Touring
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As North America’s largest independent promoter, Gregg Perloff, the co-founder/CEO of Another Planet Entertainment, isn’t the type to ask for permission from the majors before making his next move.
Perloff has learned since selling Bill Graham Presents in the 1990s to the company that would become Live Nation that stealth can be a strategic advantage in the live-music business. That’s especially true when competing against Live Nation and AEG, which each have hundreds of millions of dollars in capital.
So, after three years of secretly negotiating, leasing and remodeling a 45,000-square-foot venue in downtown Los Angeles — AEG and Live Nation turf — Perloff and The Bowery Presents co-founder Michael Swier are about to open The Bellwether. The two-story venue is located west of the 110 Freeway between Third and Fourth streets. The one-city-block-long space is anchored by a 1,600-capacity general-admission theater and features a street-level bar and restaurant, plus a 600-capacity private event space. The venue also comes with provenance: It was once owned by Prince, who named it after his 1992 song “Glam Slam.”
Prince moved out in 1995, and a parade of lesser-known club operators followed. Months before the 2020 shutdown of live music, Swier found it. Instead of buying the building from its current owner, Perloff and Swier — who owns L.A.’s Teragram Ballroom and Moroccan Lounge — quietly worked out a long-term lease and started preparing the building for a 2023 opening. The Bellwether will be booked by long-time Another Planet Talent buyer Nick Barrie.
Perloff pulled off a similar coup in 2007 when he engaged in under-the-radar negotiations with San Francisco officials to secure a permit for the first multiday, after-sundown private festival in Golden Gate Park. Knowing the city badly needed revenue due to budget shortfalls, Perloff and his team kept the talks under wraps and got the agreement signed despite the last-minute protests of his competitors in San Francisco’s Live Nation office. That event, Outside Lands, is today one of the highest-grossing independently owned festivals in the United States.
Basketballs signed by late UCLA Bruins coach John Wooden and Golden State Warriors point guard Steph Curry. Former San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey autographed the miniature bat.
Karen Santos
Perloff, who has six decades of experience in the live-music business, sat down with Billboard to discuss his new L.A. venue, his thoughts on the Taylor Swift ticketing debacle, the U.S. Senate’s subsequent grilling of Ticketmaster, and the effectiveness of the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2010 consent decree and the protections put in place to protect Ticketmaster customers.
Let’s hear the big news about your new music venue.
We will be opening our first venue in L.A. in decades: a 1,600-seat music venue just west of downtown. We’re partnering with Michael Swier, who owns some of New York’s most iconic rooms like Bowery Ballroom and the Mercury Lounge. The new venue will have an open floor plan that can host any type of contemporary music act or genre. It’s got perfect sight lines with a wraparound balcony and side lounge where people can relax. We’ve got a d&b [audiotechnik] sound system custom-built for this particular room. When we saw this new space, every one of us said, “Oh, my God. We have to do this.”
Perloff says he bought this sculpture by glass artist Dale Chihuly “at an Oakland children’s hospital music therapy event.”
Karen Santos
Did 2022 meet your expectations in terms of sales?
It was a really good year for us, and our sales in 2023 are so much better than they’ve ever been. I don’t think I’m alone in this. While everyone’s saying there aren’t enough acts out there, the other side of the coin is sales are spectacular. When the end of 2021 came, there seemed to be this built-up demand after the pandemic, and we had a burst of great sales including for our festivals Outside Lands and Life Is Beautiful, both of which sold out. We had a really great 2022 as well. [Billboard parent company PMC Media is a majority owner of Life Is Beautiful.]
Why is sales momentum continuing to build?
Maybe it’s that half the people going to shows right now were ready the day the doors opened back up, and the other half now have joined in. I literally have never seen a situation like this.
Do you worry about business cooling off in late summer?
Not for Outside Lands. It was held during the first week of August and had its best year in 2022. But to your point, I’ve always said that it would be better for everyone if we could figure out how to convince artists to play all year round and go from a six- or seven-month business where everyone’s compressed together to one where artists go out earlier in the year.
Another Planet was one of the few concert companies that did not lay off any of its staff during the pandemic. Why was that important to you?
We were the only concert company that kept 100% of our employees on payroll with no salary reduction during the entire pandemic. It was important that people could continue their lifestyle. I didn’t understand why these big companies didn’t do the same. There was plenty of work to be done from home: new venues, different ways to tell people about our shows and production and building maintenance. When the pandemic ended, we were ready to go.
