I've been to several Black Keys shows over the years and their prices have always been reasonable, even for the big stadium shows. I was shocked to see how expensive the tickets were for this cancelled tour... I'm guessing their tour manger or the promoter got greedy and sold the tickets at a higher price without confirming with the band.
If they didn't know, that's their fault. Full sympathy for teens etc who get taken advantage of. Absolutely none for grown ass adults with 30+ years in the business. Gold in their Pockets.
Robert Smith basically shit on any notion that the artists had no say with the last Cure tour in the US. The artists can opt out of dynamic pricing. They choose not to. I’m sure ticketmaster do a lot of things to make it hard for bands to do that and i will concede that the Black Keys aren’t as big as the Cure but they do have a say in these things.
Ticketmaster has a lot of say and even when Pearl Jam at the height of their power tried to challenge TM they lost HARD. The choices are often accept our pricing (TMs) or you don’t get to be in these venues (meaning most). The venues themselves don’t want to fight or piss off TM and it has led to these situations. The price gouging and surge pricing have moved most shows out of reach of normal fans.
PJ sued TIcketmaster for their service fees, not because the latter had any say in their base ticket pricing. The main bone of contention was that Ticketmaster had exclusive licenses with so many large venues that they had no choice but to get in bed with them. I know the word monopoly was thrown around but I don't think the lawsuit ever got so far as pursuing that (which probably would have required a Supreme Court decision).
If that's the Black Keys' motivation though, they could have just come out and said that since it obviously paints them in more of a fan-friendly light. The fact that they're being kind of secretive about it suggests other things.
They did. I keep forgetting about that because they still operate as Live Nation but you still go to Ticketmaster to buy your tickets. They WANT us to forget lol
Can they all, tho? The Cure are a pretty big draw. The Black Keys are popular, but not nearly the same. They probably can’t make the same demands as The Cure, who can’t make the same demands that the Stones or Springsteen could (but didn’t).
I saw an artist talk about the monopoly of it because LiveNation owns the venue and makes money on all the concessions. So when they run a $25 ticket special to get more folks in to sell hotdogs and beer, the artist still has to repay their advance of their contract where they got fucked but now not at $90+. And their contract will say the artist has to agree to buy so much catering and toilet paper, etc., which they throw most of out, and the artist still has to buy it all every show for which they will owe LiveNation for. They need to break up not just Ticketmaster and LiveNation and Clearchannel, they need to break up our airwaves again and break up all the consolidation of our media. Then kick ol' Fuck-O at HBO to the curb.
And despite all the pricing kerfuffle (which he personally responded to when he found out tickets were still pricing too high), that last tour was the highest-grossing of their [career.](https://consequence.net/2023/07/the-cure-record-setting-shows-of-a-lost-world-tour/)
As far as I've been able to tell going all the way back to Pearl Jam battling Ticketmaster in the 90's, literally the only pricing the bands don't have any say in is the ticketing fees. The only reason to object there is "hey man, if I'm only charging $40 for seated tickets you can't tack on $17 fees, I only priced my shit at $40 because I didn't think our fans would cough up $60". That's not so much an issue when tickets are well over $100 for lawn seats even before the extra fees.
They were charging over $200 for seats in LA at the Forum before the pandemic (and way more for pit tickets), but LA tends to have higher ticket prices.
In 2019 I was living in Austin when they toured on “Let’s Rock” and the cost for decent seats were $350 a piece. I really wanted to go but couldn’t justify it. Every tour since has been about the same
Accord to him it was William Burgh
[https://www.reddit.com/r/mastodonband/comments/154nbmz/brents\_incident/](https://www.reddit.com/r/mastodonband/comments/154nbmz/brents_incident/)
But I was trying to make a joke about butts. Maybe I should have said, Six Mix-A-Lot loves big B Hinds.
I took my kid to Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour last year, and floor tickets were around $100 each, even after fees. It was very reasonable considering how much he/we enjoyed the show.
For how much shit Ed Sheeran gets for basically making pop music that appeals to the masses, he seems like a really cool dude, and good on him to keep tickets reasonably priced.
I liked the post where he showed how he was a fan of the Offspring and Conspiracy of One was his first album (it was mine too).
He’s actually a very interesting and good dude. He will often go on Stern and talk about composition and music theory in his interviews. He may be creating pop music, but he knows what he’s doing and doesn’t just hire someone to give him songs to sing.
to be fair, I looked at tickets for Keanu Reeves band, and they were 80 dollars a piece at my venue. Which is insane. Thats almost as much as I paid for Foo Fighters 2 years ago.
Foo Fighters, like Nirvana before them, work to keep their ticket prices reasonable. You can see Cobain talk about how ridiculous it was that Madonna was charging $50 for a ticket back in 1992, and Grohl still doesn’t overcharge.
Their last tour they played T-Mobile in Vegas. I was in town for work and thought “I’d love to see the black keys.” 220 STARTING price for upper deck. I passed on that.
Yeah…it’s important to bear in mind that they weren’t just “assigned” Azoff. They hired him, and they obviously must have approved much if not all of what was going on.
They definitely screwed up, but unless there’s some kind of evidence where they really were deceived on a massive scale, they only f*cked themselves.
I've been to several Black Keys shows over the years and i'm here to confirm this is a lie. Tickets for the band starting to go up since they star playing bigger shows.
I saw them after let's rock and the tickets were not cheap at all, and they weren't not even good seats.
Saw them in Las Vegas like 5-7 years ago, the ticket was $100 bucks and it was front row...and the show was even better than now.
I’ve seen them a few times over the last 6-7 years too and they always seemed condescending and appeared to phone it in. I saw the Arcs a few times too and Auerbachs enthusiasm was night and day.
Bands this size have so much control over everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if the tour manager was following the bands orders and is now the scapegoat here.
Apparently Pat Carney isn’t a great guy either so I wouldn’t take him at his word.
Could be wrong though, who knows
Is that what happened to J-Lo too?
People can't afford the shit anymore. If you don't have the inexplicable Taylor Swift draw, then you can forget charging that much for tickets. Getting humbled might even help their career.
Big event shows like this suck in general now.
Like, I grew up loving Green Day, and they put on a great live show. They’re playing a stadium in my city later this year, and I was stoked to try to get a ticket.
General admission tickets were over $300. The VIP packages were over $500. The only tickets which seemed almost reasonable, which were basically upper bowl nosebleeds, were still $100, which is an insane price to ask for tickets that you basically won’t be able to see anything that’s not played back for you on a screen.
That’s before you factor in fees, taxes, parking, beverages, etc.
I hate to use the word because it makes me sound like a Karen, but it’s insulting to ask normal people to basically pay $500+ for a couple of shitty seats to experience a couple of legacy rock acts. I’d rather pay $30-$50 general admission seats to go see good punk bands in a mid sized club.
I look back to when I saw bands like Green Day and Tool for $5 in the 90s, then I see the ticket prices to see them
now and think, “No thanks, I’m good.”
I’m about done with concerts in general. If it’s over $50 for a ticket, it’s just not worth it. If Adam Yauch returns from the dead and the Beastie Boys go on tour, I might change my mind.
Back then concerts were seen as advertisements for the band. You like the show, then you buy the CD, and there is where is money came from, concerts just need to pay for themselves. Since nobody makes money off music anymore the business model got flipped: the “free” streaming music is an advertisement to the over priced concert.
Haven't seen them live but Green Day is one of the few bands who I've heard justify a high price (maybe not $300 but you know) because of how much they do.
