Touring
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Live. A note. A melody. A passing riff. It’s fleeting, one-of-a-kind artistry. Few know this better than Deadheads.
In the 160-odd years since audio was first recorded, many a musical legend has attempted to bottle the elusive magic of their live performances. Some successfully. Others less so. But few rock bands have produced anything as influential as Europe ‘72, the Grateful Dead’s triple live album, chronicling their wild ride through The Continent in April and May that year. Released 50 years ago on Nov. 5, 1972, it remains one of the most commercially successful albums by the Dead. It’s also perhaps their one release most responsible for The Live Cult of the Dead – the cultural movement that today is still very much alive and well. It’s the gateway drug for prospective Deadheads. While bootleg tape-traders can argue over which recording of what show during which era is the band’s best, Europe ’72 is their best-known and most widely acclaimed.
By the early 1970s, it had already been a long strange trip for the Grateful Dead. What started in 1964 as the trad-folk group Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions quickly and temporarily became The Warlocks by 1964, before the core group—singer-guitarist Jerry Garcia, singer-rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, keyboardist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, bassist-vocalist Phil Lesh and drummer Bill Kreutzmann—settled on Grateful Dead by ‘65. From their first show at Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, the band was at the center of the 1960s psychedelic and counter-culture explosion in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Second drummer Mickey Hart and lyricist Robert Hunter joined in ’67, and the band then went on a run of classics, starting with the heavily experimental (1968’s Anthem of the Sun and 1969’s Aoxomoxoa) before moving out of SF to Marin County, Calif., to reinvent the Americana sound with their legendary psych-folk duo of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty (both 1970).
It was an incredibly productive period for the Dead. In ’69, the band released their first live album, Live/Dead, for which the band’s audio engineer, Owsley “Bear” Stanley, adopted then-revolutionary new gear and techniques, including 16-track recording and a microphone splitter that cleaned up the sound. Recorded at SF’s Fillmore West and the Avalon, the LP introduced exploratory renditions of tracks like “Dark Star,” “St. Stephen” and “The Eleven.”
“Studio versions could never do those songs justice,” Kreutzmann said in his 2015 memoir, Deal.
In ’71, they followed up with a self-titled live album, lovingly known as Skull & Roses for its iconic cover art, which introduced tracks like “Bertha,” “Wharf Rat” and “Playing in the Band.” Then, in early ’72, Garcia dropped his eponymous debut solo album, shortly followed by Weir’s solo release, Ace. It all helped add to the Dead’s live repertoire.
A few more lineup changes occurred during this time: Hart began a three-year absence in ‘71, leaving Kreutzmann as the Dead’s sole drummer. Keyboardist Keith Godchaux joined in September ’71 to help prop up the 26-year-old Pigpen, who was by then in and out of the hospital with health problems. And finally, Godchaux’s wife Donna, a onetime session singer for Elvis Presley, joined as a backing vocalist. The stage was now set for Europe ’72.
“Magical stuff was happening in ’72,” longtime crew member/manager Steve Parish said in Amazon’s four-hour documentary A Long Strange Trip. “Stuff that to this day, I can’t explain. They we repushing us into the light, and the light was bright.”
On the Dead’s first extended European tour, the group played a total of 22 shows (most of them clocking in north of three hours) starting and concluding in London, and hitting Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich and others in between. It was a 50-person traveling circus of family members, wives, girlfriends, friends, kids, roadies, dealers and hanger-ons. Live, the band leaned into the kaleidoscopic, yet dusty, psych-Americana sound of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty with slithering guitar solos and rollicking rhythms. Each night’s full set was recorded with a future release in mind—the band was in debt to their label and the tour needed to be profitable. They jammed into the night aided by a bottle of distilled LSD smuggled across the Atlantic on the plane.
In the end, the best 17 tracks were chosen for Europe ’72, including the introduction of a handful of new tunes: “He’s Gone,” “Jack Straw,” “Brown-Eyed Women,” “Ramble on Rose” and “Tennessee Jed,” most of which never saw release in the form of a studio version, adding more value to Europe ’72 as a stand-alone album.
