Image courtesy of Nora’s little Blackberry, since The Forum seems to be the only venue that does not allow fucking cameras? What the hell!?! They had no problems with phones. I saw hundreds of phones taking pictures all over the place! “NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY!”. Might want to tell that to all the people taking pictures all night. Geez - it’s not like I was trying to bring in a proper camcorder. All I was bringing was my little Fuji F40 (which, by the way, I saw many of INSIDE of the venue), and I never use flash!

My issue: The Forum is a good venue, but is run fucking horribly!

First, parking. Inglewood is not exactly what I would call a friendly place to park my car, so the obvious choice is to park in The Forum lot. The price? $22! Twenty two ass bleeding dollars!

Next, leaving! Good luck! Most venues within busy cities will have some police set up, for traffic control. Not Inglewood! You can leave the crowded, car-unfriendly lot, but only if the cross traffic has a red light. What? There is no light at the exit. There are just two girls, flagging you onto the street, if the cross traffic has a red light? IF!?! Where is the cop who is manually running the street signal, to ease the flow of traffic? What the hell!?!?

Lastly, a minor one, but a big annoyance. I am sure there are some people who are too fat/tired/important/lazy to actually get off of their ass, and actually go to the concession stand for an overpriced snack (the European stereotypical description of what an American is). Boy howdy, if that person is you, you will LOOOOOVE The Forum! Fucking hell! Every few minutes, some idiot kept walking up and down the stairs, shaking his water bottle. “$4! Water!” Thanks, but I already spent money to see the show. I did not spend money to hear you want to take mine, *WHILE* I am trying to watch the show. Go tell your little candy selling girl to fuck off as well! Seriously. Aren’t you happy already with my $22? I thought gluttony was a bad thing in the eyes of “God” fearing people? Why try to make me a glutton *WHILE* I am trying to enjoy a show? Now, you might be asking yourself “why bring up ‘God’”? What does religion have to do with this. Oh…read on…

While Coldplay put on a great show (see it if you can afford it - $94.50…ouch!), the whole parking situation ruined it. And then, to find out that The Forum is actually owned by a church. A church!?!? A church has a service there on Sundays, and has bands (like Nine Inch Nails) come play there in the week. Seems a bit odd. Oops…sorry. Got distracted by the hypocrisy.

$22! What, does God need a few extra dollars? My God (a stretch there, but go with me) isn’t short of cash (paraphrasing of both George Carlin, and Bono). At every event, the owners of The Forum net $77,000.00 in parking fee alone (3500 spaces, times $22 each, equal “OH MY FUCKING GOD”)! You’d think they’d actually invest that money into actually FIXING THE FUCKING PARKING LOT!

No cameras. $22 lost before I even hit the venue ($4 water, et cetera). Peddlers trying to sell their overpriced snacks DURING the show! Nightmare trying to leave.

If a band you like is playing The Forum, do yourself a HUGE favor and find another city to see that band!

Oh, and to give a big “FUCK YOU” to the “no cameras” rule, here’s over 100 video clips from The Forum shows on YouTube.

Other than those crappy videos, I have four shitty Blackberry photos as a memory of my night. Thanks a lot!