We’ve been waiting for a universal protest song. But after twenty five years can we admit that we’re never going to get one, just like we’re never going to get a new Beatles?
The market is too fragmented.
But when you band together, that’s where strength lies today.
Who’da thunk Bret Michaels, willing to appear anywhere for a check, whoring his life out on reality TV, would back down from appearing?
It’s just a bad look, he’s afraid it’s going to taint his brand.
You might ask exactly what that brand is, but the fact that Michaels is afraid of it taking a hit…
As for Morris Day… Does he even go on the road?
The lineup was one of ancient hitmakers, has-beens, who seemingly will show up anywhere for a buck. And now they’re balking at the opportunity for universal publicity and a check?
We can debate all day long whether we’re at a turning point in Trump’s tenure…Iran, the slush fund, it goes on…
But to say that music has no power…
Turns out all you’ve got to do is shame people and they toe the line.
Of course there are those like Kid Rock and Jason Aldean on the other side, but look at all the acts who dropped off Kid Rock’s tour, Never mind now that it’s actually playing there is no press whatsoever, if you weren’t there, it doesn’t exist.
And then you’ve got Bruce’s protest song, “Streets of Minneapolis.”
I guess like with Kid Rock’s tour, and the cancellation of appearances at Freedom 250, the music is secondary to the press. The song itself has a whopping 5,769,175 streams on Spotify, which won’t even pay his trucking bill.
And that’s the point, unlike Kid Rock’s tour, the press on Bruce’s tour is outsized, he’s playing arenas but the tour is bigger than stadiums in mindshare.
And this is where press counts. Not the one little thing, but the mass.
Now let’s be clear, the individual can move mountains, has unlimited power, it’s just that right now you can’t do that with a single song, except for maybe a “We Are the World”-type number…then again, how big can it be without constant MTV exposure?
But Bruce’s Power to the People Festival at the Merriweather Post Pavilion on October 3rd? That’s more like it. Especially if there will be a simulcast, which is de rigueur.
But I’d be lying if I told you I thought that the Power to the People Festival would be enough.
No, what we need is a WEEK of festivals! In markets all over the country. Such that all genres are covered.
A hip-hop-heavy New York festival. A country-heavy Nashville festival.
Hell, one in Texas, there’s an electoral battle there.
Yes, seven markets with contested races.
As for who will perform…
You know how it goes… One superstar commits, and then everybody falls in line, is begging to perform. Isn’t that what happened with Freedom 250? As soon as one act canceled, then the dominoes fell.
As for right wing Trumper acts…
Let them have their own festival, be my guest. What has been proven over and over again is they talk a big game and ultimately deliver something puny that no one cares about.
Individual acts are afraid to speak up, but if a core commits, then the rest come calling, that’s just the nature of the business.
There is political power in music, but it’s in the group, not the individual, a collection of acts, not a single one.
“In 1996, Jam Productions produced approximately 130 arena concerts, which was the most profitable segment of our company. By 2025, that number had fallen to just 4, a 97% decline.”
Jerry Mickelson Congressional testimony: https://www.c-span.org/clip/public-affairs-event/user-clip-jerry-mickelson-founder-of-jam-productions-at-joint-congressional-forum-on-live-nation/5200452
That’s a pretty striking statistic.
But the devil is in the details.
The reason Jam Productions could not get those arena dates is primarily because Live Nation made overall tour deals with acts.
But Live Nation is not the only one. AEG does this too. And Jerry Weintraub pioneered this half a century ago.
The essence of a tour deal…
I pay you a lot of money and I get every date.
Now why is this good for the act…
If you went market by market, selling to independents, you traditionally were able to make more money, however you were subject to the vagaries of life and climate. I.e. if there was a snowstorm, or another unforeseen event, you could do bad business in one market even if you were selling out elsewhere, even if you normally sold out in this market. And just a few bad dates can sink profitability for an entire tour.
This was how it used to be done. But the deals were different, the guarantees were smaller and the upsides were bigger, i.e. the potential to make more money. But as just illustrated, you could lose money!
An overall tour deal eliminates the risk.
And most of the major acts today do tour deals. Louis Messina, who is aligned with AEG, promotes Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran and Eric Church and others exclusively.
So if you’re an independent…
Nothing is keeping you from offering a tour deal yourself.
But…
Do you have that much money?
Do you want to risk that much money?
Now the basic issue under Mickelson’s statistic is how Live Nation got so much money that they could offer these expensive tour deals. Did they leverage Ticketmaster such that they could increase compensation to the acts?
That’s a reasonable question to ask.
But let’s be clear, we are not going back to the past. We have seen this happen in one sphere after another. A business is innovative, run by renegades, and then it matures and consolidates into just a few companies.
Remember how many computer hardware producers there used to be?
How many car companies before Ford’s assembly line and the Model T?
Yes, Walmart eviscerated downtowns, but it turned out their overall buying power, based on volume, delivered low prices that the mom and pop shop couldn’t.
And the consumers flocked to Walmart for low prices.
Hardware stores? It used to be the land of independents.
Pharmacies?
And the funny thing is as big as Amazon is, what exactly is their overall market share?
