It was billed as “An Evening With.”

And it most certainly was.

The media focuses on recordings, but all the action is on the road. You keep on reading about the comeback of the recording industry, but to a great degree the two have diverged. Recording is about hip-hop, evanescence. Live is about all genres, and careers. Live used to be the stepchild of recordings, now it’s the main economic driver, where all the focus is. Used to be gigs were populated by label people, now the company can’t afford to buy tickets, that happened nearly a decade ago. Yup, today everybody pays. If you know someone, you can get good seats, but you’ve got to pay. As the saying goes, the tour used to be the advertisement for the record, now it’s vice versa.

And the thing about label people is they change. Not as much as they used to, then again, it’s a game of musical chairs, and a lot of them have been removed. And the only person with any power at the label is the head exec. The A&R people don’t have signing power, unless you’re talking to the President/CEO, you won’t get an answer. Whereas there’s a greater democratization of responsibility in the touring world. A young promoter can be a booker. A young agent can get acts gigs. Your apprenticeship is short. Either you can carry water or you can’t. And if you can…you have a job for life, or as least as long as you want one.

Then again, tonight Sam and Jay said that no one ever retires in the live business.

And the two drivers of Michael Bublé’s career are over seventy, Bruce Allen and Don Fox. I’m sure they don’t like their age revealed, but in the management and live businesses, experience counts. You know where all the dollars are. What works and what doesn’t. And the elder statespeople of our business were around while it was still being built, before consolidation, they’ve learned lessons unteachable these days. How you keep promoters alive, and how loyalty is everything. Used to be you’d give back to the promoter if he had a loss, you had to keep him in business. And you stuck with the people who got you there. Not anymore. Play for Live Nation, a public company, and you’re never gonna give money back. And acts go with the highest bidder.

But there are still renegades, like Don Fox. Who started with acts like ZZ Top and is now promoting Bublé, who couldn’t be more different. But really, it’s the same, how do you build an act?

And no act ever made it big without a great manager. Used to be they were all independent. Now, they might work for Red Light or Live Nation’s conglomerate. Used to be you sunk or swam on your wits. You were responsible for staying alive. You had to keep your antenna up. If you haven’t ever faced financial ruin, struggled, you’re not battle tested, you’re not any good when the going gets tough.

And the going got tough for Michael Bublé. His kid got sick. Very. He didn’t tour for five years. He gets kudos for keeping his priorities straight, but absence of this length is usually death in the music business. It’s what have you done for me lately, especially now when album cycles are so much shorter.

But Bublé’s tickets have sold faster than ever. Why?

Because of his dedicated fan base, because of his show.

Bublé said he started in nightclubs at sixteen. It took him ten years to get traction. This is very different from a porn star deciding to make a record. This is about hard work, refining your craft. Bublé’s career is build on music and showmanship, not social media. If the music is the cherry on top of your personality, you’re not gonna last that long, your music isn’t gonna resonate with people.

And the music Bublé is singing is one hundred eighty degrees different from the hit parade. It’s made up of songs, without electronic beats, with melodies, that you can sing along to. They’re classics, or in the classic style. You can let your mind drift and remember staring out the window at the snow coming down. Or being on the beach. Or finding new love. The music sets your mind free, it’s just not grease for a party.

And that’s what too many people think a gig is today, a big party, where you shoot selfies, where the audience is the star. But that was not Bublé’s show. It was clear he was the star, everybody was locked on to him, not each other.

And there were thirty eight people on stage besides Michael. THIRTY EIGHT! Professionals are doing the math. That’s gonna hurt your bottom line. But Bublé is spending for the effect. A bank of horn players, a bank of string players, I can’t remember seeing this many people on stage since I’ve been to the symphony. Usually you get some long-haired guy in the background playing a synth. But this sound was real.

And the staging was jaw-dropping. Winky told me to watch out, and he was right.

I almost can’t describe it. The band was in a shell, a miniature Hollywood Bowl.

And behind Bublé was a record. Yup, a big vinyl record which occasionally spun, with a needle emitting sparks. But it also doubled as a video screen. And when it rose to the ceiling, there was a cyclorama of a hi-def screen behind the players. And sometimes video footage was shot from two different angles. Which truly allowed you to get the feeling.

