“Concertgoers sue Madonna, Live Nation over show starting late”: https://rb.gy/w5c108

Even the Stones take the stage on time these days (well close, anyway).

Concerts are a mature business. Dominated by a few companies that have the infrastructure and management down. You can’t sneak in backstage, never mind sneak in at all. Act out of line and you’ll get tossed. The free-for-all days are gone. It’s organized. From buying the tickets online to the security scan to…

The high ticket prices. This is not a cheap night, going out to drink beer and ogle potential suitees, this is a regimented affair, a chance to see your favorite up close and personal. As for the charisma, the distance of yore…

That’s history. It used to be exotic. A band from across the land, across the sea, was in your own hometown. And it tended to be your own hometown, you didn’t board flights to go to a show, you might drive a few hours, but that was it. So to see David Bowie in person, whew! You pinched yourself that you were in the presence of greatness, of stardom. But today stardom is all over the internet, 24-7. Not only can you see pictures of your heroes, read their words, you can even watch the show you’re going to see online beforehand, on YouTube.

So if you’re trying to titillate the audience, get them ready, foaming at the mouth, you’re out of touch. They’re just waiting for you to go on. It’s not much different from Vegas. Do your show so they can leave and get back to if not gambling, their regular life.

The Stones were legendary for going on stage late. The anticipation was out of control. When they took the stage heads exploded, metaphorically, at least.

And then there was Guns N’ Roses, who couldn’t get it together to get on stage on time. I can’t say it enhanced the experience. Then again, in the interminable time it took for the band to appear cameras roamed the audience and put images up on the big screen. This was the first time I saw a woman lift her shirt and show her t*ts. Shocked me. This was before you could Google boobs. And it didn’t reek of freedom so much as misogyny.

But now Axl Rose is 61. And Madonna is 65. People still want to see them, in droves, but the experience is different. They want to relive their memories. It’s no longer cutting edge. Isn’t Madonna finally doing her greatest hits, to ensure that she can sell tickets at prodigious prices?

Everybody comes down to earth, it’s the songs that remain in heaven.

This was Rock 101. You made the audience wait and you never ever played until the sun went down. It was dark. You know, leather and pool cues. (Well, at least at Altamont.)

Things have changed. Bob Dylan told us that in a song a couple of decades back, and you’ve got to change with the times or be left behind.

It’s one thing to go to a club to see a newbie band. But if the act has traction they’re owned by the audience, you have both a bond and an obligation to the audience. You must respect the audience. If for no other reason than it’s fickle and it’s overwhelmed with choices. They don’t need to see you as much as you think. They love going out, and if you make it too hard they stop.

Now in the old, pre-internet days, this lawsuit would have been big news, all over the MTV News, part of public scuttlebutt. And although I caught the news online yesterday, and can see some more news stories when I Google today, not a single person has e-mailed me about this. Because they don’t care. There are very few acts that have total penetration of society. And even those don’t penetrate as deeply as media purports they do.

You’re in bed with your audience. You must respect people, or they move on.

So what is Madonna achieving by going on late? Illustrating how cool she is? Well, the people are in the building, and at this point it’s a lot of the same people every tour, they’re already in bed with Madonna.

Anticipation? It’s not like the old days, where you stand there absolutely bored, waiting for delivery. No, these days you’re on your phone, surfing, the same way you do at the doctor’s office, waiting for your plane, pissed that no one is on time anymore. Being late doesn’t bond people to you, it makes them resent you. In a world where every moment is precious.

And it’s one thing in New York, which is a late night town, but on a weekday, and outside the Big Apple?

It’s a bad look.

Do I think Live Nation is guilty, should be held liable? No. Everybody in the concert business knows that the act is king, or queen, everything revolves around them, they make all the decisions. Concert promoters are nothing without the acts, and they know it.

This is Madonna’s call.

So what does she lose by going on on time? Well, maybe a bit of anticipation, a bit of fervor. But what does she lose by going on late? She’s angering the people who support her.

