Tickets

Be it Elvis or Bowie, I believe any rock fans out there has one particular "Rock God". If someone asks who my Rock God is, I would answer: Todd Rundgren.

A singer-songwriter as well as renowned record producer and multi-instrumentalist, Todd Rundgren's music has always been ahead of his time and a big influence to young musicians such as The Lemon Twigs or Tame Impala. His creativity never ceased to amaze me.

Why I’m writing this is I’ve got a news of his latest Japanese tour which is scheduled for March. I’ve been waiting for this announcement ever since I saw him earlier this year. He had said he may be touring Japan soon a while back. I’m really glad he kept his promise.

What makes it special to me is that this is going to be my first time seeing his long-time collaborator Kasim Sulton. I love his work in Utopia and he is a brilliant singer himself. My first Todd concert was in 2023, when he supported Daryl Hall, hence the absence of Kasim. The second one was at Billboard Live Tokyo this year. That was a few days before he embarked on an Australian tour, and he had musicians from Down Under for his band, so no Kasim again. I’ve got to see this show at all costs.

There will be two shows, one each in Tokyo and Osaka. A venue for Tokyo show has 3,800 capacity while Osaka venue is a bit smaller and houses around 1,200. Sounds like a tough game, all fans in Japan having to compete for 5,000 seats. What makes it even tougher is an overly complicated ticket purchasing system in this country. It can be a real pain.

For example, buying tickets for this particular Todd gig works like this:

1st Club BBL (Billboard Japan, the concert’s organiser) membership pre-order - 5 - 18 December

Official pre-order on e-Plus (a ticket distributing company) - 6 - 18 December

These are all lotteries. That means you won’t immediately get your ticket. You have to wait a maximum of few weeks for the result. In this case, you (and me) will not know if you secured one until 20 Dec. Don’t you worry, even if you failed at this point, there’s more.

Official pre-order on Pia and Lawson Ticket (other ticket distributors) - 20 - 24 December

and more,

2nd BBL membership pre-order

2nd Official pre-order on e-Plus, Pia, Lawson Ticket - both on 27 Dec - 12 January

Then finally, tickets will be on sale on 21 February.

This is a norm in Japan, especially when tickets are expected to be in high demand. On top of that, you usually cannot choose your seat location.

This is the seating map for Tokyo show.

As you can see, there are three types of seating. From the front, SS (basically VIP), S and A. If you buy S class seats, you can be either right behind SS seats or right in front of A seats on the upper floor for the same price. I’ll repeat that - for the same price. They will be allocated randomly. Unless you’re actually a very important person, there’s no way of securing a good seat (with the exception of theatres and plays). And most of the times tickets on which your seat number is printed are not issued until a week or two before the concert, so whether or not you are going to have a good view is a mystery until the day comes. It’s a real lottery. It’s a gamble, almost.

Anyway, now I’m waiting for a verdict. Will I get lucky? Or have to go on a long journey? Only time will tell.