Fans looking to buy Bruce Springsteen tickets in Denver found themselves bounced out of the Web site. They waited in line to no avail. They called Ticketmaster but couldn't get through. Some fans got shut out entirely; many found themselves with nosebleed seats.

And we had it better than most of the rest of the country on Monday, especially Los Angeles, San Jose, Calif., and, of course, New Jersey.

Fans are mad. So is Springsteen.

Any on-sale of this size is sure to be a mess -- that's just the way it is. You've got hard-core fans wanting the best seats for multiple nights. Many markets like Denver don't get multiple nights; the Pepsi Center is solidly booked before and after the April 10 date. We're lucky we didn't get shut out again like on the last two tours.

The scalping, er, ticket-reselling market is bigger than ever, as anyone with a computer can now take bids on any seat he happens to get.

And Ticketmaster has exacerbated the situation by having TicketsNow, its own scalping site, hooked directly into all on-sales. Fans who couldn't get face-value tickets were redirected to the site, where other "fans" were reselling tickets (and a suspiciously high number of good ones) immediately upon buying them.

So some fans bought those inflated tickets, not realizing that if they kept trying to buy through the main Ticketmaster site, more might pop up (which is how I got a late pair of seats nine rows behind the stage. Thursday afternoon, the show still wasn't completely sold out; the random single nosebleed ticket was still popping up at Ticketmaster.com.

Bottom line: Ticketmaster charged its usual fees to sell the tickets in the first place. Then it kept 15 percent of each ticket resold through TicketsNow. With some of those going for hundreds of dollars above the $95 face value, it's another windfall of cash.

Springsteen's camp -- a notoriously well-oiled machine -- was "furious" and immediately put out this open letter eviscerating Ticketmaster, which read, in part (see it all at brucespringsteen.net):

"We perceive this as a pure conflict of interest. Ticketmaster is there to ensure that we have a good, fair sale of our tickets at their face value plus normal ticketing charges. TicketsNow is supposed to be a secondary site where people who already have tickets may exchange, trade and, unfortunately, speculate with them. We have asked this redirection from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow to cease and desist immediately and Ticketmaster has agreed to do so in the future and has removed its unwanted material from their and our site."

That led newly appointed Ticketmaster CEO and supermanager Irving Azoff to offer an unprecedented apology and refunds to anyone who unwittingly bought resale tickets on TicketsNow thinking they were face value.

"We recognize that we need to change our course. 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," Azoff wrote. "We will do better going forward."

For many fans, though, it was too little too late. At the Rocky Mountain Music blog at RockyMountainNews.com, fans shared stories of being shut out.

As BoulderEagle wrote, "If it costs $110 each to be in the 300 level behind the stage, where are the cheap seats -- in the parking lot?"

And as storchfamily noted: "Eight hours after the sale, 12 percent to 15 percent of the house is up for resale! Stub Hub (has) 421 Ticket Listings that represent at least 1,200 tickets. Ticketmaster scalp site 841 tickets. Craigslist another 70 or so listings for who knows how many Springsteen tickets? These days thanks to the Net, everybody's a scalper. What happened to just buying what you need?"

You can add to that count the 70 listings on eBay with a total of 160 tickets.

Fans fear that such scenarios will only get worse as the proposed Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger unfolds (Live Nation was already the promoter on the Springsteen show).

But it's also interesting to see an artist fight back. Too little boat-rocking is going on these days. Springsteen's a big live draw, though, and the recording and concert industries are reeling. More artists speaking out is what we need. The next test will be U2, whose fans were famously burned in fan-club on-sales last time around. We'll see if Bono and the boys can figure this out when their tour goes on sale later this year.