This is not the old days, people have multiple choices for concerts, oftentimes on the very same night. They’ve come to see you and you’re treating them like dirt?

I applaud these guys for suing. And, I hope they don’t settle, not for a while anyway, at least not without a public mea culpa from Madonna. Oh, that will never happen, the promoter takes the heat, Live Nation will deliver the mea culpa and Madonna will take the stage closer to on time.

It’s not 1984 anymore. As big as you think Taylor Swift is, Madonna was much bigger. Because she was all over MTV and radio when everybody was watching MTV and listening to the radio. Everybody knew “Like a Virgin.” “Like a Prayer”‘s video debut was an event.

But those days are through, nobody has that kind of mindshare anymore. The cheese has moved and Madonna hasn’t moved with it. 

The greats adjust to change.

If the public is paying all that money to see you, much more in adjusted dollars than they did in 1984, there’s a covenant that they will have a professional experience. Good lights and sound. Respect.

It’s not rock and roll anymore, it’s show business.

It could be rock and roll once again, but then someone would have to break all the rules and they don’t want to, because they can’t turn down all that money, they want the corporate cash, they want the media love, they don’t want to risk marginality. But everything new and different worth paying attention to is outside and pooh-poohed, it challenges our beliefs, our societal mores. And that’s what Madonna did. But that was forty years ago. Today if you kill somebody you’re only in the news for a day. Shoot up a school and it might be a bit longer, a week. Some “artist” taking a stand? Most people are not going to know about it. And then there are others who are going to say grow up, to stop being an adolescent.

You can be old and push boundaries, test limits. But our classic rockers have blinked. They get plastic surgery, they wear wigs, to try and remind us of what once was. But that was not the deal in rock and roll. If anything, you were supposed to live fast and die hard, soon. But if you lived, you’ve got to evolve.

So most people don’t know Madonna is taking the stage so late, most people don’t care what she’s doing whatsoever, it’s a small subset of the public.

And most people are not paying attention to new music, it’s too overwhelming, incomprehensible, and the industry does nothing to combat this.

So some old woman (and she is a woman, this is not sexist, it can be a man too) goes out and performs ancient hits to those running on fumes, i.e. memories. Kudos that anybody wants to go. But don’t tell me it’s a cultural event. Don’t ask me to care. And when I find out you’re going on so late… I might still go, but most people will not.

Hell, Jamie Lee Curtis got more ink asking old rockers to do matinees!

So much has changed. When was the last time you had car trouble? Even back in ’84 people wouldn’t show up because their car wouldn’t start.

Remember when you couldn’t get ahold of people? Remember when answering machines were a breakthrough?

Remember when the food at the arena was awful?

You can’t get away with that anymore, and you can’t get away with going on hours late either. It’s a losing proposition. You’re angering your fans, and they’re the ones supporting you.

Time to wake up.

He played with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. He co-wrote and produced “Freeway of Love” for Aretha Franklin and “How Will I Know” for Whitney Houston. And he tells a great story. Even if you’re unfamiliar with Narada, you know his work, and you’ll love listening to him.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/narada-michael-walden/id1316200737?i=1000642081705

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/1e821cd4-9154-4328-b36d-5724cd40a31d/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-narada-michael-walden

I’m writing the below because I constantly interact with boomers online, especially doing podcasts, who are technologically impaired, even though they’re musicians and use Pro Tools. Boomers are all about the external, they’ve got an iPhone 15 and the latest MacBook Air, they tell you how much they know, but oftentimes they are clueless. If this is not you, ignore all of the below, you already know it. Kudos. You don’t have to e-mail me telling you’re up to speed. You help make the world go ’round, thanks for being on the team. And everybody under thirty seems to know much of the below. But the people who are anti-tech, who lament the changes, who tell you to get off your smartphone…too many of these people have no idea how powerful these devices are, and they don’t know how to eke out any of this power, they’ve got the device but they’re constantly flummoxed. Ergo, the below.