And there were screens at the other end of the building, at the end of the runway in the middle.

And the highlight was when Bublé said he was going to recreate the nightclub. He had a combo on the far end of the walkway and lights descended from the ceiling and it truly felt intimate, in an arena.

But the highlight was the stories. It takes a lot to go on, most people get nervous and speed up and then sing. But Bublé told jokes, made fun of himself, was sincere, talked about his personal troubles… You felt like you knew him. He was carrying no airs. He was just being honest. Hard work got him to where he was, to the point where you wanted to pay to see him.

And the best joke of the night was when he talked about living in Westwood and not wanting to drive to Staples Center. It could take two hours. So he thanked those who did come. Who even filled up the upper deck, above the three rows of skyboxes.

And if you weren’t there, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t like this kind of music, it doesn’t matter. It’s 2019, and everybody’s living in their own silo. The goal is not to be the biggest band in the land, but the biggest you. You build it on music and showmanship and loyalty. You deliver for the fans so they come back. It becomes a rite. Because the man is the same, yet the show is always different.

And usually “An Evening With” just means there’s no opening act.

But tonight you truly felt you spent time with Michael Bublé. You truly felt it was a one of a kind experience. That in another city you didn’t hear the same raps, it wasn’t the same woman from the audience doing a duet, the show was fluid, to the point where you had a unique experience in a digitized world of 0’s and 1’s.

And I will tell you I think we’ve gotten too far from the garden. That songs with melody, that you can sing along to, proffered by those with good voices who can deliver them, never go out of style. As a matter of fact there’s a hunger for this sound.

And that’s what Michael Bublé delivers.

P.S. Another highlight of the night was Lee Zeidman’s war against the Birds. And Limes. And the rest of the scooter companies. He wants a plan, to keep them off the L.A. Live property that he’s responsible for. He doesn’t want them littered on the campus. Getting in the way of paying customers. He suggested continuing to charge customers who drop them in undesignated places, but the purveyors said this would be a “bad consumer experience.” So Lee has taken matters into his own hands. He’s confiscated a hundred and twenty five scooters that have been littered on his property. He wanted to throw them out, but the waste management company said he couldn’t, because of the batteries. He’s getting no relief from the city council and the owners have not asked for the scooters back. One person can make a difference, by standing up to the man. In this case, it’s Lee Zeidman.

Howard Stern has a new book. He’s been talking it up for weeks. And now he’s confronted with the question of publicity. What should he do, where should he appear. And being the media-savant he claims to be, Howard only want to appear on shows that SELL BOOKS!

This is different from the pre-internet scorched earth paradigm. Used to be you told your publicity agent to get you ink everywhere, to create a feeling of momentum, but today there are so many messages, no one cares.

Especially when non-events get ink.

Like the re-release of Keith Richards’ album “Talk Is Cheap.” I’ll give credit to the publicity team, they got placement in major newspapers, where the aged target audience still goes, but the truth is most of the audience didn’t want the project the first time around, it was seen as a middling effort, one step above a stiff. If it wasn’t Keith, no one would remember it. And at this point, almost no one does. As for rebuying it… Are you kidding me?

And the King of all Blacks called to tell Howard that he should appear on “Real Time,” because that show sells books. And that was a good point. Because Bill Maher dedicates a whole segment to authors. Then again, if you’re not selling a political book…

Of course you want reviews in book review sections… Then again, is there where the Howard Stern audience lurks?

You’ve got to be smart.

And you’ve got to self-promote.

This is what old artists agitate against and young artists understand. You preach to your audience and if you do something worth spreading, they will.

I know, I know, this is contradictory to expectations. You want to go worldwide.

But no one is that big anymore. We live in niche culture. Be happy anybody cares at all. You create your vertical and monetize it.

That’s the Billie Eilish story. The videos were monstrous before this initial album came out. She was working it. You’ve all got to work it.

And sure, phenomena come down the pike now and again, but it’s rare these days. And little sticks.