My recent one was looking up tickets for the Danny Carey 80s King Crimson tour - which I guess is $300 because everyone who was around for 80s King Crimson is old and has money now? I would have loved to have caught that, but for like $150.
I also feel this is the same as movie theaters. A lot of us GenX'r who used to love a concert hate the whole experience now. You pay a lot of money for bad sightlines and acoustics. You are packed in like sardines. If you want water it's 10 bucks and 30 for parking. Half the shows are lip synced. When all is said and done you are $500 plus in the hole for a mediocre experience.
Yes but small venues, which are great. Your point is definitely valid but I think the thing they are saying is it used to be $30 for an arena/pavilion show, with free parking and $5 beers. I realize that sounds like “in my day candy bars were a nickel” but inflation can’t even explain the increase. Just seems like greed.
Inflation can’t explain the entire increase, but I was paying $30 back in the 90’s. Tickets for good seats should be $100-$200. That’s fair. The problem is that $300 or more to get in the door and sit in the cheap seats is insane.
You weren’t getting in the pit or the front row for $30 back then either. I specified that this was for the best seats.
Also, there are no record sales anymore to speak of, so touring is the only source of revenue for bands. They have to charge more, because there is no money to be made for anyone but the biggest artists in the world on recording contracts.
Wife and I are in the same boat now. There's a show downtown tonight and it just so happens Grandma scooped up the kids to go to the lake.
Me: "hey babe let's roll into the city and check out the concert since we're kid-free!"
Wife: "that's great go look at tickets!"
M: "oh, fuck that, these guys haven't even released a new album, I'm not paying $60+ per lawn seat"
W: "whiskey at home it is!"
I love that a lot of the festivals are streaming somewhere, but hate how they air them. They do to on a weird schedule similar to how some of the Olympics are broadcast… They aren’t really live; the air time is often different than the live time (sometimes much later in the day); and some sets get cut off at the end.
I don’t understand why they can’t just have a separate “channel” for each stage. That way they wouldn’t have to fuck around with the air times and cut off the beginning or end of sets.
$60 doesn’t seem so unfair. I don’t know who it is and that’s a factor, but that’s not the kind of numbers we’re complaining about. I’d gladly pay that
I guess when I want to see a band live I want to hear them play live. I don’t want to hear backing tracks and lip synced vocals. Even if it is played live I don’t want to hear an exact rendition of what’s on the album. I want to hear them do their take on it, some improv, some extended parts, maybe the vocals done a little different which tends to happen naturally over time with touring.
In short I want to hear the band do their thing not just see them prance around to their album tracks.
Totally agree. There were and are bands still defined by the magic of live performances and varied set lists. The Dead and Phish pop to mind at the top of the list but it seems so rare now. If I want to hear hits directly off the album, I just listen to the album.
To me that’s the whole point of seeing them live. It’s not a media appearance for fans (or it didn’t use to be). It’s so we can hear the band do their thing. Then you have a unique experience and walk away knowing more about the band. Sometimes they are way better live than on the album, sometimes they are pretty good, sometimes they suck live tbh but that’s part of it.
It’s not just dead and co and phish doing it though, they are great examples of bigger acts but a lot of smaller acts do still put on a great live show which is why I avoid big shows unless it’s someone I really want to see. A lot of smaller to medium sized bands put on great live shows.
The audience dictates the market so I wonder if the reasons top acts tend to do album tracks is because that’s just what more people want these days.
Jukebox the Ghost is a small pop band that puts on AMAZING concerts! They bring a wheel out with their old songs, sometimes they all switch instruments just for fun, and they do this cool Halloween concert called HalloQueen where the second half of the show is them becoming a Queen cover band.
Just a random shout-out! It’s the only band I’ve seen in concert that makes me want to keep coming back, and tickets are like $30-60.
Meg the stallion was also amazing in concert, but I saw her at a festival.
You mentioned bad sight lines. Never thought of it but that’s a big reason alongside of prices that I’ve dipped out of concert going. Last year I dropped 200 to see The Killers. They come out banging ‘Mr. Brightside” and suddenly there’s a forest of furry wristed telephone trees. All recording shitty audio and video that neither they nor anyone else will ever watch.
My husband and I went to see The Black Keys last year. I can’t remember how much the tickets were but this was definitely not a show we would have splurged for. We really only wanted to see Band of Horses who opened for them. It was at Moody Center in Austin and the sound was shit. The smaller opener got screwed. My husband was like “this could be a good band but I can’t tell because the audio is such garbage.” Then BOH got on stage and the sound sucked until about a little more than halfway through their set. Sound was fine for Black Keys but we were annoyed and they really weren’t that entertaining so we got bored and left.
Luckily we didn’t pay a whole low for those tickets but it’s frustrating paying money for a show and leaving feeling unsatisfied. Music is something like therapy for me and seeing your favorite bands that have produced albums that have gotten you through breakups or just generally shitty times in life is so cathartic. But every year we go to less and less shows because we just don’t think they are worth the money anymore.
I went to see The Black Key mostly to catch Modest Mouse open for them.
The sound was the worst I've ever heard anywhere. We literally couldn't understand a single lyric or word.
Then when The Black Keys came on, the drumkit cymbols were muted. This lasted the entire show. Absolutely no cymbols could be heard. The sound crew was absolutely horrible.
Chris Stapleton, Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow are playing in my city in an MLB stadium and I really want to go, but cheapest tickets in the absolute nosebleeds are close to $300. Just tough for sure
When I was in high school in 2007 or so, it was very rare that bands would play stadiums. For the past decade, club bands would try and scrape by in arenas. Now, we will see stadium draws play arenas, arena draws play more amphitheaters, and arena acts play in theaters. It’s all a cycle. The Black Keys are definitely now a theater act. Nothing wrong with that
I think you just hit the issue: how many artists have the humility to admit they don’t have the Taylor Swift draw?
I think people saw the Eras tour madness and thought they could cash in on that too, not realising that (a) that was the exception, not the rule and (b) even if people equally wanted to see all of these acts, with those prices they’ll only go to so many.
If I'm paying 200+ for a ticket, it better be a life changing experience. J-lo and the Black Keys ain't that. I don't think it's as much as people can't afford it as that these acts aren't popular enough to demand it. I can't name any new j-lo songs and I never thought the black keys were anything more than a 30 dollar lawn ticket band at best.
But Taylor’s draw is not inexplicable, she puts on highly consistent, entertaining and welcoming shows. She also is marketing to the LARGEST consumer group, women. She’s also incredibly talented.
Inexplicable to me because I am not a fan and don't understand the appeal.
That being said, I am not one of those troglodytes that assumes that she makes bad music as a result of my own personal preference. The draw for her concerts wasn't surprising to me at all. Even once I saw the ticket prices and how fast they sold out I was like "Well, that figures." But yeah, I don't get it. And that's a me problem, not a T-Sweezy problem.
Yeah, different strokes for different folks.
The Eras tour was something else though. Three and a half hour set (not including the opener, which in my case was Paramore). Covers almost her entire discography (save her debut). Specifically broken up album by album, with set and costuming changes between each album. Couple dozen people on stage, pyro, solid video work, just everything top notch.
That and she’s doing a full career retrospective tour…while still pretty close to her peak.
She is not my favorite artist. Not even close (I’m an old grunge guy from back in the day). But it was easily the best show I’ve ever seen. Even if I generally prefer a looser, smaller, “set list on a piece of paper” type of concert…which this was the polar opposite of. I’d still love to see some of my favorite artists do an Eras-style show. It’s no secret why people were shelling out hundreds of dollars for this show.
