Posted on 07/16/2002 11:26:10 AM PDT by Drew68
Hope I die before I get old, sang Roger Daltrey in the classic Who anthem My Generation 35 summers ago. Only one of the original band's members - the endearingly lunatic drummer Keith Moon - actually managed to pull off that particular feat. When bassist John Entwistle died a couple of weeks ago, he was, like the rest of the baby boom generation's leading edge, pushing 60.
In a gesture that captured the spirit of that generation the band's surviving original members, Daltrey and Pete Townshend, decided to carry on with the concert tour that had been scheduled to start on what turned out to be the day after Entwistle's death. After a 15-minute search for a studio musician to fill the void Entwistle's death had created, the band played on. Daltrey and Townshend explained that John would have wanted it that way.
As a long-time fan of The Who's music, I was rather shocked by what seemed like a callous attitude toward the death of someone who had been such an integral member of the group, not to mention a close companion of the surviving members for almost their entire lives. Then I checked out the ticket prices for The Who's latest tour, and this attitude began to make more sense.
For example, tickets are still available for The Who's Sept. 21 show at Dallas' American Airlines Center. A pair of fourth-row tickets will set you back $1,220, while for the budget-minded, two nosebleed seats at the very top of that 20,000-seat arena go for a mere $230, not including the inevitable "service" charge. Given that they are raking in an aptly termed gross of several million dollars for every concert on their current 40-show tour, even the most sentimental fan should be able to appreciate the sacrifice it would entail for the band's members to observe even the briefest moment of silence in honor of their fallen comrade.
This, apparently, is "what the market will bear," and charging what the market will bear has become a matter of almost religious obligation for aging rock bands that don't wish to suffer an exile on Wall Street. Speaking of which, a pair of good seats to The Rolling Stones' show at Los Angeles' Wiltern Theatre in November go for around $7,000, while general admission tickets cost more than $2,000 each (and no, I'm not making these numbers up).
A cynic might point out that neither of these bands has released a good record since the Carter administration (in fact The Who haven't released new music of any kind in 20 years). A historian might note news stories from the late 1960s, that described complaints from fans about the "outrageous" price The Rolling Stones were charging for concert tickets (the price in question was $7). An economist might marvel at the amazing power of the laws of supply and demand.
Leave all that aside. I was born at the tail end of the baby boom, and I grew up in the 1970s listening to the best of what these bands produced - and the best of what they produced is as good as this kind of music gets. Like a lot of people my age, I will always have a good deal of affection for the young men who made that music. But let's call a spade a spade: the old men those young men eventually became are shameless pigs.
Their once-great talent having departed long ago, they now wallow in the mountains of cash they continue to extract from aging boomers, who apparently will pay absolutely anything in the effort to recapture magic moments from their increasingly distant youth. Things they do look awful cold.
Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado. He can be reached at campos@colorado.edu
Sell the tickets through the band's website.
Contractually stipulate where the promotional seats will be (Aerosmith did this with something they called the "fans first" tour).
Require the concert venues/ticket distributor to make it clearly available and public knowledge how many and what seats are never offered for sale to the general public.
Such legislation could be written as consumer groups have forced the states to reveal what prizes remain every week in scratch off lottery tickets.
All well worth the price. Anything over $100 for crap seats is just damn crazy. Many artists put caps on ticket prices and play smaller venues so fans don't have to pay so much. Too bad there aren't more bands that keep their fans in mind rather than their pocket.
I seem to recall Keith Richards injuring himself a couple of years ago. Supposedly he fell of a ladder while at his bookshelf (all that the man has been through and this lays him up?).
He's travelled into New York City to see Les Paul play and that would be within the travelling distance. He even brought his mum (I don't know if his parents live in the US but his dad was on the tour when I saw the band in Houston in 1998).
The Summit/Compaq Center would then sell tickets that weren't "standing room" but rather a "license" to sit in any open seat that you could find. Funny how when I try to do this and hold an actual seat ticket, they want to throw me out.
They've seen how the airlines overbook and want even more revenue. Rather than determine what is necessary to meet operating expenses or raising ticket price to offset the demand, they'd rather grab every dollar from every source.
The Astros used to sell "standing room" tickets and even did this with their All-Star game.
I believe my tickets were in row 'ZZ'...so far up and away that I had to watch on an overhead projector screen, as the performers looked like ants skittering around on the stage. The thick green haze didn't help, either. :-) (It was a cold evening...two shows; Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving, if memory serves me right.)
If The Who, or any other band for that matter wants to charge any price they want to, more power to them. It is called free-market capitalism. If the price is correct the quantity demanded will equal the quantity supplied (i.e. sellout).
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