You’ve been a Ticketmaster client for a long time and stayed with the company after its merger with Live Nation. Over a decade later, do you think the Department of Justice got it right?
I’ll say this: There is supposed to be a firewall in place so that Ticketmaster won’t share your data with the concert promotion side of Live Nation. If anyone believes that Live Nation can’t get numbers from Ticketmaster, they’re very naive. Somehow people seem to know what everybody else’s ticket sales are.
A tambourine depicting legendary concert promoter Bill Graham that Perloff got at an event thrown by his late boss’ memorial foundation.
Karen Santos
Do you agree with the argument that Ticketmaster leverages Live Nation content to land ticketing contracts?
No, and I can’t believe that the Senate keeps fixating on something that is irrelevant. They don’t do it. That isn’t an issue. To listen to the Senate talking about arenas when Live Nation doesn’t even own an arena in this country is just crazy. Secondly, when the Department of Justice said it was going to subsidize AEG’s AXS ticketing to be a competitor to Ticketmaster [in 2010], we all saw how that went — not very good. I’m not sure that most people would pick AXS over Ticketmaster.
Because of Ticketmaster’s dominance?
No. What I’m saying is that it’s hard for me to take the government seriously when they say they want to stop monopolies when there are monopolies in every part of business, from telecom to transportation.
What are your reasons for sticking with Ticketmaster?
I thought Ticketmaster was doing a good job for us. I have nothing bad to say about my competitors. Everyone wants to pick on AEG and Live Nation, but most people have no idea how hard it is to produce a tour. I toured Star Wars: In Concert with LucasFilm around the world for five years and worked on tours with Bill Graham; it’s a completely different game than being a local promoter. AEG and Live Nation do an incredible job and should be applauded for the work they do with Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen. Every five years, you get an artist that’s so popular that you just can’t make everyone happy.
Do you think the Swift ticket sale was mishandled?
I think there were a number of problems with the Taylor Swift on-sale. This might be the first controversial thing I’ll say in this interview: Bands really want to put the whole tour on sale at once because they can advertise the whole tour at once and make a bigger splash.
Fender guitar cases containing instruments won at a benefit auction for The Bridge School, which was co-founded by Pegi Young, the first wife of Neil Young.
Karen Santos
Right, and for Swift, something like 2.2 million tickets went on sale simultaneously.
If someone’s touring for six months, it might make some sense to maybe break the tour into two segments and go on sale with the second part of the tour closer to the dates. But there’s no system in the world — and this is where I have to defend Ticketmaster — that could have handled the onslaught.
Do you think the Senate understands that?
My question for them is, “Why are you picking on Ticketmaster and Live Nation when you should be outlawing brokers?” They are the ones who screw up everything. Does every promoter take a few tickets? Does every venue have a few tickets? Sure. But it’s the scalpers that make it so no one can get a decent seat except the rich. The Senate didn’t do the research they should have done before they started pontificating and acting like they knew what they were talking about.
What’s the best way to stop scalping?
Many years ago, my business partner, Sherry Wasserman, came up with a brilliant system for Prince at the Wilshire in Los Angeles back when I ran the theater. We wanted to completely stop brokering for the show, and we made people line up the day before the show and present an ID when buying tickets. It was foolproof, we thought. And then the next day as people are walking in, here comes Muhammad Ali with tickets and a matching ID. Muhammad Ali certainly wasn’t in line the day before when we sold the tickets, but here he was with a ticket and ID. We didn’t know how, but he managed to beat the system. We just laughed and thought, “We did the best we could do.”
After reuniting on their new collaboration “Don’t Text, Don’t Call,” Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa join forces for their forthcoming High School Reunion Tour. Slated to kick off July 7, the multi-city jaunt will feature West Coast staples Warren G, Too $hort and Berner with special guest DJ Drama.
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The 33-city tour will span the nation and touchdown in various cities including Brooklyn, St. Louis, Atlanta and Houston Tickets are available now for Citi card members through Thursday, March 9, 10 p.m. ET. The general on-sale will begin Friday, March 10, at 9 am ET on ticketmaster.com.
Snoop and Wiz’s storied friendship dates back to their 2011 smash hit “Young, Wild, and Free” featuring a then-burgeoning Bruno Mars. The song peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and resided on the duo’s Mac and Devin Go to High School soundtrack. In February, the pair teased a possible sequel for the stoner comedy with a photo posted on social media by Snoop. “High school reunion comin summer 23 @wizkhalifa,” he captioned the pic.