Then again, some of Amazon’s policies… Needing to purchase advertising for your product, usage of their fulfillment… Yes, the deck is stacked. Then again, online real estate is endless.
But how much of the overall spend online goes to Amazon?
You’d be stunned how small it is.
That’s the question that is raised by Live Nation.
As for the loser in consolidation…
The acts aren’t making less, they’re making MORE! And anybody and everybody in the business knows that ticket prices are high not because of Live Nation owning Ticketmaster, but because of market demand. That’s why prices have soared. Period. Oh, at the trial they had some “expert” saying that the public spent between one and two dollars more on tickets… But come on, take a dollar off a hundred dollar ticket and that’s the difference between whether someone wants to go or not?
Now thirty years ago, Bob Sillerman convinced the independent promoters to sell to SFX or…be wary of competition. Jerry Mickelson did not sell out, nor did John Scher. But that does not mean their businesses should be protected from what SFX/Clear Channel/Live Nation has become.
Come on, we read all the time about companies who refuse to sell out whose businesses crater to zero. Even ones that survive, like Vice, have a fraction of their old value.
And today Concerts West, an AEG company, promotes the Rolling Stones, but the band has been making overall deals with promoters for decades. Michael Cohl was responsible for creating the modern tour deal.
As for how Live Nation can pay all that money…
Well, there’s sponsorship and other revenue streams. As well as the ownership of buildings, which Mickelson mentions. But AEG owns buildings too, and they’re not the only ones. As a matter of fact, Jam owns buildings… The fact that Live Nation created a company with more purchasing power such that it can own more buildings…is that a bug or a feature? It might mean that Mickelson and Jam can’t compete, but we’re going to prevent companies from expanding? We can debate whether Live Nation has a monopoly in amphitheatres, but overall…they don’t own most of the arenas that Jerry is talking about in this clip.
So the question becomes how is Live Nation able to afford to pay these guaranteed sums to artists in tour deals? Did they garner those monies via monopoly? If so, then a remedy is necessary.
But that does not mean tour deals are going away.
Let’s not try to go back to a past that wasn’t so good anyway.
Acts know that Live Nation, a public company, is good for the money. This was not always the case with independent promoters in the past.
So, on the surface the drop in Jam’s arena shows looks dramatic and possibly unfair. But if someone can pay more, as a result of consolidation and market power, is that a bad thing? Or the willingness just to take more risk?
Once again, we can investigate why Live Nation can pay more. And see if there are monopoly practices allowing them to do so, but…
Everybody’s dead except Jaimoe. Who actually comes alive in this flick in a way we’ve never seen before.
Now the funny thing is I lived through the ascent and continuation of the Allman Brothers, but now they’re in the rearview mirror, and without a champion, without songs that get endless repeats on the radio (other than the less than representative “Ramblin’ Man”), I won’t quite say they’re a hidden land mine waiting to be discovered, but I don’t hear young people talking about them.
But they will.
This is a business of statistics. How many hits in how many decades and all other kinds of hype, which is hogwash, because ultimately it comes down to the music. It’s not your sales history that’s remembered, but the music itself. And very little has staying power, but the Allmans are lying in wait like the bluesmen who inspired the English rock stars of the sixties and seventies.
Anyway…
The fact that everybody’s dead makes this documentary a bit different from most, where the penumbra testifies.
First and foremost, Phil Walden is gone. Now that guy deserves a documentary. A white man in a black business who not only broke acts from nowheresville Georgia (no one north of the Mason-Dixon Line had truly knew Macon), but bent the rules and the dollars along the way.
We do get Jonny Podell, the agent.
But Bill Graham can’t tell us what he saw in the Allman Brothers to make them the closing act at the Fillmore East.
It was a completely different era, and Gregg Allman was a cool, basically unknown, king.
Scratch that, we knew him through his music. Sure, like Stevie Winwood, Gregg might have had those Black pipes, but his voice also possessed a soulful heartbreak and meaning that was evidenced in the records that’s hard to find elsewhere, especially today.
Please call home…
Why dontcha do that.
Now of course there would be no Allman Brothers without Duane, and the brothers’ bonds as well as their differences are illuminated here. Gregg was the younger one, pushed aside at times. Just like Duane took Gregg’s guitar and the rest is history.
I did not know the brothers went to military school because their mother had to be in residence to get her college degree in accounting. Actually, I’m not sure that rings true, but the bottom line is she got her parchment while raising two boys, which is difficult.
And she was their biggest supporter. And that counts.
So they’re playing in bands. Going nowhere.
What I mean is today everybody starts playing and imagines a record deal, and fame and riches. Whereas when you formed a band in the sixties your only goal was to get gigs. And you were happy to do the covers of the day, they kept you from the factory.
And believe me, experiencing this motley crew… They talk about techies and bankers being rock stars, nothing could be further from the truth. These were not educated people, they lived for the music, they followed the music, they did drugs, they got tattoos, broke the color line and…
Ended up with this music.
It didn’t happen overnight. There was the failed journey to Los Angeles. And then Duane called Gregg to come back east, that he’d formed a band…
And he was depending on Gregg to deliver the songs.