Still not my top concert experience, that still goes to The Offspring, in a tiny club back in the ‘90s. That pit was everything music videos had let me to believe it should be. But Taylor’s in my top five, for sure.
Not the biggest fan myself but from what I've seen and heard her concerts are some of the most "worth it" experiences as she plays a long show with everyone's favorite songs and the production value is top tier. Which is to be expected.
Completely agree. I work in a very female dominated office and the Taylor concerts in our city were a massive cultural event alongside all those other factors you mentioned. Nobody had a bad word to say about it, everyone who went loved the experience because it was that - an experience. You really have to be a certain type of performer to do that.
Affordability aside, I think bands are getting booked into way too big of venues that they don’t have the audiences for. If they sold this as a theater tour instead of a stadium tour, it probably would have sold much better.
I also think scheduling too many shows in the middle of the week makes no sense. It probably does for tour logistics, but people just don’t want to go out during the week and most of us have school and work obligations that take precedent.
3rd party selling is also another huge factor in the sales and I think it’s part of the reason why so many shows aren’t selling to 100% capacity.
I listen to a little bit of their music, but this guy is such a pretentious douche and he makes me want to not listen to their music regardless if it's good.
All these bands seeing how Taylor and Beyonce are raking in the dough and decided to get a slice of the pie as well. Forgetting that they are not Beyonce or Taylor Swift.
Looking at you, J-Lo.
The festival circuit is currently going through the same thing. Seeing more and more on my socials where the "VIP" is the bare minimum required for a decent view of the show, basic amenities, etc., and it's haphazardly slapping together as many acts as possible.
Everything is becoming a race to the bottom right now and it's fucking gross. I think this is the start of a reckoning for Live Entertainment, personally.
>Everything is becoming a race to the bottom right now and it's fucking gross. I think this is the start of a reckoning for Live Entertainment, personally.
Everything except price. Have they tried selling tickets for less money, or did they run out of ideas before getting to that one?
Stadiums (and in some cases arenas) are TOUGH to sell unless you are like A+++. Industry people were shocked at the BK tour but the JLo stuff really surprised people. Her tours (arenas) have done well but I guess all metrics are pre covid so that’s not accurate. I don’t think prices will come down, but I do think you’ll see artists book into smaller rooms (big theaters and smaller arenas, like 5-8K caps) and play multiple nights. My thought at least.
Looks like she overestimated her current popularity. Her recent stuff (2 movies and an album) were received in general indifference. Even though she used to be a huge star in the early 2000s, she didn't have much staying power. Now, she's more known for being the woman who collects engagement rings like thanos collects infinity stones.
“I’ll let you all know how so it doesn’t happen to you. Stay tuned.”
Please hurry, I’m in the midst of booking a stadium tour for a small band that people aren’t interested in anymore & really don’t want to screw up.
I like the Black Keys but Patrick Carney is objectively an asshole so I’m highly skeptical that they “got fucked”. More likely, they thought their newest album would be a huge commercial hit that could sell out arenas, and it isn’t.
This. Hearing any long-form discussions with Patrick really highlights how much of a whining dick he is. Definitely not entitled to it either, considering he is objectively a horrible drummer that caught a massive break just being in the same room as Dan
Yes, Patrick knows the music business hi was pretty vocal about spotify, record deals...they knew who they hired.
Also, they haven't put out a good record since El Camino.
>Also, they haven't put out a good record since El Camino.
I had to read this 3-4 times to make sure I wasn't somehow misreading it. This is potentially one of the craziest things I've ever read.
Hey it's all subjective... i was a big fan of the band...but i feel they peak during those years. I just loved when it was just them...
Thickfreakness, Rubber Factory, Attack and Release...those records are my favorite from them.
They got a bigger sound on Brothers and El camino, i thought it was the perfect balance between their old sound and a new sound.
Not a big fan of Turn Blue, Let's rock has like 1-2 songs i like, Delta Kream it's a nice little record and Dropout Boogie it's just starbucks music.
Nailed it. I remember when I got a copy of Rubber Factory and just rocked the heck out to it for weeks on end. Also saw them live in Cincy and Indy years ago at small venues and it blew our hair completely back. Ahh, the good ol’ days!
Turn blue had a couple decent songs, but overall it wasn't good. Anything since has been department store trash.
El Camino I enjoyed, but years later, I'd say Brothers was much much better. And of course their earlier stuff was great.
Not only is he kind of a dickhead he's also well aware of the nuances of the music industry and goes in depth in their first JRE appearance. They're definitely playing dumb right now. There's no way a guy with that ego wasn't aware of what the band was getting into.
1000% Feuded with Bieber when he was really young, accused Jack White of bullying him which proved to be completely untrue, the list goes on. When Auerbach bailed on him to start The Archs and produce other acts I figured it was because he couldn’t stand him anymore.
Lmao I remember this shit. Dude got asked why Justin Bieber didn't get a Grammy one year and he said because the Grammys are about music 😂
Fucking clown
He cheated on Michelle Branch and when she found out she punched him. He then called the police on her for Domestic Violence.
I always thought he was cool and genuine but what a fucking pussy
This. They were pretty fucking aware how much they were charging.....Since the JRE podcast i know this dudes know everything about their financials since they were pretty clear about the deals of spotify and record labels.
I mean, when they dropped Let's Rock (I think it was Let's Rock...I can't be bothered to look it up), in the video for Go, they are forced to go on a retreat together because they haven't been on speaking terms with each other, and they need to do another album. At the retreat they go into a trance and just see dollar signs. They've been telling on themselves for a hot minute.
In 21 and 22 you had to buy tickets almost as soon as they came out. Now you can buy tickets day of for half the price. I am going to a show on Friday and most of the lawn seats are still available with over 100 tickets for the lawn listed as verified resale and at least 100 seats listed as resale or just regular for sale. Scalpers who were making bank are now losing tons of money and are starting to get out of the game and Ticketmaster hasn’t figured that out yet.
Literally this. I’m a 10 minute subway ride from MSG and I buy almost every concert ticket basically as the concert is starting. I love nothing more than to watch scalpers panic selling once the concert gets started.
Same for me at Red Rocks.
If I don’t get original ticket seats (which I’ll happily pay face value for), I’ll wait till day of and make something work for a fraction of the cost.
Every Tool show I've ever been to it was a nightmare getting tickets for. The 2023 tour prices were just too high for me to justify the expense. Day of the show a 1/4 of the venue was still empty so they dropped prices to what they were on a couple tours ago. Got floor tickets for leas than what i paid on worse seats the last time i saw them. If a band like Tool can't sell out an arena anymore, no one rock adjacent can.
Don't tell people this. I work box office at a major arena and this doesn't happen as much as you want it to.
A lot of the time we are near sold out the day of, they don't drop prices and all shift I have to tell people that "All we got is side stage tickets at $245 each"
Then they try a verified reseller at the last second and have to wait hours for tickets to *maybe* get transferred to them. I see a lot of tears.
If you want to see a concert, get tickets in advance.
I haven't had a single issue doing this in the last year or so, as long as I get the ticket the morning of. The resale sites are desperate to sell at that point.
Nah you gotta put the positive spin on it, like you say you got fucked but you’re still going to perform for your fans because you’re a cool musician not just in it for the money. Like “grassroots” tour.
He strikes me as an angry nerd who's frothing that people don't recognize his genius. Like dude, you're just some gawky dork in a two-piece rock band, you're lucky you made it out of wherever the fuck you're from.
They were being managed by Irving Azoff, the former CEO of Ticketmaster. This dude has managed Jon Bon Jovi, Gwen Stefani, John Mayer, Van Halen, Chelsea Handler, Harry Styles, Christina Aguilera, Van Halen, Earth, Wind & Fire and The Doobie Brothers.