INTERNET PROVIDER

Go with cable, it’s the fastest and most reliable. Forget how much you hate the cable company, deservedly so, but cable is better than all other options other than Fios.

Fios… The build-out has stopped. So you probably can’t get it anyway. It can be as good as cable, but the support is usually not as good.

Other providers/resellers, like Frontier… Service is so terrible don’t even start.

DSL. Antiquated and slow. Forget about it.

T-Mobile and other 5G home providers. DO NOT BUY! They’re inherently unreliable. The ads will tell you otherwise, but I know a tech writer who has this in their house and it’s a joke. Not ready for prime time.  Good in theory, bad in practice.

INTERNET SPEED

Forget all those articles in media telling you you don’t need much bandwidth. You need a ton of bandwidth. Call it headroom, just like you used to think of watts when you were buying a stereo amplifier/receiver. Yes, the more devices you use the more bandwidth you need. But, once again, these providers rarely deliver what they say they do. Internet is now a requirement, a necessity of life. The internet must work smoothly, like a utility, you never want to have to think about it. Which is why you need at least triple digit speed down. Most cable providers now deliver this in their base package. I’d advise at least 200 Mbps down. And if you’re having trouble with your internet, especially TV, you’ll be stunned how much additional bandwidth will help.

As for the fact that the more households that use cable simultaneously the less the speed for individual users…we’re living in 2024. The cable providers have beefed up infrastructure and your speed might slow, but it’s negligible. And if you’ve got a high speed it’s essentially irrelevant.

As for up… You want 20 Mbps. You need more than 10.

WI-FI CALLING

It doesn’t matter if your cell phone doesn’t work at home, because your internet/Wi-Fi will do the trick. This is a built-in feature from Verizon, et al. All you need to do is click a setting within your iPhone. I could tell you how to do it, but a quick Google will explain it. Or you can call. Now anywhere you have internet, you have cellphone reception. In your basement and places where there is no cell service.

COMPUTER

Buy a Mac. Unless you’re so computer savvy everything in this screed is known by you. Why do you buy a Mac? Because it’s easier to use. Which is why super-PC users decry it. It’s nearly bulletproof.

Don’t buy the base model. Today the key is chip speed and RAM. Storage is no longer an issue because so much is stored in the cloud. But still, don’t buy the base amount, you may not even have enough storage to upgrade the operating system.

The base price is a come-on. Don’t fall for it.

And don’t buy antiquated equipment, you think you’re saving money, but you’re not, this just means the computer will work for less time in the future. It’s all about software, you need the security updates, and at a certain point the manufacturer stops providing them, and you’re SOL. This is another reason to buy a Mac, there is an occasional security breach, but I haven’t had one in nearly forty years of Mac usage. As for PC owners, the less knowledgeable get viruses and lack of usability constantly.

MAIL APP

Use it. It works with all providers. Don’t go to the web to check your mail. Also, set the default to check as quickly as possible, like a minute.

BROWSER

If it doesn’t work in Safari, try Firefox, and then Chrome. Chrome is the standard but it’s the least safe.

SETTINGS

It’s the gray box in the Dock with the gears inside. Click on it and you can change… Almost anything.

OPEN APP

If it’s got a black dot at the bottom of the icon in the Dock, it’s open. Just click on it and it will come to the foreground.

PC

I’ve got one, I’ve had some. They work, but they’re a lot less intuitive.

SAVE

You can change the default. Usually an app saves to the Documents folder. But you can have it save to the Desktop, to anywhere.

SPOTLIGHT

The little magnifying glass in the upper righthand corner… Click on it and you can search and find anything instantly. Spotlight will do math and other tasks, but let’s not get carried away and overwhelm you.

REBOOT

When something doesn’t work.

FORCE QUIT

When an app doesn’t work. Go to the Apple in the upper lefthand corner. It’s the fifth choice down.