As for Wiz, he will be a busy man on the road this year. Aside from his upcoming tour with Snoop, he’ll also lead the way for his headlining effort, The Good Trip Tour. The seven-date venture will feature acts such as Joey Bada$$, Smoke DZA, Berner and Chevy Woods. It’ll begin next month.
Check out the dates for the High School Reunion Tour below.
Courtesy Photo
2023 High School Reunion tour dates:
Fri Jul 07 – Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena
Sat Jul 08 – Ridgefield, WA – RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater
Sun Jul 09 – Auburn, WA – White River Amphitheatre
Tue Jul 11 – Salt Lake City, UT – USANA Amphitheatre
Wed Jul 12 – Denver, CO – Ball Arena
Sat Jul 15 – Rogers, AR – Walmart AMP
Sun Jul 16 – St. Louis, MO – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre – St. Louis
Tue Jul 18 – Burgettstown, PA – The Pavilion at Star Lake
Thu Jul 20 – Noblesville, IN – Ruoff Music Center
Fri Jul 21 – Tinley Park, IL – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre – Chicago
Sun Jul 23 – Clarkston, MI – Pine Knob Music Theatre
Wed Jul 26 – Toronto, ON – Budweiser Stage
Fri Jul 28 – Mansfield, MA – Xfinity Center
Sat Jul 29 – Hartford, CT – XFINITY Theatre
Sun Jul 30 – Camden, NJ – Freedom Mortgage Pavilion
Tue Aug 01 – Bristow, VA – Jiffy Lube Live
Wed Aug 02 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center
Fri Aug 04 – Brooklyn, NY – Barclays Center
Sat Aug 05 – Virginia Beach, VA – Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach
Sun Aug 06 – Raleigh, NC – Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek
Tue Aug 08 – Charlotte, NC – PNC Music Pavilion
Wed Aug 09 – Atlanta, GA – Lakewood Amphitheatre
Fri Aug 11 – West Palm Beach, FL – iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre
Sat Aug 12 – Tampa, FL – MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
Tue Aug 15 – New Orleans, LA – Smoothie King Center
Fri Aug 18 – Austin, TX – Germania Insurance Amphitheater
Sat Aug 19 – Houston, TX – The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Sun Aug 20 – Dallas, TX – Dos Equis Pavilion
Tue Aug 22 – Albuquerque, NM – Isleta Amphitheater
Wed Aug 23 – Phoenix, AZ – Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre
Fri Aug 25 – Sacramento, CA – Golden 1 Center
Sat Aug 26 – Concord, CA – Concord Pavilion
Sun Aug 27 – Irvine, CA – FivePoint Amphitheatre
LONDON — A proposed hike in U.S. visa fees, which could take effect as early as this November, would have a “deeply damaging” effect on touring artists from other countries by more than doubling their costs, says a leading British music industry trade group.
The proposal from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, announced in early January, would raise the rates for O and P visas for working entertainers in the U.S., including musicians playing festivals, concerts or label events.
U.K. Music, which represents the country’s recorded and live music industries, is protesting the fee hike, including a $600 “asylum program fee,” a new charge USCIS has proposed adding for U.S.-based employers, which the U.K. group says would raise total visa fees by more than four times their current levels. The trade group, which says the U.S. visa process is “already long, complex and prohibitively expensive” for many musicians, has asked British officials to lobby against the increases.
“The visa process for U.S. musicians entering the U.K. to work is far simpler and less costly,” the group says in a statement, “and we believe that this should be reciprocated by the U.S.”
Under USCIS’s proposed new rates, a concert promoter who employs an international musician qualifying for an “O” visa to tour the U.S. would pay $1,055, rather than the current fee of $460, an increase of 129% — or 260% with the proposed $600 asylum program fee. For the “P” visa classification for touring musicians, the U.S. employer’s fee would jump from $460 to $1,015, or 121% — plus the $600 fee, which would add up to a 251% spike.
A USCIS spokesperson tells Billboard the increases would not affect musicians themselves, but rather their U.S. employers, including promoters, club owners, labels or festival producers. International artists reps say employers are likely to pass these fee increases onto the artists — and possibly to consumers as higher-priced tickets —making it more challenging to tour crucial American concert venues.