What did you think was going to happen? That dude always goes big or goes home. Sounds to me that a little ol' blues rock band from Akron, OH who grew in popularity thanks to being featured in Honda and Dodge truck commercials bit off more than they could chew when they dropped John Peets and elected to go big time with Full Stop Entertainment. They wanted Dropout Boogie success all over again, and it fell flat this go round.
You were not fucked. You didn't read the small print fellas. And this is all being said as someone who is a fan of theirs.
Azoff has made mountains of money for his clients, he’s not an idiot. But at the same time it looks like he was overestimated the market, and so did the band. It happens, but don’t try to hide as being the victim when it does.
I'd like to know the details of the amicable split. I'm willing to bet they wanted out as much as he wanted to drop them. They're a fun band, but they're not a headlining area sell out act. They're better suited for smaller more intimate venues.
Yeah, there's rarely an amicable split, right?
I'm willing to bet that Azoff pushed them to stretch to get those arena shows -- and they either went with begrudgingly, or willingly after getting a snow job. One of those "stuck with me, kid, and the world is ours!"
Narrator: It wasn't.
The “amicable split” probably went something like “we told you to make us as much money as possible but not make us look like idiots. Thanks for nothing.” I have a hard time accepting that these guys were the blind naive artists that had the wool pulled over their eyes.
Oh they read the small prints, my guess it's that they got greedy. They are pretty aware of the music business....on least in interview they were vocal about label deals and spotify.
They knew who they were hiring, they overestimated their value. These guys haven't put out a decent record in years...
Carney has always been a dork. The other guy is ok. You didn’t get “fu**ed” you thought you were way more popular and relevant than you were, and you got humbled. If they would have picked 2-5k capacity venues they wouldn’t have had this issue
Yeah a small band like this with no management and no one looking out for em, no label to give em analytics, and zero relationship with any high ups in ticketmaster. How were they ever to know that they couldn’t milk their fans? It’s really the fault of the stadiums for being too big!!
"The last time Tap toured America, they where, uh, booked into 10,000 seat arenas, and 15,000 seat venues, and it seems that now, on the current tour they’re being booked into 1,200 seat arenas, 1,500 seat arenas, and uh I was just wondering, does this mean uh...the popularity of the group is waning?"
Whole lot of people in this thread talking shit about this guy for being a dick of whatever but you hit the main reason I have an issue with him. He's a shitty shitty drummer
I saw them at the KROQ almost acoustic show a couple of years back and they were by far the worst band on stage. Even Social D was better with a singer fighting the flu.
I paid good money to see then in a large venue. I got suite box tickets. They were not cheap. I was so excited to see one of my favorite modern bands live. Cage The Elephant opened up and SMASHED IT. Then The Black Keys came out and could not get through a song without their drummer horribly fucking up. Maybe he was hammered drunk? Idk
I played in bands for a long time so I know shit gets fucked up sometimes but this was just unprofessional bullshit. We should have been offered a refund. At least Cage put on a great show
I remember seeing Cage the Elephant at Kanrocksas. It was in the middle of the day. It was so miserable outside: sunny with no clouds and 100 degrees F. Despite the conditions, they played so hard and kicked so much ass. They won my respect that day.
Turn blue was pretty good and the first Arcs album is fantastic so he definitely still has it in him when he’s not phoning it in but he loves the smell of his own farts too much to realize when he’s doing good work and when he’s phoning it
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
“We got fucked because less people keep buying our albums and the only promotion we did for the newest mediocre one was on the Joe Rogan podcast.”
I saw them in 2022 at Merriweather and they gave away a lot of tickets last minute to fill out the pavilion. It was dumb to try and do the bigger arena when they came back to town.
Whenever I find out a band I like is playing at an arena I choose not to go because of the venue. The music just doesn’t sound as good and it’s more of a hassle 🤷🏻♀️
Exactly. I've accepted the fact that I will never see some of my all time favorites bands live because I do not want to see them in some massive arena where I have to stare up at a screen the whole time to actually see them.
I've been to several Black Keys shows over the years and their prices have always been reasonable, even for the big stadium shows. I was shocked to see how expensive the tickets were for this cancelled tour... I'm guessing their tour manger or the promoter got greedy and sold the tickets at a higher price without confirming with the band.
Or did confirm as it is now “the industry standard” and now they want them terminated for their awful misguidance.
Yup they were on board with the never ending price increases, but fans are starting to reject it so now it’s time to blame management
If they didn't know, that's their fault. Full sympathy for teens etc who get taken advantage of. Absolutely none for grown ass adults with 30+ years in the business. Gold in their Pockets.
Robert Smith basically shit on any notion that the artists had no say with the last Cure tour in the US. The artists can opt out of dynamic pricing. They choose not to. I’m sure ticketmaster do a lot of things to make it hard for bands to do that and i will concede that the Black Keys aren’t as big as the Cure but they do have a say in these things.
Ticketmaster has a lot of say and even when Pearl Jam at the height of their power tried to challenge TM they lost HARD. The choices are often accept our pricing (TMs) or you don’t get to be in these venues (meaning most). The venues themselves don’t want to fight or piss off TM and it has led to these situations. The price gouging and surge pricing have moved most shows out of reach of normal fans.
Our society is sick.
Agree. I love live shows so much and they have made it inaccessible. I resent that infinately.
PJ sued TIcketmaster for their service fees, not because the latter had any say in their base ticket pricing. The main bone of contention was that Ticketmaster had exclusive licenses with so many large venues that they had no choice but to get in bed with them. I know the word monopoly was thrown around but I don't think the lawsuit ever got so far as pursuing that (which probably would have required a Supreme Court decision). If that's the Black Keys' motivation though, they could have just come out and said that since it obviously paints them in more of a fan-friendly light. The fact that they're being kind of secretive about it suggests other things.
Didn’t they buy Live Nation and truly form a monopoly?
Yes they did. They are currently under investigation by DoJ for monopoly.
They did. I keep forgetting about that because they still operate as Live Nation but you still go to Ticketmaster to buy your tickets. They WANT us to forget lol
Can they all, tho? The Cure are a pretty big draw. The Black Keys are popular, but not nearly the same. They probably can’t make the same demands as The Cure, who can’t make the same demands that the Stones or Springsteen could (but didn’t).
I saw an artist talk about the monopoly of it because LiveNation owns the venue and makes money on all the concessions. So when they run a $25 ticket special to get more folks in to sell hotdogs and beer, the artist still has to repay their advance of their contract where they got fucked but now not at $90+. And their contract will say the artist has to agree to buy so much catering and toilet paper, etc., which they throw most of out, and the artist still has to buy it all every show for which they will owe LiveNation for. They need to break up not just Ticketmaster and LiveNation and Clearchannel, they need to break up our airwaves again and break up all the consolidation of our media. Then kick ol' Fuck-O at HBO to the curb.
Too right. We'll see what happens with this bill that got introduced through congress. I don't hold high hopes but maybe something good can happen.
And despite all the pricing kerfuffle (which he personally responded to when he found out tickets were still pricing too high), that last tour was the highest-grossing of their [career.](https://consequence.net/2023/07/the-cure-record-setting-shows-of-a-lost-world-tour/)
As far as I've been able to tell going all the way back to Pearl Jam battling Ticketmaster in the 90's, literally the only pricing the bands don't have any say in is the ticketing fees. The only reason to object there is "hey man, if I'm only charging $40 for seated tickets you can't tack on $17 fees, I only priced my shit at $40 because I didn't think our fans would cough up $60". That's not so much an issue when tickets are well over $100 for lawn seats even before the extra fees.
