Really interesting reading some of Kerry King’s comments about the current Mayhem tour (now in the news section) which features Slayer and King Diamond as headliners. The owner of the festival had made some comments about how difficult it is to keep viable metal acts that draw on a bill while also keeping costs down. He also made some comments about metal and the fans saying some of the artists have gotten “fat and bald and scared off girls” (not like girls were ever the driving force in this genre of metal!). Kerry is one of the most unfiltered people I have ever known in this business. He simply speaks his mind and always did. The tour is clearly struggling to draw and Kerry’s latest comments were basically saying it was not booked correctly. Was really interesting to see the leader of the headlining band on a Summer package tour being this honest. This all speaks to a bigger disturbing trend I can’t quite figure out. MANY bands at all levels being booked in venues they shouldn’t be in. I don’t know if it’s a by product of too many venues, too many bands on the road, or just too many bands over touring (a huge issue I think and a by product of no money from record sales), but every day I am scratching my head about concert bills I am hearing about at all levels in venues they should not be in. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Slayer (now half original) and King wouldn’t be a big amphitheater draw. It’s not a knock on any act, it’s just common sense. But promoters are in a tough spot. They need these festivals and branded tours to go out, but they also can’t got to the next level of talent booking because it would destroy the tickets being affordable. I get that. What I don’t get is club acts in theaters, theater acts in arenas, etc. I would much rather see a band in a setting with a vibe and packed house full of energy than an arena curtained in half or half empty. Or a show that is “papered”, the industry term for giving away a ton of tickets just to make money on beer sales and get bodies in the room. You have no idea how many shows I am asked to help “paper” all the time because they are stiffing. It’s not the artists fault for the most part. It really falls on the agents and promoters to know what they are buying and know if people will care. There is no amount of marketing anyone can do if people don’t want to see a band or have seen them too often. And although a largely papered show may give the appearance of people in the building, it is also easy to feel in the room since most are indifferent because they got in for free. It’s a catch 22 in some ways. Bands need to tour because tickets and merch are pretty much their primary income, but too many tour too much and as a result their draw has been shot. You’re seeing it at the festival level as well. There are a ton of them now, many with very similar bills. Something the organizers of Download in the UK (a huge yearly event) recently discussed as an emerging issue in the business. The idea of a festival was to be a special destination gig. Now they are everywhere. A rock themed cruise used to be unique, now there are many of all genres. It’s just massive over saturation and will impact the little guys more, because the big super acts will for the most part always be able to sell.
Which leads to the next question; what happens when the super acts are done? AC/DC, likely the last tour I would think. As it is there was no real tour, more special scattered stadium dates. Brian is 68? Aerosmith? Tyler as great as he is is 68 and now looking toward country. Sabbath, likely done as far as touring but maybe another run? Van Halen? Anything can happen and it was surprising to read in a recent Billboard article the current tour has been a bit soft in some places selling tickets (apparently ticket prices an issue here as well). Rush? Pretty much done touring. Kiss? Believe what you want but they haven’t been a headline arena act in the US since 2000. Which is why they have co-headlined sheds (and a huge difference between sheds and arenas by the way) for the most part here. Regardless they are likely near the end for what’s left of the original band. Motley? Done in a few months. And they got a huge pop playing the Farewell card and wisely had a name legend opening all the dates. Priest? Said they were done, pulled a reverse, and are hanging in a bit more. But they have not been a full arena headline in a long time here. Maiden? Maybe the biggest global metal act along with Metallica. New album coming and dates in 2016, but these guys are not getting younger and Bruce already had a major health scare and we don’t know yet how he will recover from it. Bon Jovi? Like them or not a massive global stadium act even with just 3 original members. How much more does Jon want to work in his early 50s and with other interests? Where are the next true headliners?
