strangely silent ahead of the UK tour

What type of venue do you class as a rock club? Personally I would prefer to see him in the 2 to 5k sized venues. Blackpool Empress Ballrooms, Bradford St Georges Hall and Sheffield City Hall were all great gigs for me.
Traditionally, around here at least, I was seeing him in venues holding between 500-1000 up until about 2011. Then he started increasing to theaters holding 2,500-3,000. I've never bothered seeking him out in arenas in Cali or elsewhere though. The music is too intimate for an airplane hangar and not big enough to fill the space, IMO.
 
I get how it works, but it seems like this will be the last tour where the touts are willing to gamble on him. Losses at every single date, and if he's not profitable, and the tickets aren't sold to anyone (because face it, the touts and the ticket vendors are one) then it would make sense to see him stop playing large venues, and go back to the rock club circuit.

It's been the same at every one of his tours over the last 10+ years. Last time in London, he played Hammersmith. Tickets were 70 odd quid. Friend and I offered the touts £30. They had no choice but to accept. The Greenwich O2 concert a year or so before that didn't come close to selling out. We bought our tickets from the box office on the evening of the event (as they have strict anti-tout practices). Most of the dates on the last arena tour had vast sections curtained off, although they were still about two thirds full (but these were very basic arena tours with a small number of dates and just at weekends). In 2016 he had just one UK date in the whole of that year (MEN Arena) and even that didn't sell out. He does well enough for promoters to put on basic arena tours, but if he wanted a really buzzy tour full of sold out dates, he'd have to drop the venue size right down.

Major indie acts are people like Noel and Liam Gallagher. They're doing similar tours but more dates and have pretty much sold out across the board. It may be a slight exaggeration to say he has the fan base of a small indie band, but it is no really no bigger than a middling one. In cultural/icon terms, he punches massively above his weight because a) he's so unusual and b) the Smiths were so brilliant, but the record sales and concerts are nowhere near the major league acts (which is fine with me).
 
Traditionally, around here at least, I was seeing him in venues holding between 500-1000 up until about 2011. Then he started increasing to theaters holding 2,500-3,000. I've never bothered seeking him out in arenas in Cali or elsewhere though. The music is too intimate for an airplane hangar and not big enough to fill the space, IMO.

Yes Im not keen on the bigger places but thats all whats available outside London and I'm going to the worst of the lot the 16000 capacity Birmingham NEC, can't fathom why he is playing there when the NIA in the city centre is still big but seems far more intimate.
 
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