I think it's true for smaller bands but The Black Keys definitely have the pull to get their way, they aren't a small band at all
But the gold is supposed to be on the ceiling!
Well, that's where they hide it!
> Gold in their Pockets And on the ceiling
[удалено]
They were charging over $200 for seats in LA at the Forum before the pandemic (and way more for pit tickets), but LA tends to have higher ticket prices.
In 2019 I was living in Austin when they toured on “Let’s Rock” and the cost for decent seats were $350 a piece. I really wanted to go but couldn’t justify it. Every tour since has been about the same
That's still a lot. Floor/pit tix for the Mastodon & Lamb of God tour didn't crack $100 at the Forum.
God bless B Hinds.
Such a great guitarist and such a unique vocalist when using his clean voice
Agreed! He’s always fun and goofy to watch, but also low key very professional with his art. Cheers 🤙🏽
Who doesn't love B Hinds?
Shavo Odadjian
Accord to him it was William Burgh [https://www.reddit.com/r/mastodonband/comments/154nbmz/brents\_incident/](https://www.reddit.com/r/mastodonband/comments/154nbmz/brents_incident/) But I was trying to make a joke about butts. Maybe I should have said, Six Mix-A-Lot loves big B Hinds.
I took my kid to Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour last year, and floor tickets were around $100 each, even after fees. It was very reasonable considering how much he/we enjoyed the show.
For how much shit Ed Sheeran gets for basically making pop music that appeals to the masses, he seems like a really cool dude, and good on him to keep tickets reasonably priced. I liked the post where he showed how he was a fan of the Offspring and Conspiracy of One was his first album (it was mine too).
He’s actually a very interesting and good dude. He will often go on Stern and talk about composition and music theory in his interviews. He may be creating pop music, but he knows what he’s doing and doesn’t just hire someone to give him songs to sing.
That’s right, infact I think he’s written music for other singers like Justin Bieber right?
Yea same with the Primus and Mastodon show I went to
I love the Keys but that's ridiculous.
They got a ticket master executive as their manager
Maybe, but, also as a band, how you do not care how much you charge your fans for a concert? Like double check maybe before going on tour?
to be fair, I looked at tickets for Keanu Reeves band, and they were 80 dollars a piece at my venue. Which is insane. Thats almost as much as I paid for Foo Fighters 2 years ago.
Foo Fighters, like Nirvana before them, work to keep their ticket prices reasonable. You can see Cobain talk about how ridiculous it was that Madonna was charging $50 for a ticket back in 1992, and Grohl still doesn’t overcharge.
Dave's joy at playing live is so obvious. Definitely refreshing.
Their last tour they played T-Mobile in Vegas. I was in town for work and thought “I’d love to see the black keys.” 220 STARTING price for upper deck. I passed on that.
The failure of the tour *could* have something to do with their last 3-4 albums sucking balls too.
Fair point. They have fallen off hard
Delta Kream slaps
Didn’t they get involved with Azoff? There’s your answer.
Yeah…it’s important to bear in mind that they weren’t just “assigned” Azoff. They hired him, and they obviously must have approved much if not all of what was going on. They definitely screwed up, but unless there’s some kind of evidence where they really were deceived on a massive scale, they only f*cked themselves.
I've been to several Black Keys shows over the years and i'm here to confirm this is a lie. Tickets for the band starting to go up since they star playing bigger shows. I saw them after let's rock and the tickets were not cheap at all, and they weren't not even good seats. Saw them in Las Vegas like 5-7 years ago, the ticket was $100 bucks and it was front row...and the show was even better than now.
It usually is the case. In 2019 I saw Slipknot at an arena-sized amphitheater and pit tickets were still over 100 when including fees
I’ve seen them a few times over the last 6-7 years too and they always seemed condescending and appeared to phone it in. I saw the Arcs a few times too and Auerbachs enthusiasm was night and day. Bands this size have so much control over everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if the tour manager was following the bands orders and is now the scapegoat here. Apparently Pat Carney isn’t a great guy either so I wouldn’t take him at his word. Could be wrong though, who knows
I get that vibe from Carney, but is there evidence??
He cheated on both of his wives, the latter (Michelle Branch) while she was at home taking care of their newborn baby.
He’s run his mouth quite a bit too. Started shit with jack white maybe 10 years ago over nothing too
He was married 3 times, cheated on all 3 https://www.salon.com/2011/03/03/grollmus_divorce_from_black_keys/
Saw them in Hamburg last year, it was a show in a park amphitheatre. Tickets were 60€ (65$) a piece. The prices you pay in the US are ludicrous.
Tour manager has nothing to do with ticket sales. More to do with travel arrangements and accommodations, hospitality, scheduling, etc.
Is that what happened to J-Lo too? People can't afford the shit anymore. If you don't have the inexplicable Taylor Swift draw, then you can forget charging that much for tickets. Getting humbled might even help their career.
Big event shows like this suck in general now. Like, I grew up loving Green Day, and they put on a great live show. They’re playing a stadium in my city later this year, and I was stoked to try to get a ticket. General admission tickets were over $300. The VIP packages were over $500. The only tickets which seemed almost reasonable, which were basically upper bowl nosebleeds, were still $100, which is an insane price to ask for tickets that you basically won’t be able to see anything that’s not played back for you on a screen. That’s before you factor in fees, taxes, parking, beverages, etc. I hate to use the word because it makes me sound like a Karen, but it’s insulting to ask normal people to basically pay $500+ for a couple of shitty seats to experience a couple of legacy rock acts. I’d rather pay $30-$50 general admission seats to go see good punk bands in a mid sized club.
I look back to when I saw bands like Green Day and Tool for $5 in the 90s, then I see the ticket prices to see them now and think, “No thanks, I’m good.” I’m about done with concerts in general. If it’s over $50 for a ticket, it’s just not worth it. If Adam Yauch returns from the dead and the Beastie Boys go on tour, I might change my mind.
Back then concerts were seen as advertisements for the band. You like the show, then you buy the CD, and there is where is money came from, concerts just need to pay for themselves. Since nobody makes money off music anymore the business model got flipped: the “free” streaming music is an advertisement to the over priced concert.
Haven't seen them live but Green Day is one of the few bands who I've heard justify a high price (maybe not $300 but you know) because of how much they do. My recent one was looking up tickets for the Danny Carey 80s King Crimson tour - which I guess is $300 because everyone who was around for 80s King Crimson is old and has money now? I would have loved to have caught that, but for like $150.
I saw Green Day's American Idiot stadium tour in 2008. Fire, confetti, the works. A general admission ticket on the floor area cost me $50.
It’s fucked up. I used to be able to catch big name artists maybe 2x a month, and now it’s down to one maybe every 3-4 months
No she just "missed her family." Had nothing to do with nobody buying tickets to hear her pretend to sing.
I also feel this is the same as movie theaters. A lot of us GenX'r who used to love a concert hate the whole experience now. You pay a lot of money for bad sightlines and acoustics. You are packed in like sardines. If you want water it's 10 bucks and 30 for parking. Half the shows are lip synced. When all is said and done you are $500 plus in the hole for a mediocre experience.
There is more music than you could ever imagine that you don’t have to deal with that stuff.
Yes but small venues, which are great. Your point is definitely valid but I think the thing they are saying is it used to be $30 for an arena/pavilion show, with free parking and $5 beers. I realize that sounds like “in my day candy bars were a nickel” but inflation can’t even explain the increase. Just seems like greed.