“It leaves our artists in a state of paralysis,” says Courtney Askew-Conti of Verdigris Management, which represents U.K. bands Hot Chip and Jungle, adding that the fee increase “feels like the final nail in the coffin” after Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The U.S. government is proposing the new fees to allow USCIS to “more fully recover operating costs for the first time in six years” and to “support the administration’s effort to rebuild the legal immigration system,” the agency’s director, Ur M. Jaddou, said in a January statement.
“For artists who are established, it’s an annoyance,” says Michael Lambert, whose management company A Modern Way represents Idlewild, We Were Promised Jetpacks and other Scottish bands. “There will be a lot of artists in that emerging to mid-level stage that just decide that they can’t afford to do it.”
While “some cases might be reasonable, this gigantic increase seems unreasonable,” says Rita Sostrin, a Los Angeles immigration lawyer who represents international artists trying to obtain O and P visas. “It’s just not the right way, to do this broad-brush increase for everyone.”
The USCIS rep stresses that the fee changes are not final, and the comment period is open through March 13. “If organizations have those concerns, that’s what they should be submitting,” the spokesperson says. “This is just a proposed rule.”
U.K. trade groups are particularly concerned about how the changes will affect artists during a period when gas prices, supply-chain issues and other lingering COVID-19 effects are making it challenging for club-and-theatre-level artists to tour international markets, including the U.S.
For U.K. artists, the U.S. is the second-largest touring market after Europe. Even before the proposed price hikes were announced, rising costs were already leading British artists to pull U.S. shows. In April, Mercury Prize-winning rapper Little Simz cancelled an 11-date U.S. tour, citing the financial unviability of the undertaking as an independent artist.
A survey conducted by two other U.K. trade bodies, Music Managers Forum (MMF) and the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), found that 70% of their members believe the increased visa charges would mean they could no longer afford to tour the U.S.
Lionel Richie is going on tour this summer, and wants fans to sing along, all night long. On Monday (March 6), the four-time Grammy winner announced a series of North American tour dates for 2023, and Earth, Wind & Fire will be joining him as the special guests for the trek.
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“Well my friends, the time has come to announce a tour. Not just any tour, but the tour I’ve been trying to do for years … and now it’s going to actually happen,” the American Idol judge revealed in a video shared to Live Nation’s Instagram. “Sing a Song All Night Long Lionel Richie, Earth, Wind & Fire together on the same stage, and I’m inviting you to the party. So join us! This is the place you need to be.”
The 2023 Sing a Song All Night Long tour is slated to kick off on Aug. 4 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., and will make stops in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto, Atlanta, Houston and more before concluding on Sept. 15 at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum.
Fans can score tickets to the North American trek starting on Tuesday, March 7, with via the Citi cardmember presale. Cardholders will be able to purchase tickets from March 7 at 10 a.m. local time through Sunday, March 12, at 10 p.m. local time. General onsale for the tour begins on March 13 at 10 a.m. local time via ticketmaster.com.
See the full list of concert dates and Richie’s tour announcement below.
Sing a Song All Night Love 2023 tour dates:
Fri Aug. 4 – St Paul, Minn. – Xcel Energy Center
Sat Aug. 5 – Chicago, Ill. – United Center
Tue Aug. 8 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena
Wed Aug. 9 – Montreal, QC – Bell Centre
Fri Aug. 11 – Boston, Mass. – TD Garden
Sat Aug. 12 – New York, N.Y. – Madison Square Garden
Tue Aug. 15 – Philadelphia, Penn. – Wells Fargo Center
Fri Aug. 18 – Washington, D.C. – Capital One Arena
Sat Aug. 19 – Baltimore, Md. – CFG Bank Arena
Tue Aug. 22 – Atlanta, Ga. – State Farm Arena
Fri Aug. 25 – Fort Lauderdale, Fla. – FLA Live Arena
Sat Aug. 26 – Tampa, Fla. – Amalie Arena
Tue Aug. 29 – Austin, Texas – Moody Center
Fri Sep. 1 – Dallas, Texas – American Airlines Center
Sat Sep. 2 – Houston, Texas – Toyota Center
Tue Sep. 5 – Denver, Colo. – Ball Arena
Fri Sep. 8 – San Francisco, Calif. – Chase Center
Mon Sep. 11 – Seattle, Wash. – Climate Pledge Arena
Tue Sep. 12 – Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena
Fri Sep. 15 – Los Angeles, Calif. – Kia Forum
Sam Hunt will hit the road this summer on his headlining Summer on the Outskirts Tour with Brett Young and Lily Rose.
