BLACK EYED PEAS

Friday 8/25: Black Eyed Peas/Pussycat Dolls
Nikon At Jones Beach Theatre-Wantagh, NY
Gross: $358,551
Tickets sold: 7,051
Capacity: 13,855
Percentage sold: 50.9%
Ticket Prices: $59.50/$29.50

Sunday 8/27: Black Eyed Peas/Danity Kane
New York State Fair-Syracuse, NY
Gross: $212,491
Tickets sold: 5,985
Capacity: 16,400
Percentage sold: 36.5%
Ticket Prices: $52.00/$47.00

Tuesday 8/29: Black Eyed Peas/Pussycat Dolls
PNC Bank Arts Center-Holmdel, NJ
Gross: $278,009
Tickets sold: 8,557
Capacity: 16,417
Percentage sold: 52.1%
Ticket Prices: $55.50/$21.00

Well, they can’t say it’s the date… Even the Friday in the middle of summer in essentially New York City did shitty business.

And they can’t say, by today’s standards, tickets were overpriced. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, an almost forty year old act without a hit in seemingly forever, sold out TWO dates at Jones Beach, with tickets as high as $251.00!! And don’t think that Young’s inclusion guarantees sell-outs. The group did 79.4% in Hershey, PA and 62.2% in Columbus, OH. Not that tickets in either of those areas, especially the depressed Ohio, were a bargain… $176.00 down in PA, $148.00 down in OH.

Well, maybe there weren’t enough good seats… But Steely Dan and Michael McDonald sold 96.8% at upwards of $95.00. And has-beens 311 did 87.7%. Hell, even not yet broken O.A.R. did 90.5% at Jones Beach.

Bottom line, BLACK EYED PEAS AREN’T THAT BIG AN ACT!

If I have to read one more line of press about boob-implanted Fergie I’m gonna puke. Oh, she makes good press fodder. What with the pictures all over the Web with sweat stains in her crotch (Dana’s Dirt), but a MUSICAL ACT?

How about that genius will.i.am?

Well, who decided he was a genius anyway? I never hear his name bandied about by musos, only the hype machine. And his music has been blanded-out to a cartoon level that can only resonate with ten year olds. Oh, twentysomethings might have wanted to bump in the bar to "My Humps", but go see the act?

Not a line in the press about O.A.R., but we’ve got to endure endless snapshots of Fergie accompanying her sordid tale of breaking her addiction to crystal meth. Hell, do you even believe that?? Or did she just dabble and does it make a good story?

What does Fergie have ANYWAY, other than a burning desire to make it?

But it gets worse. You read about these idiots in "Rolling Stone", which might be irrelevant but is a barometer of how nobody selling ads has got the balls to stand up and say it’s all phony, they just follow the hype trends, damn reality. And you wonder why nobody believes.

But what about Danity Kane? All over TV? Doesn’t MTV break acts?

Well, used to, for a minute. Now everybody knows anybody featured on MTV is a no-talent who sold his soul for fame. Why do you need to see them?

And what about all those stories about the Pussycat Dolls juggernaut?

These three acts are SIDESHOWS! The main event continues to be people who can play, who aren’t it in it for the publicity, but are hitting the boards every night, proving it all night. Many of them far beyond the days of their hits. They’ve got a bond with their audience. Their music MEANS something. That’s a draw to the public. Two-dimensional fabrications of the system? You might be able to sell discs, but in the arena of reality, live business, where fans show up, turns out there aren’t many believers. The major labels rail against everything but themselves. Dumbing the music down to such a low level, trumpeting their corporate tie-ins, not realizing the public has TUNED OUT!

Anybody want to see Black Eyed Peas in half a decade, never mind two years? NO!!

