I must have been the oldest guy there.

But I was standing on the scaffolding by the sound desk for a better view and…

That’s rock and roll.

There’s just a vibe, a feeling at a show, that you can’t get anywhere else.

After talking to the LIV golfer Tyrrell Hatton in the office, Justin threaded me through the crowd to the aforementioned sound desk and…

It was girls, girls, GIRLS! And they were all singing…

“The Chain.”

You know…if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again.

Every woman, from teen to twentysomething, maybe a few thirtysomethings, had their head in the air, singing along in euphoria. I’ve seen this before, but at a Taylor Swift concert.

We didn’t do this. We were high on drugs. We sat in the seats the floor of the O2 did not provide. It was all cerebral. A show wasn’t a celebration, but an intellectual experience. We took our music very seriously, argued about it, judged others’ taste, it was the highest art form.

Not anymore. Music is like sports. And if you’re a fan, you want to know EVERYTHING about the act!

So the Niall Horan tour is billed as “The Show,” and the stage set had a curtain, it was akin to a movie theatre, and from the very first note the assembled multitude sang along and…

This was rock. I don’t mean Lamb of God, I don’t mean Metallica, but the big tent of rock we had in the sixties. There were guitars, no hard drives, no dancing. It was about the music, and solely the music.

And it was fun. Even though I didn’t know all the material.

That’s usually a criterion. If you don’t know the songs, you don’t have a good experience. But now sound reinforcement is so good, that if an act presents songs with melody and changes…

Look at the Spotify Top 50 and you’d think it’s a lost art.

But the truth is the old paradigm is history.

Harry told me they weren’t exactly sure how the audience knew the songs. Radio was not a component. Ditto the manager of the opening act, Del Water Gap. Today you go off into the wilderness and…

Opening for a superstar is one way to break through. It worked for Sabrina Carpenter, and then for Chappell Roan. But really, you’re on your own.

A lot of the big acts breaking through have been at the game for nearly a decade. And there’s nothing a manager can do to shorten the journey. There’s a fantasy that there’s some big button to push. But all a manager can do is maximize the action you develop. And it’s hard. The acts are working so fervently at social media, 24/7, that they burn out, a manager has to convince them to stay at it.

And Niall’s band had two women in it. And neither was a bass player! (I’m worried you’ll think that’s sexist, but if you open your eyes, you’ll find that’s where you’ll find many women in a band.)

Not that there are any bands to begin with.

So after the show I had a long conversation with Emily Kohavi, who plays violin and guitar in the band, as well as sings.

She’s looking for representation. Someone to help her. She’s holding back her masters. She’s put out a couple of albums as part of an indie rock band. She’s been on tour with Phoebe Bridgers, but she wants help, she wants it to be a bit easier.

But that’s not the way it is anymore.

I told her to put new music online immediately. And constantly. If you’re not there, no one can find you.

And if you can sell tickets, agents will come calling. As for a record label… Is that really a thing anymore? You can put your stuff up on Spotify, et al, and make more bread assuming any comes in at all.

You’re in charge.

So we went up to the suite, high in the rafters, about two-thirds of the way through and…

I got it.

You can be in the upper deck, and it’s considered a shi*tty ticket, but you’re in the building, you can see it, you can feel it. This is where I used to sit, I no longer have to, but I realized on some level, it’s just as good.

And then we went down by the stage and I looked at the posters…

The girls who had traveled thousands of miles for the show, in excess of 4,000, to be accurate.

And then two women who’d seen the show up north and then had to come down and see it again.

This is not Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls.” That band was selling a fantasy. Which you can still view online, today they’re influencers on social media. But in truth those people are not real, they never live up to the image, the girls in attendance Tuesday night didn’t have to dress up, they were normal, they were thrilled just to be there!

And it was girls. Girls drive the business. Get the girls and you’ve got something, they bring the boys along. If you’ve only got the guys, you’re limited. And all the guys want to be with the girls…

I mean how many times have I been to an arena show?

It’s not like it’s a novelty. But I was there and felt the same inner excitement I always have.

And the backstage hang… This wasn’t the L.A. insiders, this was friends of the band and there was a joie de vivre. People live to go backstage, thinking it will make them complete. But normally it’s dead, the band members are worn out, but the other night…

I mean Niall was normal. We talked about the music, the show, where we live in L.A.