Metallica is erratic as far as how much they play and making new music. But that actually may work to their favor since they far from over tour. You have to hope bands like A7X, FFDP, etc, continue to grow. Foo Fighters are clearly the biggest rock act out there right now and cross over to many genres appealing to rock and metal fans. But outside of Foos, and what Metallica has left in the tank, we really need to hope some of these emerging guys warming up in the bullpen can graduate to the big big leagues. Which leads to an even bigger question. Is that even possible now the way the music is and the way it’s consumed? For a while it was trying to sell downloads. Now that seems to be abandon in favor of just hoping people LISTEN to the music. That’s what streaming is. Don’t even own it, give us nothing, just listen to it! So music has become so devalued today that I wonder if that translates and stagnates an artists potential to even become huge again? This is all just out loud thinking and I welcome your comments and thoughts here. But one thing that does bother me (besides the lack of regard for physical ownership of music) is seeing artists booked in venues they have no business being in, and people saying; “look, I told you rock was dead”. Nobody’s rooting for this stuff more than me. But we have to hope there is a new generation to carry the flag and people embrace new artists they are hearing that they like so the next generation of rock and metal fans has something to celebrate. We are at the tail end of what’s left of the golden era of rock and metal from the 70’s and the 80’s. As for 90’s guys? Foos rule that pack and Pearl Jam are certainly alive and more than well. Soundgarden still viable, but not that consistent as far as playing. AIC? Same deal. Pumpkins and Manson? Currently co headlining sheds. Foos and Pearl Jam the biggest from that era. So where are we at 10 years from now? I wonder and curious what you guys think? Let’s hope there is a kid in his garage somewhere right now with a guitar that has the answer..
112 Responses
When was Slayer ever a viable arena / shed act? I saw them at Nassau Coliseum in early 1991 with Testament and it wasn’t close to full then. 25 years later, unless more “heavyweights” are supporting, that’s not going to change. So yes, I agree with Kerry on this one, and I hope they have a guarantee.
As Maiden has eluded to, here in the U.S. something does happen at a certain age for us where only a few bands stay on the upper tier and the people just want hits. I can tell you first hand with Pearl Jam being a fan club member with ticket privileges since very early on. It is 10x harder in 2015 to even get a ticket to Pearl Jam than it was 15 – 20 years ago. I’m talking 5th row at Madison Square Garden to being shut out today (as I was for the Barclay’s shows a couple years back). But… I still take comfort seeing fans are not there for the “hits”.
Dream Theater: Will likely play a 750 – 1,500 seat theater, have a great production and will come around every two years. It works. What happened when they came through a second time on a tour and get this, someone thought booking them at PNC Bank Arts Center (10,000 seats at least) on a Saturday night mid summer? Not even 750 people in the house. Sucked for them, sucked for the venue and adds to the “rock is dead” argument. And this is a successful group who barely filled these places on a bill with Queensryche or Yes, so why put them in that position?
I’ll just quickly mention one thing about the physical media thing… If labels keep the trend of providing just a flimsy Eco-pak, no booklet and no info besides “produced by”, I’m inclined to save the space in my mortgaged house and get the download. As it is, having a 160GB iPod in the car is my preference to 1 or 5 cd’s in the changer, but I still like the experience of holding what I’m buying. It just needs to be more than a container. A flooded basement where I lost most packaging in my collection helped me see that light. The CD’s are in sleeves now and once they are ripped to my computer as lossless, I really need nothing from them anymore. Kudos to Amazon where for the most part, they’ll give you both, even more. Physical CD, auto-rip which can be re-downloaded and Amazon music where you can stream it on your phone.
While the music “fan” is a big part of all of the changes happening in the touring scene and consumption of music altogether, I think the bands themselves need to try a little hader to be more fan friendly. I will gve you two examples
Queensryche – I saw them a few years back in a small club in Pennsylvania when Geoff was still in the band. They advertised for a Meet-n-Greet but it was only for fans who had to PAY to be in their fan club you had to have a “Special Email” Pass to gain attendance.
Kix – Also saw them in a small club in PA. The owner ofthe club announced to the crowd that they would also do a M&G after the show. A few times he re-announced it. Then when the time came, the band decided to just not come out.
More bands should strive to conduct business like Firehouse and LA Guns. Both times when I saw them they were so gracious with there time, actually staying until the venue actually CLOSED to make sure each person who attended got their time. AND…they didn’t charge $400-$500 for the experience.
Just my opinion but survival and prosperity for any art form is a two-way street and most times it seems like the fan not only plays the greater part but also gets least amount of reciprocation.