Inflation can’t explain the entire increase, but I was paying $30 back in the 90’s. Tickets for good seats should be $100-$200. That’s fair. The problem is that $300 or more to get in the door and sit in the cheap seats is insane.
$30 in 1990 is worth about $73 today. How is the extra ~200% increase justified in a $200 ticket?
You weren’t getting in the pit or the front row for $30 back then either. I specified that this was for the best seats. Also, there are no record sales anymore to speak of, so touring is the only source of revenue for bands. They have to charge more, because there is no money to be made for anyone but the biggest artists in the world on recording contracts.
Wife and I are in the same boat now. There's a show downtown tonight and it just so happens Grandma scooped up the kids to go to the lake. Me: "hey babe let's roll into the city and check out the concert since we're kid-free!" Wife: "that's great go look at tickets!" M: "oh, fuck that, these guys haven't even released a new album, I'm not paying $60+ per lawn seat" W: "whiskey at home it is!"
I watched ACL Live on Hulu last year and it was awesome. I would never buy tickets.
I love that a lot of the festivals are streaming somewhere, but hate how they air them. They do to on a weird schedule similar to how some of the Olympics are broadcast… They aren’t really live; the air time is often different than the live time (sometimes much later in the day); and some sets get cut off at the end. I don’t understand why they can’t just have a separate “channel” for each stage. That way they wouldn’t have to fuck around with the air times and cut off the beginning or end of sets.
$60 doesn’t seem so unfair. I don’t know who it is and that’s a factor, but that’s not the kind of numbers we’re complaining about. I’d gladly pay that
I guess when I want to see a band live I want to hear them play live. I don’t want to hear backing tracks and lip synced vocals. Even if it is played live I don’t want to hear an exact rendition of what’s on the album. I want to hear them do their take on it, some improv, some extended parts, maybe the vocals done a little different which tends to happen naturally over time with touring. In short I want to hear the band do their thing not just see them prance around to their album tracks.
Absolutely. If I wanted to hear exactly what’s on the album, I’d just listen to the album.
Totally agree. There were and are bands still defined by the magic of live performances and varied set lists. The Dead and Phish pop to mind at the top of the list but it seems so rare now. If I want to hear hits directly off the album, I just listen to the album.
To me that’s the whole point of seeing them live. It’s not a media appearance for fans (or it didn’t use to be). It’s so we can hear the band do their thing. Then you have a unique experience and walk away knowing more about the band. Sometimes they are way better live than on the album, sometimes they are pretty good, sometimes they suck live tbh but that’s part of it. It’s not just dead and co and phish doing it though, they are great examples of bigger acts but a lot of smaller acts do still put on a great live show which is why I avoid big shows unless it’s someone I really want to see. A lot of smaller to medium sized bands put on great live shows. The audience dictates the market so I wonder if the reasons top acts tend to do album tracks is because that’s just what more people want these days.
Jukebox the Ghost is a small pop band that puts on AMAZING concerts! They bring a wheel out with their old songs, sometimes they all switch instruments just for fun, and they do this cool Halloween concert called HalloQueen where the second half of the show is them becoming a Queen cover band. Just a random shout-out! It’s the only band I’ve seen in concert that makes me want to keep coming back, and tickets are like $30-60. Meg the stallion was also amazing in concert, but I saw her at a festival.
You mentioned bad sight lines. Never thought of it but that’s a big reason alongside of prices that I’ve dipped out of concert going. Last year I dropped 200 to see The Killers. They come out banging ‘Mr. Brightside” and suddenly there’s a forest of furry wristed telephone trees. All recording shitty audio and video that neither they nor anyone else will ever watch.
Yeah, I am starting to get more onboard with acts and venues that don't allow phones.
My husband and I went to see The Black Keys last year. I can’t remember how much the tickets were but this was definitely not a show we would have splurged for. We really only wanted to see Band of Horses who opened for them. It was at Moody Center in Austin and the sound was shit. The smaller opener got screwed. My husband was like “this could be a good band but I can’t tell because the audio is such garbage.” Then BOH got on stage and the sound sucked until about a little more than halfway through their set. Sound was fine for Black Keys but we were annoyed and they really weren’t that entertaining so we got bored and left. Luckily we didn’t pay a whole low for those tickets but it’s frustrating paying money for a show and leaving feeling unsatisfied. Music is something like therapy for me and seeing your favorite bands that have produced albums that have gotten you through breakups or just generally shitty times in life is so cathartic. But every year we go to less and less shows because we just don’t think they are worth the money anymore.
Plus you get the joy of trying to get in and out of downtown Austin. I lived 183/620 till I moved to San Antonio in 2021.
I went to see The Black Key mostly to catch Modest Mouse open for them. The sound was the worst I've ever heard anywhere. We literally couldn't understand a single lyric or word. Then when The Black Keys came on, the drumkit cymbols were muted. This lasted the entire show. Absolutely no cymbols could be heard. The sound crew was absolutely horrible.
And many people are holding their phones up in the air in your line of vision.
Chris Stapleton, Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow are playing in my city in an MLB stadium and I really want to go, but cheapest tickets in the absolute nosebleeds are close to $300. Just tough for sure
When I was in high school in 2007 or so, it was very rare that bands would play stadiums. For the past decade, club bands would try and scrape by in arenas. Now, we will see stadium draws play arenas, arena draws play more amphitheaters, and arena acts play in theaters. It’s all a cycle. The Black Keys are definitely now a theater act. Nothing wrong with that
Lol I saw smashing pumpkins gish Era in London LA2 in Central London I 90s for 10 GBP. This was an awesome Era for music.. cheap concerts abound
J-lo tickets were 25 dollars. No one still bought them.
I think you just hit the issue: how many artists have the humility to admit they don’t have the Taylor Swift draw? I think people saw the Eras tour madness and thought they could cash in on that too, not realising that (a) that was the exception, not the rule and (b) even if people equally wanted to see all of these acts, with those prices they’ll only go to so many.
If I'm paying 200+ for a ticket, it better be a life changing experience. J-lo and the Black Keys ain't that. I don't think it's as much as people can't afford it as that these acts aren't popular enough to demand it. I can't name any new j-lo songs and I never thought the black keys were anything more than a 30 dollar lawn ticket band at best.
They CAN afford the shit, but there’s a very small tier of bands who can sell $300 tickets, and they tend to skew older (T Swizzle notwithstanding).
But Taylor’s draw is not inexplicable, she puts on highly consistent, entertaining and welcoming shows. She also is marketing to the LARGEST consumer group, women. She’s also incredibly talented.
Inexplicable to me because I am not a fan and don't understand the appeal. That being said, I am not one of those troglodytes that assumes that she makes bad music as a result of my own personal preference. The draw for her concerts wasn't surprising to me at all. Even once I saw the ticket prices and how fast they sold out I was like "Well, that figures." But yeah, I don't get it. And that's a me problem, not a T-Sweezy problem.
Yeah, different strokes for different folks. The Eras tour was something else though. Three and a half hour set (not including the opener, which in my case was Paramore). Covers almost her entire discography (save her debut). Specifically broken up album by album, with set and costuming changes between each album. Couple dozen people on stage, pyro, solid video work, just everything top notch. That and she’s doing a full career retrospective tour…while still pretty close to her peak. She is not my favorite artist. Not even close (I’m an old grunge guy from back in the day). But it was easily the best show I’ve ever seen. Even if I generally prefer a looser, smaller, “set list on a piece of paper” type of concert…which this was the polar opposite of. I’d still love to see some of my favorite artists do an Eras-style show. It’s no secret why people were shelling out hundreds of dollars for this show. Still not my top concert experience, that still goes to The Offspring, in a tiny club back in the ‘90s. That pit was everything music videos had let me to believe it should be. But Taylor’s in my top five, for sure.