MICROSOFT OFFICE

The standard, but don’t use Outlook unless you have to for work. Use the Mail, Contacts and Calendar apps. Trust me. As for Word and Excel, the former is much more powerful than you need and the latter is the standard, but unless you’re working in it regularly, Apple’s Numbers is sufficient.

SAVE BEFORE QUITTING

Once you quit the app, it’s gone forever, FOREVER!

SAVE

If you’re writing, hit save regularly, it should be a reflex.

DISAPPEARANCE

Happens all the time, what you typed is gone. Go up to the Edit menu and hit Undo, it almost always replaces what has disappeared. You hit something by accident to make it go, but the computer remembers what was there. Unless you start typing again or take other action. When in a crisis, stop and think before you touch anything.

PASSWORD MANAGER

Ignore all the hype. A Mac suggests a password and then stores it and the user name in the Keychain. And when a site requires it, will provide it.

iCLOUD

Turn it on on all your devices. So that your addresses will be available elsewhere, as well as your passwords. Do not be afraid of hacks/security. If you use a strong password it’s essentially totally safe. But if you use a guessable password, you’re vulnerable. Also, you can store all those photos in the Cloud, decluttering your phone… And they are still there, available to download instantly when you want them.

PASSWORDS

Are stored in your iPhone’s settings. Just look for them.

iPHONE

Buy one. Android is cheaper, but every one is a bit different, they’re loaded with crapware, but the bottom line is most people have an iPhone, so if you have a problem they’ll be able to help you with it.

FACIAL RECOGNITION

Turn it on, it’s not perfect but it’s very good, and saves you a lot of time entering passwords in apps, turn it on for that.

BANKING

Do not ever write a check, never ever. If you are writing a check you are opening yourself up to fraud, even if it’s just for one dollar. I could point you to the exhaustive stories about this, but just take my word for it. They get your check, they wash it and then reuse it, or create new checks with your account. Pay every bill online, every single one, from your credit card to your utilities to your tax bill… It’s much safer than checks, don’t get caught up in old school thinking.

UPGRADE YOUR SOFTWARE

A lot of this is now automatic, but if you don’t upgrade the software you’re opening yourself up to security breaches. Most upgrades are security patches. The days of upgrades screwing up your machine are gone. Of course there are lapses, but ignore the haters.

SEARCH

Now it’s built in to the home screen of the iPhone. Or you can pull down from the top of the screen and you get a box, as well as icons of the apps the iPhone thinks you’re going to use. That’s what AI does for you.

SMARTPHONE

Is the most important device you own. More important than your car. Do not cheap out, buy a new one and keep it updated. It might literally save you. The latest iPhones will speak to the satellite in an emergency. Therefore you won’t have to cut off your arm to free yourself from a boulder in order to walk to safety.

FOR OLDSTERS

Do this, right away. Go to the Settings in your iPhone, click on Accessibility, then click on Display and Text and the top choice will be Bold Text. Turn it on. Your keyboard letters will now be thicker and easier to see.

TYPING SOUND

You want to turn this off immediately. If people can hear clicks when you type you’ll be seen as an ignorant newbie. Who wants to hear you type? Especially in a quiet environment. Go to Sounds & Haptics in the Settings of your iPhone. Click and on the next screen scroll down to System Sounds & Haptics. Underneath that you’ll see Keyboard Feedback. Click it to say None.

GOOGLE

It is your friend. It will answer almost all questions. Go to Google first.

SHARING

Have your own e-mail address and your own iCloud account. Period. I could explain why, but let’s just say that if you lose your phone it can be replicated perfectly from the cloud, very quickly. But if you’re sharing someone’s account…it’s complicated.

KNOW HOW YOUR MACHINE WORKS

It’s not like the eighties, even the nineties, these machines work so well, especially the iPad, its software almost never fails. But you’re going to hit walls, all of us do. Sure, you can call someone, but usually with a little Googling you can figure it out, and you’ll feel so good and become empowered for when the next thing goes wrong.