The 27-date, Live Nation-produced tour will launch July 6 in Hartford, Conn., and will include stops in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Detroit and New York City.
The tour takes its name from a new song Hunt will release on Friday, March 10, titled “Outskirts.” The track follows his previous release, “Walmart.”
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To date, Hunt has earned nine No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay chart hits, including “23,” “Take Your Time” and “Body Like a Back Road.” His current country radio single, “Water Under the Bridge,” is at No. 17.
Meanwhile, Young’s current single “You Didn’t” is at No. 13 on the Country Airplay chart. “Villain” hitmaker Rose was honored with the 2022 GLAAD Media Awards’ outstanding breakthrough artist accolade and launched 2023 with her own headlining tour. Later this year, she will join Shania Twain’s Queen of Me Tour for 11 tour stops.
Tickets for Hunt’s Summer on the Outskirts Tour will go on sale beginning with the Verizon presale on March 7 at 10 a.m. local time, ahead of the general on sale, which begins Friday, March 10, at 10 a.m. local time.
See the full list of Hunt’s Summer on the Outskirts tour below:
July 6 – Hartford, CT – Xfinity Theatre
July 7 – Gilford, NH – Bank of NH Pavilion
July 8 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center
July 14 – Wantagh, NY – Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater
July 15 – Darien Center, NY – Darien Lake Amphitheater
July 16 – Toronto, ON – Budweiser Stage
July 20 – Brandon, MS – Brandon Amphitheater
July 21 – Orange Beach, AL – The Wharf Amphitheater *
July 22 – Charlotte, NC – PNC Music Pavilion
July 27 – Detroit, MI – Pine Knob Music Theatre
July 28 – Indianapolis, IN – Ruoff Music Center
July 29 – St. Louis, MO – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
Aug. 3 – Carbondale, IL – Southern Illinois University-SIU Banterra Center**^
Aug. 4 – Bonner Springs, KS – Azura Amphitheater ^
Aug. 5 – Oklahoma City, OK – The Zoo Amphitheatre ^
Aug. 11 – Irvine, CA – FivePoint Amphitheatre
Aug. 12 – Mountain View, CA – Shoreline Amphitheatre
Aug. 13 – Stateline, NV – Lake Tahoe Harveys Outdoor Arena ^
Aug. 18 – Houston, TX – Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion presented by Huntsman***
Aug. 19 – Dallas, TX – Dos Equis Pavilion
Aug. 20 – Rogers, AR – Walmart AMP
Aug. 24 – Bethel, NY – Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
Aug. 25 – Syracuse, NY – St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at Lakeview
Aug. 26 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway
Sept. 7 – Tampa, FL – MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
Sept. 8 – Atlanta, GA – Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
Sept. 9 – Raleigh, NC – Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek
*On Sale March 17 ** On Sale TBD *** On Sale March 24 ^ Not a Live Nation date
Primary Talent International has announced a surprise decoupling with Creative Artists Agency, less than a year after CAA acquired the UK booking agency through a blockbuster $750 million purchase of its parent ICM Presents in June.
ICM Presents bought the 30-year old booking agency in March 2020, just days before international concert touring was suspended for more than a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That acquisition — in which Primary would retain its name and office — came just months after ICM Partners sold a minority stake in the agency to private equity firm Crestview Partners.
When ICM acquired Primary Talent, ICM CEO Chris Silbermann noted that the 32-year-old company, with clients including The 1975, The Cure, Lana Del Rey, Noel Gallagher, Jack Harlow, alt-J, Dropkick Murphys and Patti Smith, “greatly enhances our ability to serve our clients on a global scale, through added resources, support and even greater opportunities,” noting the agency’s reputation for being “fiercely independent, which we love about them.”
Silbermann added: “We are honored that they believed we were the right partners to help take their clients and their agency to the next levels of success, while retaining their brand and management identity and philosophy.”
Primary Talent asked for a split from CAA in order to “re-establish Primary’s independent status,” one source tells Billboard. Shortly after closing the ICM deal last year, CAA laid off 105 ICM Presents employees from different parts of the company.