So by talking about his book on his show every day Howard Stern is creating his own excitement. And today everybody has a platform, everybody should be in contact with their fans on a regular basis. It’s part of your job. The data is the most important thing.

Nothing is as powerful as e-mail.

But if you tweet and Instagram IT MUST BE YOU! If you’ve got a company doing it either you’re dead or your career is about to be.

Furthermore, books are one of the few things that still require an entry fee. As do movies. But music and TV come as part of a bundle, i.e. Spotify and Netflix. You have to convince someone to listen and watch. Not one of the tracks on Richards’ reissue of “Talk Is Cheap” has broken a million streams on Spotify. Some are in the very low four digits. What was this about?

Don’t count on the media to be an arbiter. The media shovels product on a daily basis, they don’t care if it sticks. Keith Richards himself would have to promote the record, and he’s too big to do this. So why do it at all?

And even if Howard Stern hits number one on the NYT chart, most people will not read his book. It’s not like the nineties, when we had a small culture and were all interested in the same things. Today, even your friends have not seen the same TV shows. But if Stern’s fans truly believe the book is worth a read by non-fans, they’ll tell them. Stern is self-promoting and he’s activating his user base. That’s how you do it today.

And chances are you’ll never go nuclear.

But you can survive. You can make money.

It’s just that most people will have no idea you exist.

Tune in today, Tuesday April 2nd, on Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: LefsetzLive

My radio was stolen for the fifth time. This one was a Kenwood. It only lasted a day and this time they broke the console. My insurance was canceled and I gave up. I drove my 2002 for years with no problem, and then all of a sudden I couldn’t keep a head unit. I decided to leave the console broken, and I went to one of those discount electronics places on Beverly and bought a twenty dollar radio. You know, about 8×10″. I’d place it in the passenger seat, extend the antenna, and dial in the stations when I wasn’t shifting.

And then the antenna broke. Which in retrospect I should have foreseen. For I couldn’t leave the radio visible when I parked, I had to put it under the seat, hide it, and somehow in this many times a day movement the antenna snapped. So I got one of those wires with an alligator clip and clipped it to the stub and let it flop on the seat and it worked pretty well.

This was the summer of ’84. The heyday of alternative rock on KROQ. Nascent hair bands on KMET and oldies with a few cherry-picked new cuts on KLOS. And soft rock on KNX. It was the heyday of L.A. radio. Then again, KWST, the Led Zeppelin station, had gone by the wayside a few years prior.

And I lived to hear the Thompson Twins’ “Hold Me Now.” Sure, I was aware of “In The Name of Love,” it was played incessantly on KROQ, but there were so many English bands that came and went so fast I didn’t buy their album. But when that intro flourish came on the radio, it was exciting. If you wanted to know what was going on, you listened to KROQ, before every home had MTV, when you felt you were part of something, a movement, led by these English bands experimenting.

But “In The Name of Love” didn’t prepare me for “Hold Me Now.”

Now at the time I was working in a house a hundred yards up from the Rainbow, and every night there was an event and I oftentimes didn’t drive home until midnight, or thereafter, and when I heard the notes of “Hold Me Now” on the radio, I was soothed, I smiled.

Hold me now, warm my heart
Stay with me, let loving start

You’ve got to know, L.A. nights are not hot. Maybe a week a year, at least before climate change. But as the sun goes down, it gets cool. You can almost sense the dew descending. And “Hold Me Now” ran shotgun, literally, as I drove home.

I had to buy the album “Into The Gap” so I could hear it more.

I love that LP. Especially the opening cut, “Doctor! Doctor!” This was back before everything had to be in-your-face, when a record could be an invitation, to a journey to a place you’d never been before. You didn’t need drugs to experience the music, the tunes were drugs themselves.

Like the second side opener, “The Gap.” Akin to a journey to the East.

No one ever talks about “Into The Gap” anymore, never mind the Thompson Twins, but the album is one of my all time favorites. And I went to see the band at the Greek, it was a celebration. And Arista held a party afterwards, I remember the exquisite chocolate cheesecake. And I foresaw great things for the Thompson Twins, but they never materialized.