The way music is now with youngsters, is you have two problems: 1. You have so many kids who play and sing great, you even see these little kids just shredding, but always to songs from our era, and they don’t compose anything that’s unique or special, it’s as if they are machines spitting out syntax. 2. You have kids doing what el loco mentioned, just taking the easy way out and composing music via computer, and these are the vast majority, and their notion is that they are being creative, and that anyone should be able to do this, even if they can’t play an instrument. But in both cases you are left with this dilemma: if everyone can do it, then nobody can.
I guess if we were young today, it would be as hard for us as for the majority of teenagers today to really stand up and swim against the stream of uniform social networks, free downloads, etc., because when we were young we actually were swimming with the tide taking up an instrument and forming a band and buying physical music. So I guess this discussion can only be amongst people like us, it is a question of perspective. That being said, I think one still cannot deny the fact that there has been a loss of values, of quality, of consitency, and of variety. But not only on the level of music, it is a development that affects (and is created by) all walks of life, it is a social thing. The invention of digital is the trigger, the consequences are/were partly foreseeable, partly incalculable, the end of this development has not yet been reached.
But the argument itself is a stand alone notion, who makes it is not relevant to its content.
I disagree. Whether sth. is relevant or not is very much dependent on who says so. The invention of digital has triggered a few major developments and changes in society and the way people live and think – this is a reality, a fact npbody would deny. But whether you lament it or embrace it depends on who is making the statement about reality. People here in this discussion have said that they find it impossible to make their kids understand what music meant or means to them. Young people cannot (yet) compare, but we can. Remember, our mind constructs our (notion of) reality.
Arguments are supposed to be objective, not subjective, and they follow induction or deduction. (Although many philosophers have argued that all induction is subjective). When I say that algorithms are making people dumber, this is an inductive argument, and I provide empirical evidence, much as you have, with your posts asserting that people don’t think for themselves as they used to. On the other hand, all of my opinions about music I like, and don’t like, are not really arguments, they are just my opinions, even though I always set out my reasoning for them.
However, what’s on the table here, is a straight up deductive argument:
Person A spends money to create music
Person B steals music
Person A loses money
Whether or not the person stealing the music is from a generation who has been conditioned to not see the harm in this, or whether they don’t know any better is not relevant to the argument itself.
Shannon, your reasoning is solid, but also pointless. The argument/fact does not “exist” in some sort of vacuum, being meaningful and objective on its own terms. Think of Heisenberg, the nature of things changes once you examine them, especially the closer (ie. seemingly more precise) you get. He – as world-famous scientist – is basically saying that we cannot “look” at sth. without changing it, because it is man who gives meaning to what he observes in the world of which he is also a part. Man will never be able to perceive the world around him objectively, not in thousand years of rapidly advancing technology. This is a field of intellectual simulation games, which are fun to play, but in the end do not contribute anything useful to our daily life. But: there is a thing that is commonly accepted by both philosophy and scientists that is called constructivism. It basically says that humans perceive, categorize, value, select and remember what they experience (“see”) according to a) their genetic makeup, b) their experiences (including the feelings that are linked to these experiences) and c) their knowledge, d) their expectations based upon a to c. Looking at the world is like looking through stained glass, the colours being made of a to d. So we are always subjective But!! we will call this subjectively experienced world the objective world. What else can we do? Our brain is too small to look or think beyond its confinements, ie. the confinements of our sensual and neurologic perception, be it biological or technically enhanced. We can only truly imagine sth. that is a composition, however “new” or bizarre, of what we know, ie. have seen or experience before. That is why aliens on film mostly look like Egytians crossed with some reptile and why we call one of the most famous galaxies the Whirlpool Galaxy, etc. – So, if the artist loses money because the consumer no longer pays, this is an objective fact (within the reasoning of what I just explained). And it is a fact because there is another fact: the consumer perceives the artist’s product as gratis (for certain reasons many have discussed here), thereby actually (not virtually!) making it gratis, ie. a fact. So what is the use in saying that the argument stands for itself? It is always connected to what people think and say and do. Words and actions (arguments) change reality, but not because of themselves but because they are used (thought, done) by man who charges them with personal meaning. So if this discussion here centers around the question of how to put new life into rock music and the rock music business, merely intellectual or logical concepts are pointless. Logic in itself is an illusion. Music as an art form is maybe more than anything else connected to feelings and tastes and personal experiences, all of them very much prone to the principle of constructivism, so I would rather talk about the interesting sociological aspects than about what kind of argument this is to find out what has caused this (lamentable > feeling/opinion!) development, but others have said it all already.