But it wasn’t dark. It wasn’t edgy.

You’re with your tribe and you can have conversations with the people who understand you, who are on your wavelength.

And this better be enough, because there’s just not that much money in music anymore.

Let me be clear, there’s plenty of money, but unlike in the sixties and seventies, rock stars are not as rich as anybody in the world. That’s techies and financiers.

Which means you’ve got to enjoy it for what it is. An alternative universe.

If you’re wearing a suit you don’t get it. You’re in this world so you can relax, let your freak flag fly, you don’t need permission, you just fit right in.

And this has nothing to do with brand extensions. And if you’re selling out to the man, you’re alienating yourself from your audience and…

Turns out fun is the one thing that money can buy.

Lay down your cash and go to a show, you’ll have a blast!

We don’t have a band like this in the U.S. Never mind an act that’s left money on the table, who live outside the system and sneer at it.

Noel Gallagher is an incredible quote machine. He is almost single-handedly carrying on the rock star ethos.

And if you’re in the U.K., this is all anybody wants to talk about. It’s palpable. Bigger than Taylor Swift. They’re BACK!

And if you were around back then you need to go to relive the experience.

And even if you weren’t born yet, you need to be there, you don’t want to be left out.

But not everybody can go.

So, what is a ticket worth?

The truth is the fans don’t want low prices. Because in that case, they won’t be able to get a ticket. When the prices are high, your odds are better.

I know that sounds counterintuitive, but work with me here.

All the tickets are going to evaporate as quickly as Ticketmaster can spew them out, and only Ticketmaster can handle this level of demand. And everybody is buying the maximum, and demand outstrips supply, and chances are you’re going to be SOL.

But if every ticket is a grand… They’re not going to fill the stadium instantly.

So what’s a ticket worth?

WHAT SOMEONE WILL PAY FOR IT!

And the bottom line, no matter what the punters and the government believe, if you don’t sell the tickets at fair market value, the scalpers will. And the scalpers will get the entire uplift, and the band will be SOL.

So, the bands want to capture this uplift…

They’re afraid of looking bad, charging too much, which is ridiculous, because look at how much these same customers are paying for luxury goods and…

Liam and Noel said they had no idea that prices would be flexed, raised according to demand.

Oh, give me a f*cking break.

There you have it in a nutshell folks. The acts hide behind Ticketmaster, that’s what the company is paid for. Ticketmaster makes no music, it’s inert, and therefore it can accept all the blame.

But the bottom line is Ticketmaster does nothing that the band does not agree to. NOTHING!

And if you tell me your manager and agent did it behind your back… A. I don’t believe you. B. You’re doing the tour for the money and you’ve got no idea what’s on the table, how much you can take home?

As for caring about the fans… The fans are going to come anyway.

So what’s the fair market value of an Oasis ticket?

NO ONE KNOWS!

Which is why they flex the price. When they encounter the demand.

Now you could keep the price low, and make every ducat paperless, but the customer HATES THIS! The customer wants to be able to scalp the extra tickets they’ve purchased.

As for the customer waiting hours online only to find the price has changed…

The reason they spend hours online is because Oasis wants to put up all the shows at once, to create mania. Everybody’s hyped up, word is you can’t get a ticket, and everybody races to buy one. But if there’s one stadium show and it doesn’t sell out instantly… Good luck selling the tickets to the rest of the gigs instantly, if at all.

So if you think Liam and Noel have clean hands…

This is the problem, the public just won’t believe that the acts are greedy. It must be someone else!

And you pay fair market value for everything else, why not for concert tickets?

As for waiting for hours… That’s your choice. As far as the price changing… YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY THE TICKETS!

And if you want to blame anyone for the price change, blame the Oasis boys, they’re doing it, Ticketmaster is only the order taker.

So look at it this way. You put an ad on Craigslist offering your car for $5,000. And two people arrive at your house. One offers $10,000, the other says they got there one minute before, while you were still in your house, and you must sell them the automobile for $5,000. Watcha gonna do?

I know what you’re gonna do.

The only way out of this mess is to do what the Stones do, charge what the tickets are worth, and then they don’t sell out instantly. How badly do you want to go, are you willing to pay for it?

And you may not be, but there’s a good chance someone else will.

But you think you’re entitled to a deal, because…

Exactly why? Turns out the tickets were underpriced, the price was raised and you want an exceptional deal. Why should you benefit and not the act you love so much?