JOHN MAYER/SHERYL CROW

Thursday 8/24
Gross: $225,694
Post-Gazette Pavilion at Star Lake-Burgettstown, PA
Tickets sold: 8,286
Capacity: 23,070
Percentage sold: 35.9%
Ticket Prices: $66.00/$24.75

Friday 8/25
Saratoga Performing Arts Center-Saratoga Springs, NY
Gross: $400,307
Tickets sold: 10,637
Capacity: 25,053
Percentage sold: 42.5%
Ticket Prices: $66.00/$30.50

Saturday 8/26
New England Dodge Music Center-Hartford, CT
Gross: $207,376
Tickets sold: 4,293
Capacity: 24,212
Percentage sold: 17.7%
Ticket Prices: $71.50/$26.00

Sunday 8/27
PNC Bank Arts Center-Holmdel, NJ
Gross: $526,168
Tickets sold: 12,189
Capacity: 16,488
Percentage sold: 73.9%
Ticket Prices: $72.00/$26.50

Wednesday 8/30
Nikon At Jones Beach Theatre-Wantagh, NY
Gross: $693,629
Tickets sold: 12,381
Capacity: 13,855
Percentage sold: 89.4%
Ticket Prices: $76.00/$25.00

Would you show up at a venue called "New England Dodge Music Center"? Could ANYTHING worthwhile, memorable, occur at a venue so sold out to the man?

This business is so rotten, it’s unbelievable. All the established players, who gained their beachhead in the late sixties and seventies, are so sold out, so only into the money, with such contempt for the younger generation, ALL music fans, is it a wonder that people have tuned out?

Record labels used to be about bringing joy to listeners. Now they’re about throwing off enough cash to satisfy the parent corporation or to line the pockets of fat cat investors who need a NetJet share to fly their kids to college.

Remember when you couldn’t get a gig at the record store, when this low pay job was exalted? Retail clerk jobs go begging today, and twenty first century kids are just as thrilled to be working at the major label…as in NOT!

The younger generation has to reinvent music employing new technology, because you can’t build upon what came before, its rotten carcass is beyond repair.

One loved going to the Fillmore East. Can one love going to ANY Live Nation show? You feel like your money is going straight to investors, from the box office to Wall Street.

At least the younger generation can take over recordings. It’s tougher in the physical world. With promoters owning venues and having the deep pockets to sustain the losses the greedy agents inflict upon them, causing them to steal on the back end just to stay in business.

Tell me, can you imagine spending ninety bucks to see these acts? (Yup, factor in fees and that seventy becomes ninety instantly.) Do you really expect to have the night of your life with your honey at a John Mayer/Sheryl Crow show? This is the kind of gig that used to cost $6.50, and didn’t sell out because that was a dollar too high, at the roofless Universal Amphitheatre of the seventies. And there were NO fees back then.

If John Mayer or Sheryl Crow touch your soul, I feel sorry for you. You must live a sheltered life with very little excitement.

I swore off bashing Sheryl because of her bout with cancer. Then again, I had to read all about her treatment and recovery everywhere. As if she were the President. And, was it really about the story, or priming the pump for her tour? Yup, it’s all publicity, and the media is complicit. Hell, where else can they find someone who fits the demo? Appealing to baby boomers, yet retaining not only her good looks, but her sex appeal.

As for John Mayer… This is what you get when you tour arenas on your first album. It’s all downhill from there. He broke instantly, and therefore his hard core fan base is minimal. And then there’s the overexposure! The column in "Esquire" (maybe you didn’t read it, but you read ABOUT IT, that’s what publicists do, get the word OUT!), the reality TV show. He’s ceased being a musician and is now a celebrity. Hell, this guy is supposedly intelligent, what was he doing dating a bimbo like Jessica Simpson?

These are not horrible numbers in every market, but someone who was just subjected to media would believe every one of these gigs would be a sellout. But the Hippie Fest, whatever THAT is, sold more tickets in Hartford (4,309), and at a $50.50 top price! And Poison, Cinderella, and Endeverafter, none of which has had a hit in excess of a decade, sold more tickets in godforsaken Burgettstown (11,578 for the metal crew). 311, the Wailers and Pepper did better in Holmdel on a THURSDAY NIGHT, selling 16,940 tickets, just 48 shy of clean. Needless to say, Tom Petty, the Allman Brothers and Derek Trucks went clean in Saratoga (25,530) at a top ticket of $75.00. I mean most people wouldn’t even get off the couch for John Mayer or Sheryl Crow, but tell them they can go hear acts without hits in eons who are gonna light a fire, energize them to their core, and they’re UP FOR IT!

Box office statistics provided by celebrityaccess.com.