Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Tempest in a teapot

Amplification on the very strange Linda Ronstadt story of recent days, from the Las Vegas Review-Journal (registration required):

Some concertgoers took issue with the Aladdin's accounts of angry patrons tearing down posters and throwing drink cups.

'I was so stunned to read in the newspaper that anyone had a negative reaction,' said KLAS-TV, Channel 8, news anchor Paula Francis. 'Everyone who was leaving when I was leaving was just thrilled. They thought it was a good concert.'

Of course, it's good that they have a quote from someone who attended the concert, but why would they quote a presumably prominent employee of a competing news gathering organization?

Nonetheless, I guess all is not as the extremely cursory reports that made it into the national media would have you believe. From this story, it seems clear that Ronstadt has no love for the Aladdin historically. I also gather from the story that Ronstadt's been dedicating "Desperado" to Michael Moore during the whole tour, and the reporter seemed to take her comment "I keep hoping that if I'm annoying enough to them, they won't hire me back," as a joke (though maybe with some serious intent).

And nobody asked me, but to expel Ronstadt from the hotel without even allowing her to return to her suite seems needlessly petty–if that's not a tautology–or worse.

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