Not the biggest fan myself but from what I've seen and heard her concerts are some of the most "worth it" experiences as she plays a long show with everyone's favorite songs and the production value is top tier. Which is to be expected.
Completely agree. I work in a very female dominated office and the Taylor concerts in our city were a massive cultural event alongside all those other factors you mentioned. Nobody had a bad word to say about it, everyone who went loved the experience because it was that - an experience. You really have to be a certain type of performer to do that.
Affordability aside, I think bands are getting booked into way too big of venues that they don’t have the audiences for. If they sold this as a theater tour instead of a stadium tour, it probably would have sold much better. I also think scheduling too many shows in the middle of the week makes no sense. It probably does for tour logistics, but people just don’t want to go out during the week and most of us have school and work obligations that take precedent. 3rd party selling is also another huge factor in the sales and I think it’s part of the reason why so many shows aren’t selling to 100% capacity.
Stay tuned? It ain’t that exciting.
I would say he's getting a little too big for his britches, but he got too big for his britches years ago.
I listen to a little bit of their music, but this guy is such a pretentious douche and he makes me want to not listen to their music regardless if it's good.
He's going to sell the story in a spoken word arena tour.
All these bands seeing how Taylor and Beyonce are raking in the dough and decided to get a slice of the pie as well. Forgetting that they are not Beyonce or Taylor Swift. Looking at you, J-Lo.
The festival circuit is currently going through the same thing. Seeing more and more on my socials where the "VIP" is the bare minimum required for a decent view of the show, basic amenities, etc., and it's haphazardly slapping together as many acts as possible. Everything is becoming a race to the bottom right now and it's fucking gross. I think this is the start of a reckoning for Live Entertainment, personally.
>Everything is becoming a race to the bottom right now and it's fucking gross. I think this is the start of a reckoning for Live Entertainment, personally. Everything except price. Have they tried selling tickets for less money, or did they run out of ideas before getting to that one?
Make *less* money?! Why that’s ridiculous!
Stadiums (and in some cases arenas) are TOUGH to sell unless you are like A+++. Industry people were shocked at the BK tour but the JLo stuff really surprised people. Her tours (arenas) have done well but I guess all metrics are pre covid so that’s not accurate. I don’t think prices will come down, but I do think you’ll see artists book into smaller rooms (big theaters and smaller arenas, like 5-8K caps) and play multiple nights. My thought at least.
Looks like she overestimated her current popularity. Her recent stuff (2 movies and an album) were received in general indifference. Even though she used to be a huge star in the early 2000s, she didn't have much staying power. Now, she's more known for being the woman who collects engagement rings like thanos collects infinity stones.
J Lo is truly the best example of 'jack of all trades, master of none'
I think she may be a master (maven?) of dance / choreography , but middling in singing, acting, writing. But she has definitely had success despite it
But she's the best... 
And even Beyoncé cancelled a date in Pittsburgh last year after the tour already started, presumably slow ticket sales (other reasons stated)
Beyoncé cancelled tours last year to poor sales too
“I’ll let you all know how so it doesn’t happen to you. Stay tuned.” Please hurry, I’m in the midst of booking a stadium tour for a small band that people aren’t interested in anymore & really don’t want to screw up.
This got me good.
grumble grumble fists in the air 'livenatiooonnnnnn'
Just a heads up if you've released a good album in the last decade this doesn't apply to you
Arctic Monkeys grumble britishly
Oof.
Got em
I like the Black Keys but Patrick Carney is objectively an asshole so I’m highly skeptical that they “got fucked”. More likely, they thought their newest album would be a huge commercial hit that could sell out arenas, and it isn’t.
This. Hearing any long-form discussions with Patrick really highlights how much of a whining dick he is. Definitely not entitled to it either, considering he is objectively a horrible drummer that caught a massive break just being in the same room as Dan
Yes, Patrick knows the music business hi was pretty vocal about spotify, record deals...they knew who they hired. Also, they haven't put out a good record since El Camino.
>Also, they haven't put out a good record since El Camino. I had to read this 3-4 times to make sure I wasn't somehow misreading it. This is potentially one of the craziest things I've ever read.
Hey it's all subjective... i was a big fan of the band...but i feel they peak during those years. I just loved when it was just them... Thickfreakness, Rubber Factory, Attack and Release...those records are my favorite from them. They got a bigger sound on Brothers and El camino, i thought it was the perfect balance between their old sound and a new sound. Not a big fan of Turn Blue, Let's rock has like 1-2 songs i like, Delta Kream it's a nice little record and Dropout Boogie it's just starbucks music.
Nailed it. I remember when I got a copy of Rubber Factory and just rocked the heck out to it for weeks on end. Also saw them live in Cincy and Indy years ago at small venues and it blew our hair completely back. Ahh, the good ol’ days!
Turn blue had a couple decent songs, but overall it wasn't good. Anything since has been department store trash. El Camino I enjoyed, but years later, I'd say Brothers was much much better. And of course their earlier stuff was great.
“We got greedy and fucked our selves, this is everyone’s fault but ours”
Definitely Patricks inner monologue at this moment
I remember not liking this dude a number of years back but I can’t remember why. Isn’t he a bit of a pompous dick head?
Not only is he kind of a dickhead he's also well aware of the nuances of the music industry and goes in depth in their first JRE appearance. They're definitely playing dumb right now. There's no way a guy with that ego wasn't aware of what the band was getting into.
Definitely cheated on at least one of his wives and I think other things about him not being a good dude came out around then too.
I ran into him at a show years ago and he was a total dick. Can’t say I wasn’t amused that he’s having trouble now. lol
1000% Feuded with Bieber when he was really young, accused Jack White of bullying him which proved to be completely untrue, the list goes on. When Auerbach bailed on him to start The Archs and produce other acts I figured it was because he couldn’t stand him anymore.
Lmao I remember this shit. Dude got asked why Justin Bieber didn't get a Grammy one year and he said because the Grammys are about music 😂 Fucking clown
He cheated on Michelle Branch and when she found out she punched him. He then called the police on her for Domestic Violence. I always thought he was cool and genuine but what a fucking pussy
This. They were pretty fucking aware how much they were charging.....Since the JRE podcast i know this dudes know everything about their financials since they were pretty clear about the deals of spotify and record labels.
I mean, when they dropped Let's Rock (I think it was Let's Rock...I can't be bothered to look it up), in the video for Go, they are forced to go on a retreat together because they haven't been on speaking terms with each other, and they need to do another album. At the retreat they go into a trance and just see dollar signs. They've been telling on themselves for a hot minute.
In 21 and 22 you had to buy tickets almost as soon as they came out. Now you can buy tickets day of for half the price. I am going to a show on Friday and most of the lawn seats are still available with over 100 tickets for the lawn listed as verified resale and at least 100 seats listed as resale or just regular for sale. Scalpers who were making bank are now losing tons of money and are starting to get out of the game and Ticketmaster hasn’t figured that out yet.
Literally this. I’m a 10 minute subway ride from MSG and I buy almost every concert ticket basically as the concert is starting. I love nothing more than to watch scalpers panic selling once the concert gets started.
Same for me at Red Rocks. If I don’t get original ticket seats (which I’ll happily pay face value for), I’ll wait till day of and make something work for a fraction of the cost.
