt but you are not given more choices as to the seats than from your own computer, so..).
To get the BEST seats for their face value you'll need a lot of luck or finding out right at the beginning, because, let's face it, there are professionals who systematically manage to buy the best seats and then offer them for resale the same morning they go on sale, and it's hard to beat them (we can try). So look out for these:
1. Most of the bands have a presale through their websites (with a few tickets) a couple of days before going on general sale that are the best option
2.The most usual places to buy tickets for the Tower with total security are Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
And if you've missed option 1 and you were not there first when tickets go on sale at option 2., then you'll have to switch to plan B:
3. Ebay and Craigslist (some of the tickets in both have crazy prices but others are actually very reasonable). A tip, the sooner the better, sometimes the best options are offered soon and are sold sooner.
4. Then there are some websites (some post ads in my blog quite frequently) that have very good seats too and a range of prices, check them out as they may have something that's worth it. I know many people find stubhub particularly useful.
5. I wouldn't wait for the last minute to get bargains if you really want to go, because you risk ending up empty handed (I don't know how, but in the end most of the times people manage to sell the best and therefore most expensive seats . I tracked some at Keane's concert to see what happened, the seats were front row, more than $160 each -5 times the original price- and they had not been sold two days before the concert, but in the end they were gone too!!).
*** And if you're buying tickets through the internet, it would be great if you'd buy them through my site (clicking on the ads or through my Google search in the ads that appear with the results), it will not cost you a single cent more, thxxx!!
lab. : best places to buy tickets Tower theater Philadelphia

The PIT area at the Tower Theater , pics included

These are pics taken October 2008:

(click on any to enlargen)
The Tower's PIT area are the first 5 rows on the lower ground. These rows go from AAA to EEE. The first row has 8 seats on either side of the main aisle, the other rows have 12 seats on either side. These are the seats that are closest to the stage and therefore have the best view (they are reeeally close to the stage). Nothing blocks the view (at least nothing did in the concert I went to) as the huge speakers that are on the stage are placed at the sides at the furthest ends (guess it's not so good from the sound volume point of view) . The floor on this section is not lower than the orchestra (just a little, the usual incline).
I thought I'd dedicate a post exclusively to this section because many people don't know what to expect of it when the are looking for tickets (it happened to me too!!). You can see the seating chart and the seats pics for this section in the other posts of my site. Hope it' helpful.

Tour buses

Another curiosity about bands: their tour buses. I took some photographs of Keane's bus when they played at the Tower. The first pic shows the one the three of them were travelling in. Pretty big buses, sparkling clean and really beautiful (I never thought I'd say that about a bus!). If you want to take a peek inside, you can go to Prevost's page, where they have a few pics.

And also today they posted a mini video inside their actual bus on their The Road to the O2 blog (by the way, great blog).

Edward Hopper in Boston- Now in Washington's National gallery of art

If you like Edward Hopper's work, you can't miss Boston's Museum of Fine Arts exhibition. So many paintings together, including most of his masterpieces, it literally took my breath away.
It's a once exited not reentering one, so I kept going back to see it over and over again like a ping pong ball. I was really lucky to catch this one by chance, as I only spent little more than a day in Boston and I didn't know about it (thank god for the street banners!).
Specially haunting was New York restaurant (or how the back of a woman can become the main character and say so much about how she feels, felt so related to her), which he painted when he was 40. Not a "cool" choice, may seem a bit minor and ornamental but the painting is so much more eloquent when seen "in flesh".
House at dusk was also so impressive, and in this one as in many others it's the colour palette that's the key, and in most books you're deprived of his best asset (the colours in the lighthouses, the sky...)
Then there are those pictures I don't like at all, like Sunday.
The exhibit is relatively expensive ($23) and crowded (this is a really popular painter, after all), but soo worth it, you'll love this man's work so much more after this. Really sad to have to finally leave as I know I'll never see most of those paintings again.
He manages to stop time and motion in his paintings and to add "the element of silence" that Burchfield remarked, he also manages to suck the emotions off his subjects and replace them with a most particular different emotion. In his words "My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impressions of nature".He paints his impressions, which to me seem in a way so close to the real world and at the same time so alienated from it.
And now a little "gossip" about his curious life:
*He studied in a prestigious art school in New York and everybody there, specially teachers, thought he was called for "higher heights". Nevertheless that would be a long road for him, and soon he'd be forced to work in commercial art (something it seems he hated) as his works didn't sell. Success would finally arrive to him in his forties, after accentuating his style (can only imagine the frustration all those years)
* His definite rise to fame was due to chance: in 1924, walking home from being rejected by an art gallery he'd been recommended to where friends where showing their works, he passed the Rehn Gallery and decided to give it a try "Rehn told Hopper he could not see him. Relenting, he said that if Hopper wanted to spread out his watercolours in the back room, he would look at them when he returned from lunch. Before he left, a customer stopped in front of ((...) one of the works). Rehn sold him the picture at once, forgot about lunch, and began to represent Hopper" (source: "Edward Hopper, an intimate biography"- Gail Levin). That these things are always ultimately left to chance... and Hopper definitely got to know the cold shoulder.
*Even when famous, he was very vulnerable to negative criticism of his work
*When he was 42, he married a painter he'd met in art School and remained with her until his death. They never had children.
*Their relationship was difficult and stormy, see the article. She was his model in most of his work because, among other things, she was jealous of him painting any other woman (if there was more than one woman in a painting, she would act for the different roles, as in "Chop Suey"). He was selfish and ruthless with her. He was even jealous of her cat because of the attention it got from her. She resented him for not supporting her as a painter. Nevertheless they isolated themselves together and couldn't live any other way.
*His last painting (Two comedians) shows him and his wife dressed as Pierrot and columbine in a final bow from an empty stage. Closure.
So he fits into category B of creative genius stereotypes?
Other labels: Edward Hopper exhibition National gallery of art Washington