And just like the Beatles on that rooftop, Gregg passed the audition.
And Phil Walden signed them and they woodshedded in Macon while broke and ultimately crossed the country again and again converting people.
It’s not that different from today. The Allmans didn’t build a fan base from records, but on the road. Over 300 days a year.
And you get really tight doing that.
Springsteen gave a performance. He made the records come alive. You saw him and you felt the electricity, you saw the Jersey roots.
The Allmans didn’t say much, they spoke through their music, which didn’t demand attention so much as set your mind free, adrift, on an excursion. Bruce was foreground, and sometimes the Allmans were too, but in many ways they were background.
What I mean is when you heard “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” you didn’t stare at the stereo, until the guitars were twinning on stage you weren’t really even looking at the players, but somewhere in the distance.
This was all happening in the early seventies. But you don’t see anyone trumpeting the Allmans today.
Maybe because Gregg lived instead of died.
I’m not making light of Duane’s death, just saying that nothing burnishes your image like a tragic, early death, like in the case of Jim Morrison.
No, after the drug bust and the testimony against Scooter Herring, it was a climb back to acceptance. There was the solo work, then the band got back together, then that ended and Gregg played alone until he was snuffed out.
In other words, you could see Gregg Allman. The last time I did was at the Roxy. And he hadn’t lost anything, and he wasn’t going through the motions, he was delivering, because that’s what he did, played.
Tours were tedious, but after recovering for a few days, he always wanted to go back out.
Maybe because the music both centered and fulfilled him, gave him something to live for.
As for Cher…
She tried to change him. And Gregg refused to be changed.
Of course he’s stumbling around inebriated, getting married again and again and fathering children, but at root it was always the music.
So who was this guy?
Well, the main point you take from the film is Gregg was shy. Which is the antithesis of rock frontmen. They’re flamboyant, they want attention, whereas Gregg sat behind the organ and…
Even the initial solo LP, “Laid Back,” it had not only the definitive version of Jackson Browne’s “These Days,” but the slowed-down take of “Midnight Rider.” Sure, Gregg could play with energy, but so much of what he did was about contemplation. He could speak through his music and…
What you’ve got here is a long 2014 interview with Gregg. And he is worse for wear. As anybody is as the years pass. But Gregg had been on the road and lived hard and it takes a toll.
And you’ve got testimony from Jackson Browne and some superfluous talking heads like Robert Hilburn, but once again, the words don’t really matter, because the music speaks for itself.
And we learn Gregg had a best friend, a shoe-shiner he met in Macon. What we’re looking for is someone who knows us, who we can trust, who we’ve gone through the changes with. Those famous people in TMZ…they’re not your heart.
So most of the people who were there are gone, and this was the pre-video era, there’s only so much footage…
Documentaries in the future will be different, just a matter of collecting the crumbs from YouTube and social media and assembling them.
Then again, there is no mystique. Even though available, not hidden, Gregg maintained his mystique.
It wasn’t quite charisma, but when you spoke with Gregg…you could feel the southern roots, you could see the miles, the experience, he was neither reluctant, nor in your face, he was calm, but he suffered no fools.
So the best thing about this documentary is it exists. For young people to discover Gregg in the future.
He may not have written a plethora of songs, but the ones he did…
Yes, “Whipping Post” may be famous as an extended jam, but the words alone…there’s a direct connection to the blues of the delta.
And then there are tracks like “Come and Go Blues.”
I loved the original take on “Brothers and Sisters,” but the alternate one on the 1989 boxed set “Dreams” just penetrates me a bit more…
“People say that you’re no good
But I wouldn’t cut you loose, baby, if I could”
You could be that good-looking, that famous, that wealthy, and still be on the losing side of a relationship.
And then there’s “Statesboro Blues,” the “Fillmore East” opener, drop the needle on that one and it will wake you up in the morning, it will pop you right out of bed, get you hopping around, ready to eat up the day… When the band locked in, it was like a freight train, a monolith that could mow down anything in its path.
And “Trouble No More”…
And Gregg still had it at the end, do you know “Desdemona” from “Hittin’ the Note”?
This is not music you can shrug your shoulders at. It picks you up off the couch and gets you boogieing.
And it dominated dorm rooms in the early seventies. And unlike some famous bands, the sound could be captured on wax and expanded into new territory on stage. You could never criticize and complain, it was always tight.
And so one some level Gregg’s a part of the firmament, and on another he’s gone.
And this film reinforces what we’ve lost. This isn’t the sixties, this is the generation after, which tends not to get as much respect.
This is not English, but positively American.
“Well, I’ve got to run to keep from hiding
And I’m bound to keep on riding”
This wasn’t some vision of an old time bandit leaving town on his horse, this was Gregg himself. If he stood still, there would be too many questions. So he just kept moving, taking to the road, making music.
As he then sings, the road goes on forever.
“But I’m not gonna let ’em catch me, no
Not gonna let ’em catch the midnight rider”
Watching this movie you realize we never did catch Gregg Allman, he was in plain sight, but the man himself was elusive, he spoke through his music, and that’s what’s left.
