This past weekend I went to see a Lauryn Hill concert at the Clubhouse in East Hampton. In all the years I have been out east, I never knew this venue existed. It is a nice spot to have an outdoor event. It was produced by Murmrr and MRR Experiences. A tough business where organization is the key.
I don’t want to fully crap on the event because it was an entertaining evening and everyone certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves, but I have been to enough events and concerts in my life to know good execution when I see it. This would not be it.
The doors are supposed to open at four, and the show was originally supposed to come on at seven, but they sent an email changing it to six pm. Lauryn Hill is never on time, but I figured if they open at four, we can grab our picnic table, play some cards, have a drink, a smoke, and some food, and enjoy the weather and venue. The thing is, they don’t actually let us in until five forty, so we have to stand in line until then.
Nobody is allowed to bring in food or drinks; everything is available for purchase on the premises. There are three food trucks and a bar, and inside the VIP section, there is more food and drinks to buy that they are making somewhere. A lobster roll is $45, but again, it is the Hamptons. But here’s the kicker: when you pay with Apple Pay, you can’t even complete the transaction until you select a tip of twenty to thirty percent. Essentially, the ticket-buyers are subsidizing the staff’s wages because God knows these venues are barely paying minimum wage, if that, and making up the difference through everyone’s purchases at checkout. The attendees are all footing the payroll. There were several Europeans in the audience, foreign languages being spoken, and I am sure they can not believe this is how this works.
Around six-thirty, instead of Lauryn Hill, a Bob Marley cover band takes the stage. They first said they were going to play four songs, but instead they played for over two hours. It was painful. Akin to sitting through a bad bar mitzvah band. There is nothing worse than bad live music. Lauryn Hill eventually comes on at 830— no apology, no acknowledgment, because that’s just who she is. I have been listening to her from the early Fugees albums and then, of course, the iconic album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and it’s genuinely some of the best work of that era. I know she is always late.
Hill sold off her music rights years ago, so now when she performs, she reworks the songs so they don’t match the original recordings — because if they matched too closely, she’d owe royalties to whoever owns the rights. So you’re standing there recognizing the song but not really. After four or five numbers like that, we’d had enough and left.
Now here’s what actually gets me. Roughly twelve hundred people are attending. Lots of people smoking weed, and asking others if they can have a hit. Gotham couldn’t sell a single gram there — not because of demand, because the demand was screaming at us — but because liquor lobbyists wrote it into New York’s OCM regulations that cannabis can’t be sold or distributed anywhere there is a liquor license. We would have done incredible business that night, and the concertgoers would have been thrilled because many had probably smoked through what they had waiting for the event. It’s absurd.
If you think this is as ridiculous as I do, call your state senator. Call your delegates. Tell them this carve-out for the alcohol industry makes zero sense, and it’s time to fix it. As for the promoter, I am not sure I will ever attend one of their events again. The whole operation was disorganized at every turn. Maybe they don’t care about repeat business.
The best call of the night was leaving after we had enough. We got out of the parking lot with ease. I can’t even imagine what a shitshow getting out of that lot last night would have looked like.