Well, I wouldn’t say it’s pointless to the artists who are forced to tour, and the fans who pay the high ticket prices, and though your point is a good one, and perhaps the only viable one, I am suggesting that perhaps we are giving in too easily to this shift in attitude which says that high caliber music is gratis. It defies even common sense to say that someone is entitled to someone else’s work without paying for it, and the only grounds that you, or anyone, can give to support this claim is easy access and the logistics of enforcement. After all, it’s not as though kids now have developed a different neuronal structure, genetically they are no different than kids were 1000 years ago, no, the difference is strictly cultural, so the argument is not as observer relative as it appears. An analogy would be if someone was starving and they stole food, in this case the argument is observer relative. But someone who is stealing entertainment could very reasonably attain entertainment by other means. So, the practical aspect of my conclusion notwithstanding, it still stands.
El loco, it seems that you are confusing perception with reality, just as some would perceive that a disagreement is a personal attack, when, in fact, it’s nothing of the sort.
The culture now has a skewered perception of what constitutes stealing, this does not change the reality of their action no matter what their notion of reality is. I elaborate on this debate to make a salient point: This phenomenon of free music is just a very common human condition in a recent context. That condition being that humans, if they don’t see the consequences, or the harm they are causing as an immediate response, they don’t process what they are doing as being a wrong. This is why we eat meat but won’t hunt, this is why we advocate the death penalty but won’t kill someone, same with torture, abortion, etc, etc..if it’s not right in front of us, we turn a blind eye to the consequences. Stealing music, it seems harmless, the effects of doing it are not felt immediately, this is why that perception is there. And youngsters seem to think they are more entitled than other generations, but ironically, they settle for less.
In other words, you (not you, hypo you) would download King Diamond’s new album for free, but it’s highly unlikely that you would walk up to him and take it from him without paying. So, you have the same reality, two different perceptions of it.
It’s greed – pure and simple and I totally agree with the majority of comments. To all of these poor band members I ask: Why should I pay North of $100 – $150?? to see your band – when I saw you (and it was on every tour) back in the 80s or 90s for around (or even less than) $20. Your better know that your in your 40s,50s, (my age) or 60s? Yeah sure you are.
It’s not the fans fault that nobody wants to buy your record – you got our money years ago with the vinyl album, then the overpriced CD, then the remastered CD (w better sound – so you put out an inferior product originally – hmmm), the boxed set w unreleased tracks, etc.)
I saw U2 twice in Chicago at the end of June and for $97 a pop – I got a floor ticket and was closer to the band then I’ve ever been and their stage set, and the whole concert concept was incredible) But that $97 included Live Nation’s 1/3 cut and to be honest U2 was better 20 years ago on the ZooTV tour.
I want to see VH on Friday in Chicago but tix are over $150 for reserved and even though their playing some songs they haven’t played in years – you know what? I saw Ed, Alex, and Dave (where’s Mikey??) play them the first time out in the 80s. Yeah Eddie’s still great but is he as good as he was in 81, or 82? Nah……….. I’ll watch YT instead.
I passed on AC/DC, Motley, Judas, the Stones, Aerosmith and others cause of the ridiculous pricing. The bands and the promoters have only to blame themselves and their never-ending GREED. And as far as new fans and getting kids to go to shows or by their “product” – what kid with maybe a minimum wage or better job can afford a $100 or more concert ticket?
Nobody buys records now cause WE bought them all years ago – in different changing media formats
Nobody wants to pay the outrageous prices charged today.
It used to be: “We’re not worthy!”
Now its: “Your not worth it”
Seriously, this is impossible to read without it being put into paragraphs. Even if you don’t know exactly where to put a new paragraph, would it be that hard to just put a new paragraph every 5 sentences, or to just throw one in there, every now and then?
Eddie, I’m sure you read content on the web. Would YOU want to try to read something that is one big long block of text like this?
Yes, Eddie, can we get some frigging paragraphs, for Christ’s sake? 🙂
sorry too busy, haha