An agreement to terminate the coupling was finalized earlier this year in a deal led by Primary Talent managing partner and CEO Matt Bates along with former ICM founding partner and COO Rick Levy. Veteran agent Ben Winchester will continue to serve as a board member along with Bates and Levy.
As part of the new management configuration, the agency has promoted Primary agents Laetitia Descouens, Sally Dunstone, Martje Kremers and Ed Sellers to partner status. They will be joined by veteran agent Simon Clarkson, who will be based in Los Angeles. The agency, which currently numbers 35 employees, expects to announce additional agents to their growing ranks in the coming weeks.
“The pandemic changed the landscape of the music touring business, and we felt it was beneficial to return to our roots as the UK’s largest independent music talent agency,” said Bates. “Adding to the strength and experience of the original Primary agent team, we are excited to bring aboard the next generation of talented agents to join as founding partners. In this new incarnation, Primary will be even better positioned to support the evolving careers of our artists and guide them wherever needed.”
BRISBANE, Australia — A brouhaha between Bluesfest and a touring party that includes the Soul Rebels and Big Freedia is entering legal territory after the groups — which also includes Talib Kweli and GZA — has jointly claimed they were canceled by the Australian event “in bad faith and in breach of contract.”
All of those acts were initially slated to perform at the festival this Easter in Byron Bay, in addition to several theater shows on Australia’s east coast promoted by Bluesfest Touring.
And then, they weren’t.
When the second artist announcement for Bluesfest dropped in October 2022, the growing lineup included The Soul Rebels & Friends with special guests Talib Kweli, GZA and Big Freedia.
The bill as it stands for Bluesfest 2023 no longer features the four acts.
A strongly worded statement from the tour’s reps, seen by Billboard, lays all the blame at Bluesfest and its director Peter Noble.
“The artists had fully executed signed contracts with Peter Noble and had already booked travel to Australia and were looking forward to returning to the country to perform for their fans,” the statement reads.
“Peter Noble removed the artists and the tour without further communication or reason from Bluesfest other than him stating his decision to not want to pay the artists.”
Furthermore, it continues, “these are all black artists, and Big Freedia is an LGBTQ icon.”
Bluesfest
Courtesy Bluesfest
The statement then points to the controversial Australian rock group Sticky Fingers, which, after a weeks-long backlash, has been removed from the lineup.
“It appears the tour may have been replaced by other artists including Sticky Fingers,” reads the statement, which was originally distributed to a handful of media outlets in late February, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Double J network. “We are uncertain about who else on Bluesfest may have also been cancelled.”
Noble’s “cancellation of the tour of the aforementioned artists and on Bluesfest has resulted in significant financial loss to the artist,” the statement continues. “Peter’s egregious treatment and disregard of his contractual and moral obligations and disrespect can be completely supported by his actions and written communications.”
Speaking with Billboard on Friday (March 3), Noble read from a prepared statement from Bluesfest’s lawyers.
“The termination of the Soul Rebels contract by Bluesfest has nothing to do with the announcement of Sticky Fingers playing at Bluesfest 2023,” the statement reads. “The Soul Rebels contract was terminated because they did not comply with the contractual terms. By that, we mean, Soul Rebels, Big Freedia, GZA and Talib Kweli.”
Noble declined to go off script.
The impresario and his long-running festival have rolled with many punches these past few years, from the pandemic to floods, to the border closures and public health orders which saw the 2021 edition nixed just hours before showtime.
In the new year, a new problem.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Sampa The Great recently bailed from the bill, a boycott to the booking of Sticky Fingers, whose frontman has a well-publicized and controversial past.
On Thursday of this week, after a weeks-long backlash on social media, Noble and Bluesfest announced that Sticky Fingers “is to step off the Bluesfest 2023 line-up.”
The 2023 edition of Bluesfest is set for April 6-10 at Byron Events Farm, with headliners including Gang of Youths, Paolo Nutini, Tash Sultana, Bonnie Raitt, the Doobie Brothers and more. Last year’s event reported more than 100,000 attendees.
LONDON — Security services could have prevented a suicide bomber from killing 22 people in a terror attack outside an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena in 2017 if they had acted swiftly on key intelligence, a public inquiry has found.
The chair of the inquiry, John Saunders, says there was a “realistic possibility” that the bomber could have been stopped from carrying out the atrocity if British security service MI5 had acted decisively upon on two pieces of intelligence that they received in the months leading up to the attack. The significance of that intelligence, Saunders notes, “was not fully appreciated at the time.”