If I mention anything about Trump, I’m accused of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” from his acolytes. If I write anything about Taylor Swift, absolutely anything, I hear from her fans that I’m a hater.

This is the America we now live in. Black and white. Or should I say red and blue.

Everybody’s got a tribe, everybody’s got their beliefs, and you can’t say anything negative about them or the pushback becomes unreal. And the problem with this is the chilling effect, the people shutting up because they’re fearful of the blowback, and I understand this, completely.

I’m not talking about the trolls. Participate at all and your inbox or message thread will be inundated with comments from people who hate you in principle, who are mad that you have an audience and they don’t. Their goal is to make you shut up. And if you do, they win.

Never engage, this is what these people want, attention, in a world where it’s nearly impossible to get any.

But this means we live in a world where nothing can be gray, nothing can be analyzed, nothing can be poked over and evaluated.

Joe Biden? He’s old. And he presents that way. My inbox is going to go berserk right now, from boomers, telling me I need to shut up and get behind the man. They tell me all the great things Joe has done. And the funny thing is I know, I voted for him before and I’ll vote for him again. But he’s far from perfect, even his administration is far from perfect. And I don’t think he should be the candidate. If he is, will I vote for him? Yes. But in the eyes of the Biden tribe I must be quiet and get in line. And these are Democrats, the supposed Big Tent party.

As for getting in line… Look what that has done for the Republicans in Congress. Now nothing can get done. Do you call that governing? I certainly don’t.

If Taylor Swift were a local without a deal who never got any press would I be writing about her? No. But Taylor Swift is the most famous woman in America today, and she operates in the music world, and therefore she and her career are worthy of analysis.

But not to the Swifties. Get in line, she’s the greatest, the best there ever was, and if you say otherwise you’re a pariah.

And the press has fallen in line with this, because it’s a perfect old media story. Big star dominates. But that paradigm has evaporated. Where is the movie star who can open a movie? But we keep on reading the endless interviews, the endless hype about these stars and their flicks, which are oftentimes dead on arrival.

So how big is Taylor Swift? Isn’t that a question for analysis?

My point is no one is as big as those of the past, because there are so many options, opportunities.

In the sixties we lived in a monoculture. AM radio was pushed to you and everybody knew the same songs. At the end of the decade and into the seventies there was an alternative, FM. And then in the eighties the monoculture reappeared, with MTV. So everybody knew Culture Club. Genesis became a mainstream act.

But those are not the days we live in now.

So what days do we live in?

Oh, you’d better not mention Taylor Swift, because you’re a misogynist with an agenda.

Well, what about Morgan Wallen? He’s a racist. Appealing to nitwits. Next!

Well, can Morgan Wallen ever be forgiven? Not according to my inbox. Even though these same people have never heard a note. He said the n-word and we live in a zero tolerance society. Well, he was drunk and he was using it as a term of affection. Does that make a difference? No, it’s the third rail.

That’s the world we live in. Either you stand on the platform and stay quiet or you risk touching the third rail and being electrocuted.

And beware of saying something about Teslas. Their owners and the right wing fans of Elon Musk will excoriate you. Yes, their software is the best, but their build quality is not. And Elon made some poor choices with self-driving. But we cannot say anything negative about heroes otherwise we’re seen as having an agenda, trying to bring people down.

I subscribe to the Amplifier newsletter from the “New York Times.” Today the author wrote about “8 upcoming albums to get excited about.”

Here are the eight acts, do you know more than one? Have you even heard of one?

1. Waxahatchee

She’s got two songs with double digit million streams on Spotify, one twenty and another fifteen. If you think that’s a major star, you don’t know numbers.

2. Sheer Mag

Well, there is one track with three million streams and two tracks with two million streams and one track with one million streams.

3. Brittany Howard

Well, we all know her. Right?

4. The Smile

One cut with sixteen million. Another with ten. A bunch more in single digit millions.

5. Mary Timony

One track has over fifty thousand streams, none other comes close.