But Foreigner was well known. They appeared when KROQ was still a free-format station. They were too hip to play “Feels Like The First Time,” but KMET and KLOS banged it. It was a one listen wonder, I had to drive to Music Odyssey to buy the album the day it was released, I couldn’t live without hearing the track on demand. It was a masterpiece. With the squealing keyboard, the buzz saw riff and the sweet powerful vocal.

But the rest of the LP was not quite as good.

“Cold As Ice” was a bit cheesy in my book.

“Headknocker” a little too formulaic.

“Long, Long Way From Home” was better, but I didn’t buy “Hot Blooded,” the follow-up. Maybe I didn’t need to, the title track lived on the radio, along with Foghat, who I came to love.

Stone blue, rock and roll sure helped me through

And “Double Vision” was serviceable, it didn’t bug me, but it didn’t stick to me either.

And “Head Games” was even worse. “Dirty White Boy,” talk about corporate rock. Although, as the decades have gone by, I’ve learned to love “Head Games.” What can I say, it’s the unexpected change into the chorus, and, even though Mick Jones was the mastermind, Lou Gramm was the special sauce that put the act over the top.

But expectations for the act were low, especially now that the new wave had gotten traction.

And then we read that they were working with Mutt Lange.

This was after “Back In Black,” when the combo of the two was a head-scratcher, what was the resulting album, ultimately entitled “4,” gonna sound like?

Like nothing that came before.

“Urgent” exploded out of the radio, and was brought to the goal line by Junior Walker’s saxophone, a sound most hadn’t been exposed to since “Shotgun” fifteen years before.

I could feel the excitement, I had to own the album.

And there was another killer cut, “Juke Box Hero,” reminiscent of Bad Company’s “Shooting Star,” and I love Bad Company.

But the best cut on the LP, which I discovered in my house, not on the radio, was “Waiting For A Girl Like You.”

Now if you talked to Bud Prager, Foreigner’s manager, and I did, he believed the apotheosis was “I Want To Know What Love Is,” from “4”‘s follow-up, “Agent Provocateur,” but that LP missed Mutt, and I believed, and still do, that this was a play for the center, with its cheesy video, it might have gotten a lot of plays, but it eviscerated the band’s cred. This was before hair bands cut ballads for airplay, but still…who are you? A sellout?

But “Waiting For A Girl Like You” still fit in the band’s oeuvre. It was ethereal.

And its otherworldliness was its magic. A journey into orbit. Of the world, but somehow removed, just like a music fan. Our music was everything, it got us through.

And what put it over the top was Lou Gramm’s vocal, the way he went up in the chorus, he was WAITING!

Aren’t we all. For love, for our lives to begin.

So long, I’ve been looking too hard, I’ve been waiting too long
Sometimes I don’t know what I will find, I only know it’s a matter of time

The waiting is the hardest part. Back when there was no internet diversion, never mind in the palm of your hand. You had to waste time in bars, searching. But you still believed, there were no incels.

It feels so right, so warm and true, I need to know if you feel it too

He’s not overconfident, they’re in it together.

Maybe I’m wrong, won’t you tell me if I’m coming on too strong

He’s insecure, like we were, maybe still are.

This is the opposite of #MeToo. The bands may have raped and pillaged, but we listeners were lonely nerds, we just wanted someone to talk to us, to understand us, to give us a chance.

This heart of mine has been hurt before, this time I want to be sure

That’s what’s wrong with experience, it makes you gun-shy.

I’ve been waiting for someone new to make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you to come into my life

She’s gonna solve all my problems.

That’s what you believe when you’ve got more questions than answers, when you’re slogging through life, putting one foot in front of another trying to get…

Somewhere.

But then comes the key line:

Only in dreams could it be this way

Ain’t that the truth. Real life is messy. Perfection doesn’t exist. You have to forgive flaws. You’ve got to be willing to jump in and make it work.

Or you can sit at home and listen to records.

So I’m driving home late one night, twiddling the dial on that radio, looking for “Hold Me Now,” and I hear “Waiting For A Girl Like You.”

It gave me hope, I’ll never forget it.

Waiting For A Girl Like You – Spotify playlist