A 207-page report, published Thursday (March 2), details the radicalization of bomber Salman Abedi but does not disclose details of either piece of intelligence, citing national security reasons. It does, however, state that neither piece of intelligence was shared by MI5 with counter-terror police — a failing that Saunders calls “a further example of a communication breakdown” between security agencies.
The inquiry found that an MI5 officer, identified as Witness C, failed to write a report on the second piece of intelligence on the same day MI5 assessed it and did not discuss it with colleagues. That delay “led to the missing of an opportunity to take a potentially important investigative action.”
Abedi flew from Libya to Manchester on May 18 — four days before he detonated a homemade explosive device in the foyer of Manchester Arena (now known as the AO Arena) at the end of Grande’s sold-out show. Twenty-two people died in the terror attack, the youngest aged 8 years old. Hundreds of people were injured, many of them children.
The report contends that had MI5 taken the intelligence more seriously Abedi could have been stopped at Manchester Airport upon his return from Libya and followed to his car where he had stored his explosives.
In a press conference in Manchester on Thursday, Saunders said the “failure by the security service to act swiftly enough” had contributed to a “significant missed opportunity to take action that might have prevented the attack.”
The inquiry chair went on to say that while “it is not possible to reach any conclusion on the balance of probability” as to whether the bombing would have been prevented, he believed “there was a realistic possibility that actionable intelligence could have been obtained which might have led to actions preventing the attack.”
The report also found that Abedi’s family held “significant responsibility” for the radicalization of both him and his brother, Hashem Abedi, who was sentenced in the U.K. in 2020 to a minimum of 55 years for his role in the murders.
Thursday’s report is the third and final set of findings to come out of the public inquiry into the terror attack. The U.K. Home Secretary launched the inquiry in October 2019 with its first hearings taking place in Manchester in September 2020. In total, more than 250 witnesses gave 194 days of oral evidence, although much of the evidence from MI5 and counter-terror police officers was heard in secret.
The inquiry’s two previous reports have focused on how emergency services responded to the attack and whether police and concert security should have done more to prevent the bombing.
Families of the victims called the failures exposed in Thursday’s report “unacceptable” and a “devastating conclusion” to the inquiry. “Those killed and injured in this murderous attack had every right to feel safe and protected, but as this inquiry has demonstrated, they were failed at every level — before, during and after this horrific attack,” said Richard Scorer, principal lawyer at Slater and Gordon, reading out a statement on behalf of 11 of the victims’ families.
Andrew Roussos, the father of 8-year-old Saffie-Rose Roussos, who was one of the 22 victims, said the security services’ actions amounted to a “cataclysmic failure.”
“The fact that MI5 failed to stop [Salman Abedi] despite all of the red flags available demonstrates they are not fit to keep us safe and therefore not fit for purpose,” said Roussos.
Following the report’s publication, MI5’s director general, Ken McCallum, said he was “profoundly sorry” that the security service did not prevent the attack. “Gathering covert intelligence is difficult,” McCallum said in a statement, “but had we managed to seize the slim chance we had, those impacted might not have experienced such appalling loss and trauma.”
Adam Sandler fans have one more chance to see him on tour. On Thursday (March 2), the singer-comedian announced that he has added another leg to his Adam Sandler Live tour that will see him make seven additional stops throughout the United States this spring.
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“One more week of fun? Let’s do it!” the three-time Grammy nominee wrote on Instagram, captioning a photo of the tour’s official poster that features him playing a guitar to an excited crowd.
The new leg of the tour begins on April 13 at New Jersey’s Prudential Center and will make stops in Philadelphia, Buffalo, Detroit, Louisville and Cleveland before concluding on April 21 at Baltimore’s CFG Bank Arena.
Fans looking to secure tickets can do so through Live Nation’s presale starting on Thursday (March 2) at 12 p.m. local time. Tickets will then go on sale to the general public starting on Friday, March 3 at 12 p.m. local time via Ticketmaster.
Before hitting the road, Sandler will star opposite Jennifer Aniston in Murder Mystery 2, which premieres March 31 on Netflix.
See Sandler’s list of tour dates — and official poster for the trek — below.