Oh, let’s just blame the ticketing company and go home.

And this is exactly what Ticketmaster is paid for.

And even the government can’t understand.

NEXT!

The “MMMBop” boys are all grown up with families and they’re still making music and touring. This is what they’re up to now.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hanson/id1316200737?i=1000668457020

 

 

 

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/05724894-0d4e-4811-b0c3-286899221d7d/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-hanson

 

One more day.

We’re here for Mancini night at the Proms. Well, to be specific, it’s entitled “Ultra Lounge – Henry Mancini and Beyond.” It’s Hank’s 100th birthday and there have been events all year long trying to raise awareness and consumption. The ultimate goal is to reach the younger generations, but just like with the major labels, there’s no clear way to do that. I guess you just want to be in the world and try to get lucky, like Toto with Weezer’s cover of “Africa.” You never know when lightning will strike. Which is why you should never sell your assets. Are you following the Manilow/Hipgnosis story? Other than the fact that Merck promised all these services that never arrived, the return is what is fascinating. Barry got $7.5 million, and the records were bringing in about 500k a year. In other words, in fifteen years Hipgnosis would have made its money back and still own the asset! Barry? SCREWED! You have to understand these outfits don’t give you the money on a whim. They run the numbers ad infinitum, that’s what bankers specialize in. You think you’re winning, but money is what they know, they can’t write a hit, but they can run circles around you when it comes to income streams and cash.

So now I know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall, but I don’t. But being in the building reminded me of the cover of “Sgt. Pepper.” As in when you look at the people in the upper deck, they look like the people in the background on the front cover of the album. Hard to explain, so I won’t. But I will say we don’t have an equivalent building in the U.S. Think of an arena and then shrink it down to a third its size, that’s the Albert Hall. Furthermore, this Mancini event was streamed live on BBC3 and will live online for the rest of the year. That’s what you get for your annual payment. Seems so very civilized. Anybody who tells you the U.S. and the U.K. are the same hasn’t been to both.

And speaking of having been…

We went to Stonehenge. I’ve seen all the sights in London, at least the biggies, and I’m a big museum-goer/tourist, lifestyle ain’t enough for me to be in London. As for London attractions, the two few talk about are the Churchill War Rooms and the Imperial War Museum, truly great.

But anyway, we drove two and a half hours southwest. You get off at the Visitor Centre and then you get in a bus for about a two mile ride and towards the end, over the horizon, you see the stones and are…

Not that impressed. I guess I thought they’d be bigger.

But when you get up close and personal, walk in a circle around them, your feeling changes. You can see the notch on top of the rock that would keep the horizontal stone in place. And sure, you wonder about how they got all these stones in place, but more you’re just overwhelmed at the whole thing, that it exists, and you do too, but not for long. Talk about feeling insignificant…

I was under the illusion that Rome may not have been built in a day, but Stonehenge only took a few years. Wrong. And it had something to do with the angles of sunrise and sunset. And I could go on, but you probably wouldn’t care. And yes, you think of “Spinal Tap.” And I won’t say it’s a reverential moment, like seeing the Mona Lisa or the Last Supper, I mean you’re out in a field with sheep, but…there is absolutely something magical about Stonehenge, it’s not like you hang out for hours, once you’ve seen it you’ve seen it, but you’ve got to see it once.

And from there we went to Oxford. And I never want to go back to school, but when you go into Christ Church College and see the dining hall referenced in seemingly every movie, never mind “Harry Potter,” it’s very cool. And there are so many references, over the ages. Like the door etched with the message for Peel not to come in. That’s Robert Peel, of the Bobbies, of why they call the cops the “Peelers.” And one famous person after another went there. It doesn’t seem like you have to go to Oxford or Cambridge to succeed, but when you read the list of those who’ve graduated, it seems that way.

And we went to the famous pub, the Turf Tavern, where everybody from Thomas Hardy to Bill Clinton to Steven Hawking has partaken, but it’s a bit of a tourist trap, in that the food is not great, but being there you do get a sense of history, the place has been there nearly a millennium. We think Harvard and Yale are for the ages, but they’re no competition to Oxford.