6. Julia Holter

A handful of cuts with single digit million streams.

7. Helado Negro

One cut with ten million streams, a few with single digit millions.

8. Faye Webster

She actually has triple digit millions of two tracks, but I doubt you know her anyway.

Number 50 on Spotify’s Global chart, “Rompe La Dompe,” had thirteen million streams LAST WEEK! Number one, “La Diabla,” had thirty four million.

Okay smartypants. Ask your kids if they’ve heard of these acts.

These are all cult items. Very small cults. And there are more cults than ever before. But we don’t see an article about this in the “New York Times,” just endless listing of acts that no one has heard of with no context. And sans context, we don’t pay attention, we move on. To the detriment of music in general.

But it’s not only the “Times,” many publications do this. Hype acts with tiny audiences. And, unfortunately, when you listen to these records you don’t find the new Joni Mitchell, at best you hear professional productions. Better to listen to the oldies.

And Taylor Swift is an oldie. She has an established name. Which is why she gets so much ink. Which is self-reinforcing.

So what is going on?

You’d better not ask any questions. Nobody asks any questions in the music business. There are endless awards shows, as if the public cares a whit. The majors promote their acts. There’s a whole industry of hype but does it reach the public? Most of it does not.

And the public is not getting turned on by music on terrestrial radio, kids are not listening. Hell, if people were listening Audacy wouldn’t have declared bankruptcy.

But let’s keep shoveling the sh*t and never ask any questions.

Are Taylor Swift’s songs in the ballpark of the Beatles? Of New Kids on the Block? Will they be remembered, will they have staying power?

For years we had to hear about all the chart records Mariah Carey broke. Other than her Xmas song, none of them are standards today.

Want a standard? Sublime’s “What I Got.”

So music today is heard by fewer people and it has less overall cultural impact. But you can’t say that in the music industry, then you’re seen as pissing on it. It’s all up all the time, as the labels skim TikTok artists that are here today and gone tomorrow.

Can we ask any questions?

Like climate change. Half the country won’t hear it, no way. And they always come up with some expert to the contrary. But the younger generation, which will inherit the planet, they’re very concerned. But they’ve got very little power. So let’s ignore them.

There are so many issues that can’t be debated. That if you have an opinion on you must not verbalize it. You don’t want to be ostracized, do you?

And this permeates all walks of life, every sector. There is an orthodoxy and it better not be questioned.

Then again, I went to a college with no objective tests, where we didn’t discuss the reading in class. Analysis was everything. And that makes me part of a minority. Especially in today’s world where college is seen as a glorified trade school. College is about getting a job, right? No one said that when I went to college.

And there’s teaching to the test in elementary and secondary school.

And the average citizen can’t discern a lie from the truth, never mind ask the questions that will tease out veracity.

I’m not telling you you can’t listen to Taylor Swift, or go to her show. She’s had more success on the road this year than any other act. Morgan Wallen had a bigger year with new music, but, once again, he’s a pariah.

Therefore I start my analysis with acts you’ve heard of. So there’s context. But you dismiss what I say out of hand. I’m not saying you must agree with me, but one thing is for sure, no act today, NO ACT, is as big as one from yesterday, in the pre-internet era. There are too many choices, too many niches, you pull your music, it is not thrust upon you, you don’t have to listen to anything you don’t want to.

And this is worth looking at. What is going on. Is this the way it’s always going to be, or could a single act change the paradigm? And can’t we at least accept the truth? That the acts you love might not be loved or even known by the vast majority of people, who don’t give a sh*t.

This is the world we live in.

But all we’re told is to get off our smartphones, that they’re the devil.

Well, good luck getting an Uber, looking up facts, connecting with friends.

We need to accept the present. But that does not mean we can’t question it, investigate it.

With knowledge comes power. Gain it. And you do this by looking beneath the surface, doing your best to find out what is really going on.

But today that’s a lonely pursuit.

Now I’m going to STFU!