Pitchfork

Don't mess with the Boss-- you will end up begging for forgiveness. Just ask Ticketmaster.

When tickets for some shows on Springsteen's upcoming world tour went on sale on Monday, Ticketmaster took advantage of their monopolistic ways by automatically redirecting Springsteen fans to their own glorified scalping service, TicketsNow. Fans were outraged, and even the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs got involved.

Then, the Boss struck back. A statement from Springsteen, manager Jon Landau, and the Springsteen Tour Team posted on his website said, "The abuse of our fans and our trust by Ticketmaster has made us as furious as it has made many of you. [...] Some artists or managers may not perceive there to be a conflict between having the distributor of their tickets in effect 'scalping' those same tickets through a secondary company like TicketsNow-- we do."

Haven't we seen this movie before? But whereas Pearl Jam was forced to submit to the Ticketmaster gods in their mid-90s legal struggle, this time Ticketmaster is offering Bruce an apology. In a message posted on Springsteen's site, Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff wrote, "We sincerely apologize to Bruce, his organization and, above all, his fans" and offered refunds to fans who bought up-priced Bruce tickets from TicketsNow.

He continued, "We have committed to Bruce and state publicly here that we have taken down all links for Bruce's shows directing fans from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow. This redirection only occurred as a choice when we could not satisfy fans' specific search request for primary ticket inventory, but to make sure there is no misunderstanding in the future, we also publicly state that we will never again link to TicketsNow in a manner that can possibly create any confusion during a high-demand on-sale. Specifically, we will not present an option to go to TicketsNow from Ticketmaster without the consent of the artist and the venue, both of whom work together to bring the joy of live entertainment to millions of fans."

Winner: Bruce.

Or is he? Ticketmaster is still selling tickets to his tour. It's likely that part of the reason why Ticketmaster was so quick to respond has to do with their impending merger with live entertainment behemoth Live Nation.

As Springsteen, Landau, and their team, write in their statement, "The one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing. Several newspapers are reporting on this story right now. If you, like us, oppose that idea, you should make it known to your representatives."