And when we got back to London and I read the news I felt like Joni Mitchell in “Blue.” I didn’t run into Carey, I’ve never even been to Greece, never mind an island, and I’m not quite so lonely this very second, but I am traveling, looking for the key to set me free. And the funny thing is I found it. It’s the perspective. I was reading the news and it sure looked bad, they certainly won’t give peace a chance, that’s just a dream some of us had in the sixties and seventies. I saw some doctor on X posting about the absurdity of using Ivermectin for Covid, and the responses… Not only that he was wrong, but that vaccines don’t work at all, and they kill people, just made me want to shut off my phone completely, which I did, or at least put it down. All day long there are these petty battles online, you can get caught up in them to the point where you’re no longer living, they seem like life, but there’s a whole world out there, of people just getting on. We saw them as we Ubered out to Fulham to meet Richard at the River Cafe. The driver took us to the wrong River Cafe! As for the meal, I finished with a great cup of roasted almond ice cream. It reminded me of Good Humor’s Toasted Almond ice cream bar, that was the number one seller back in the early sixties, when the truck rang its bell and you ran out of the house with your dime and…this was much better, memorable.

And then to the Royal Albert Hall…

The orchestra played a bunch of Mancini classics, Monica even sang “Moon River,” but the funny thing is if you lived through the sixties, you knew every song, whether it be the themes from the “Dating Game” and “Mission Impossible” and even “Casino Royale,” never mind “Alfie” and “The Look of Love.” And I’m sitting there thinking how it was a different era, we all knew the hits, whereas you probably can’t name two songs off the new Taylor Swift album. We were there then, and those days will never return.

Then again, on the bus back from the stones, some guy wanted to give up his seat for me, because I looked…old. Talk about disillusioning.

Then again, “The Pink Panther” is forever, I’ve yet to find a kid, anybody who doesn’t know it. Twentysomethings and thirtysomethings may not know the Mancini catalog, but that’s one number they do know, even if they don’t know who wrote it.

So I’m going off to see Ralph for lunch. Tonight I’m going to the O2 to see Niall Horan, and tomorrow we take that big bird back to Los Angeles, and it will be like we’ve never been here, only a few days gone, as opposed to Led Zeppelin’s “Ten Years Gone.” But our entire identities were built on song. We were addicted to the radio. And going to a show was not expensive, the hardest part was just getting a ticket.

And that’s a big brouhaha over here, about flex pricing on Oasis tickets. Seems the industry can never get it right, acts are afraid of charging what the tickets are worth, but they don’t want to surrender the upside to the scalpers. And the fans? Each and every one of them believes they deserve to sit in the front row for under a hundred bucks. And nobody truly wants a solution, the bands hide behind Ticketmaster, the politicians grandstand and the public is delusional. And there you have it!

Oh, and then there’s the X kerfuffle in Brazil. I’m digging that. Today the tide of the news has changed. Brazil is saying it’s just the first government to stand up to Elon Musk, that right wing bully. He’s got his army saying free speech is absolute, but nobody really wants that. That’s how we got into this mess. Everybody has their own news, everybody is burdened by society, everybody wants it their way, and they don’t want anybody in charge but themselves. That’s no way to run a country, and Musk is trying to run the world! People have no idea of the power of the pen. “The New York Times” is a lousy business financially, but its worldwide impact is greater than any single politician.

But there’s that dreaded “New York Times” again. Derided by the right and the left as biased while everybody is busy playing Wordle.

And you wonder why it’s good to disconnect.

But you’ve got to be forced to.

And then you see there’s a whole big world out there and you’re only going to be here for a very short time, and that you and your efforts don’t really mean that much and won’t be remembered, so navigate to the best of your ability, don’t work so hard you miss out on life, and if I told you I had the secret of life I’d be lying, but yesterday the silver rain was falling down upon the dirty ground in Paul McCartney’s London Town. And I didn’t get a tan standing in the English rain, but I could see how not everybody comes to the U.S. and stays there. There’s something in the landscape over here. The history. That makes you feel part of something. Knocks down your ego a bit. Makes you realize you’d better enjoy the passage of time.

And there won’t be a quiz about all the musical references above, but one thing is for sure, you can’t be over here and not sing songs in your head, constantly.

I’m not on the next plane out of London, that will be tomorrow, and I have no idea if it will be on runway number five, but the amazing thing is you can get on a plane on in L.A. and be in a whole different world in a matter of hours. Amazing.

“Prom 57: Ultra Lounge – Henry Mancini and Beyond”: https://rb.gy/khrm83