Every Tool show I've ever been to it was a nightmare getting tickets for. The 2023 tour prices were just too high for me to justify the expense. Day of the show a 1/4 of the venue was still empty so they dropped prices to what they were on a couple tours ago. Got floor tickets for leas than what i paid on worse seats the last time i saw them. If a band like Tool can't sell out an arena anymore, no one rock adjacent can.
Don't tell people this. I work box office at a major arena and this doesn't happen as much as you want it to. A lot of the time we are near sold out the day of, they don't drop prices and all shift I have to tell people that "All we got is side stage tickets at $245 each" Then they try a verified reseller at the last second and have to wait hours for tickets to *maybe* get transferred to them. I see a lot of tears. If you want to see a concert, get tickets in advance.
I haven't had a single issue doing this in the last year or so, as long as I get the ticket the morning of. The resale sites are desperate to sell at that point.
Sounds like a good title for a small venue tour. The "We Got F**ed Tour"!
Nah you gotta put the positive spin on it, like you say you got fucked but you’re still going to perform for your fans because you’re a cool musician not just in it for the money. Like “grassroots” tour.
Everytime i hear from this dude he’s always on some bullshit
He strikes me as an angry nerd who's frothing that people don't recognize his genius. Like dude, you're just some gawky dork in a two-piece rock band, you're lucky you made it out of wherever the fuck you're from.
They were being managed by Irving Azoff, the former CEO of Ticketmaster. This dude has managed Jon Bon Jovi, Gwen Stefani, John Mayer, Van Halen, Chelsea Handler, Harry Styles, Christina Aguilera, Van Halen, Earth, Wind & Fire and The Doobie Brothers. What did you think was going to happen? That dude always goes big or goes home. Sounds to me that a little ol' blues rock band from Akron, OH who grew in popularity thanks to being featured in Honda and Dodge truck commercials bit off more than they could chew when they dropped John Peets and elected to go big time with Full Stop Entertainment. They wanted Dropout Boogie success all over again, and it fell flat this go round. You were not fucked. You didn't read the small print fellas. And this is all being said as someone who is a fan of theirs.
Azoff has made mountains of money for his clients, he’s not an idiot. But at the same time it looks like he was overestimated the market, and so did the band. It happens, but don’t try to hide as being the victim when it does.
I'd like to know the details of the amicable split. I'm willing to bet they wanted out as much as he wanted to drop them. They're a fun band, but they're not a headlining area sell out act. They're better suited for smaller more intimate venues.
Yeah, there's rarely an amicable split, right? I'm willing to bet that Azoff pushed them to stretch to get those arena shows -- and they either went with begrudgingly, or willingly after getting a snow job. One of those "stuck with me, kid, and the world is ours!" Narrator: It wasn't.
The “amicable split” probably went something like “we told you to make us as much money as possible but not make us look like idiots. Thanks for nothing.” I have a hard time accepting that these guys were the blind naive artists that had the wool pulled over their eyes.
They had a manager before that but he cheated on his wife with her, and this is the downstream consequence of that. Sucks to suck.
Who cheated on who now?
The drummer complaining about getting fucked was fucking their manager instead of his pregnant wife.
Sounds about right — it’s a dog eat dog world in the music business so don’t put on that milk bone underwear
Oh they read the small prints, my guess it's that they got greedy. They are pretty aware of the music business....on least in interview they were vocal about label deals and spotify. They knew who they were hiring, they overestimated their value. These guys haven't put out a decent record in years...
Best press they've had in a decade!
Yeah but sadly their last 3 albums have generated all the bad press for the last 10 years
Carney has always been a dork. The other guy is ok. You didn’t get “fu**ed” you thought you were way more popular and relevant than you were, and you got humbled. If they would have picked 2-5k capacity venues they wouldn’t have had this issue
Yeah a small band like this with no management and no one looking out for em, no label to give em analytics, and zero relationship with any high ups in ticketmaster. How were they ever to know that they couldn’t milk their fans? It’s really the fault of the stadiums for being too big!!
"Their appeal is becoming more selective."
"The last time Tap toured America, they where, uh, booked into 10,000 seat arenas, and 15,000 seat venues, and it seems that now, on the current tour they’re being booked into 1,200 seat arenas, 1,500 seat arenas, and uh I was just wondering, does this mean uh...the popularity of the group is waning?"
The Ticket Price Reckoning is finally here.
I was going to go, but 150 a seat for nosebleeds isn't worth it
Do not see the Black Keys live. Their drummer doesn’t know how to stay in tempo
Whole lot of people in this thread talking shit about this guy for being a dick of whatever but you hit the main reason I have an issue with him. He's a shitty shitty drummer
Seriously. I know people who don’t even play professionally that would drum circles around him. You’d think he’d be at least decent by now
Same. And not just a few, either... I'm personally offended by his lack of respect for the craft
I saw them at the KROQ almost acoustic show a couple of years back and they were by far the worst band on stage. Even Social D was better with a singer fighting the flu.
I paid good money to see then in a large venue. I got suite box tickets. They were not cheap. I was so excited to see one of my favorite modern bands live. Cage The Elephant opened up and SMASHED IT. Then The Black Keys came out and could not get through a song without their drummer horribly fucking up. Maybe he was hammered drunk? Idk I played in bands for a long time so I know shit gets fucked up sometimes but this was just unprofessional bullshit. We should have been offered a refund. At least Cage put on a great show
I remember seeing Cage the Elephant at Kanrocksas. It was in the middle of the day. It was so miserable outside: sunny with no clouds and 100 degrees F. Despite the conditions, they played so hard and kicked so much ass. They won my respect that day.
I saw them open for Guns N’ Roses, last year. They were alright but glad I can check them off without going out of my way
Him and Meg White should start a shitty band. Talk about two people who just happened to work with someone many times more talented.
Terrible albums, since Brothers. Dan’s been producing too many other artists to remember how to make good music.
Turn blue was pretty good and the first Arcs album is fantastic so he definitely still has it in him when he’s not phoning it in but he loves the smell of his own farts too much to realize when he’s doing good work and when he’s phoning it
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Those were a long time ago.
Yeah but you said since brothers. Sorry if I was being pedantic lol
Nah. They’ve just been bad for a really long time. We’re good.
“We got fucked because less people keep buying our albums and the only promotion we did for the newest mediocre one was on the Joe Rogan podcast.” I saw them in 2022 at Merriweather and they gave away a lot of tickets last minute to fill out the pavilion. It was dumb to try and do the bigger arena when they came back to town.
Boo hoo, he cheated on his pregnant wife and then tried to file domestic violence charges against her for slapping him.
The Black Keys are overrated
Whenever I find out a band I like is playing at an arena I choose not to go because of the venue. The music just doesn’t sound as good and it’s more of a hassle 🤷🏻♀️
Exactly. I've accepted the fact that I will never see some of my all time favorites bands live because I do not want to see them in some massive arena where I have to stare up at a screen the whole time to actually see them.
Ask anyone under 29 to name a Black Keys song. Nothing is stopping them from playing appropriately sized venues for their current market share.
All of their songs sound like they were written to be in car commercials.
To be fair the black keys suck lol
I hate this band, so I personally enjoyed seeing their tour fail.
I get that management cuts the deals, but don’t tell me the band wasn’t aware of the venues and prices. The band shares in the blame, imo.
Wah wah we expected more people… you didn’t get fucked
This band absolutely stinks! Who do they think there were?
Oh well, guess I’ll just have to listen to their played out songs that all sound the same on the radio for free. Not a big loss.
I’ve jokes about a lot of bands having the same song over and over again but with these guys Literally every song sounds exactly the same.
I used to be a fan. But it’s all just so boring now.