ADAM SANDLER LIVE TOUR DATES:
Thu April 13 — Newark, N.J. — Prudential Center
Fri April 14 — Philadelphia, Penn. — Wells Fargo Center
Sun April 16 — Buffalo, N.Y. — KeyBank Center
Mon April 17 — Detroit, Mich. — Little Caesars Arena
Tue April 18 — Louisville, Ky. — KFC Yum! Center
Wed April 19 — Cleveland, Ohio — Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse
Fri April 21 — Baltimore, M.D. — CFG Bank Arena
After a weeks-long shower of bad publicity and multiple artist withdrawals, Australia’s Bluesfest has removed the controversial rock band Sticky Fingers from its lineup.
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The popular, and long-running, music festival today (March 2) issued a statement in which organizers remarked, “Bluesfest cannot, sadly, continue to support Sticky Fingers by having them play our 2023 edition, and we apologise to those artists, sponsors and any others we involved in this matter through our mistaken belief that forgiveness and redemption are the rock on which our society is built.”
In recent days, festival director Peter Noble had doubled-down on his decision to book the polarizing band, despite growing calls from within the music community to boycott the event.
Melbourne prog-rock outfit King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard and two-time Australian Music Prize winner Sampa The Great recently withdrew from the lineup in protest to the inclusion of Sticky Fingers, with King Gizz issuing a statement remarking that “as a band and as human beings, we stand against misogyny, racism, transphobia and violence.”
Sticky Fingers has a reputation that, well, sticks.
The issues relate to the past behavior of lead singer Dylan Frost, who has been accused of threatening Indigenous musician Thelma Plum and making racist remarks at a gig featuring Indigenous punk band Dispossessed.
Sticky Fingers took a break after those incidents allegedly occurred in 2016, reuniting again in 2018.
Frost went on to address his mental health battles, and issued a statement in which he said he was “wholeheartedly against racism, and so is the band,” and that he doesn’t “condone or in any way excuse violence against women, straight up, I never have and I never will.”
Noble and Bluesfest’s statement claims “the narrative that they continue to deserve to be cancelled, as well as anyone who publicly supports them, is difficult to accept, wherein a portion of society and media passes eternal judgment toward those, in this case, a diagnosed mentally ill person whom we feel doesn’t deserve the continued public scrutiny he’s being given.”
The message continues, “We thank everyone who has contacted us and advised their support in this matter, especially those suffering from a mental illness who feel they cannot have their illness supported in a manner whereby they feel included in society.”
It’s not the first time Australian event organizers have performed a u-turn on Sticky Fingers.
In 2018, the band withdrew from the Newcastle fest This That, with promoters explaining at the time that “if their inclusion began to impact negatively on the other artists performing and our Newcastle and wider communities, that it would be best if they refrain from performing. That’s the decision we have both taken today.”
Sticky Fingers, notes Bluesfest in its statement, “has done so many good deeds that have never been reported, including building and funding recording studios and music education programs in disadvantaged regional communities.”
After enduring a two-year obstacle course which included the pandemic, floods, border closures, public health orders, and more, the 2022 edition of Bluesfest welcomed more than 100,000 revelers.
The 2023 edition of Bluesfest is set for April 6-10 at Byron Events Farm, with headliners including Gang of Youths, Paolo Nutini, Tash Sultana, Bonnie Raitt, the Doobie Brothers and more.
Read the full statement from Bluesfest below.
Bluesfest Byron Bay Statement Regarding Sticky Fingers
We are sad to announce that Bluesfest has decided that Sticky Fingers is to step off the Bluesfest 2023 line-up.
Bluesfest cannot, sadly, continue to support Sticky Fingers by having them play our 2023 edition, and we apologise to those artists, sponsors and any others we involved in this matter through our mistaken belief that forgiveness and redemption are the rock on which our society is built.
The narrative that they continue to deserve to be cancelled, as well as anyone who publicly supports them, is difficult to accept, wherein a portion of society and media passes eternal judgment toward those, in this case, a diagnosed mentally ill person whom we feel doesn’t deserve the continued public scrutiny he’s being given.
We thank everyone who has contacted us and advised their support in this matter, especially those suffering from a mental illness who feel they cannot have their illness supported in a manner whereby they feel included in society.
Sticky Fingers has done so many good deeds that have never been reported, including building and funding recording studios and music education programs in disadvantaged regional communities.
We will now move on, put this behind us and continue to plan and present our best-ever edition of Bluesfest… proudly.
For those that wish to know more, there is a carefully researched article in The Australian in 2018 that took the trouble to examine the facts, unlike a lot of the current published material.