Extended, energetic improvisations abound, and post-tour overdubs eliminated most of the crowd noise (some new vocal takes were added, too). The tour de force is Garcia’s messianic closer, “Morning Dew,” recorded at the last show of the tour in London. It’s a Canadian folk tune, recounting a conversation between the last man and woman alive on earth following a nuclear apocalypse, but heavily interpreted by the Dead and Garcia: “Walk me out in the morning dew my honey,” he sings, his guitar gently reassuring, Pigpen’s organ lines floating beneath. “I’ll walk you out in the morning dew my honey. I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway.” Garcia reportedly played the version on the live album with his back to the crowd, tears running down his face.
Europe ‘72 was one of the first triple-record rock albums to be certified gold, and has since been certified double platinum. The Dead’s best-selling live album also marked a coda: the group’s final recording with Pigpen, who died the following year.
In 2011, all recordings from the tour were released as Europe ’72: The Complete Recordings—across 73 CDs.
And the legend roles on. After Garcia’s death, in 1995, the band’s various members carried the torch, performing their classics in too many incarnations to mention. In 2015, members of the Dead unexpectedly partnered with John Mayer for a new band, Dead & Co. Yes, “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” Rolex-collecting, Jessica Simpson-dating Hollywood pop-blues playboy John Mayer. At first, it was a very curious partnership. Many Deadheads were livid. Now, in hindsight, it feels like destiny. The band’s live shows over the past seven years have drawn millions and been positively embraced by Deadheads. Meanwhile, the band’s quarterly archival live release series, Dave’s Picks, have delivered their highest chart placements in recent years. And in summer 2023, the Dead & Co. will wrap up their run with a series of shows across North America. It’s one of the hottest tickets on earth.
But that won’t be the end of the Dead or their Cult of Live.
“Being alive, means continuing to change,” Jerry Garcia said in A Long Strange Trip. And The Dead never die.
Despite various economic headwinds, including inflation, we have not seen any pullback in demand,” Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino said during the company’s earnings call on Thursday (Nov. 3). In the third quarter, Live Nation posted record revenue for its concerts division of $5.3 billion as well as the company’s best-ever gross transaction value at its Ticketmaster division of $6.7 billion. Its high-margin sponsorship and advertising division also produced record adjusted operating income of $226 million, up 56% from the same period in 2019.
Looking ahead to 2023, Live Nation is “feeling very good about the attendance levels for next year,” said president and CFO Joe Berchtold. “Our tickets sold for the shows that we have on sale for next year are up consistently across all venue types relative to a year ago.” Excluding rescheduled events, Ticketmaster’s sales for 2023 concerts are up by double digits compared to advance ticket sales at the same point in 2021.
Demand depends on the supply of artist tours, and Live Nation executives believe next year’s tours will have a similar level of quality as this year’s headline tours, which included runs by Bad Bunny, Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Weeknd, among others. “If you were a stadium act, a large selling arena act, you probably debated whether you went out in ‘22 or you went out in ‘23,” said Rapino. “From clubs to stadiums to arenas, it looks like a similar year [in terms of] quality.” Next year, Live Nation will promote tours by Taylor Swift, Blink-182, Shania Twain, Dead & Company, Depeche Mode and the Eagles.
The warning signs for pending economic doom are everywhere. On Thursday, hedge fund giant Elliott warned of a “global societal collapse” and a further 50% decline in equity markets due to hyperinflation and an end to an “extraordinary” period of cheap money. The same day, the Bank of England warned that the U.K., facing high energy costs and rising interest rates, could suffer its longest-ever recession and a possible doubling of unemployment over the next two years.
The biggest banks have raised concerns, too. On Wednesday, Citi said the U.S. could fall into a recession in the second half of 2023. JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon said earlier this month the global U.S. economies would hit a recession in mid-2023, although he added the U.S. economy was “actually still doing well” at present.
The U.S. economy is a grab bag of mixed signals that point to both resilience and stress. U.S. payrolls increased by 261,000 in October. Yet auto loan delinquencies are on the rise, according to TransUnion, and repeated interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve means consumers with credit card balances will pay more in interest.
But Live Nation’s numbers show fans are spending money on concerts in record numbers. At Live Nation’s U.S. amphitheaters and global festivals, ancillary fan spending — which covers items such as food, beverage, merchandise and parking — in the third quarter increased almost 30% to $38 per fan from the same period in 2019. At U.S. and U.K. theaters, ancillary fan spending increased by over 20% relative to 2019.
After years of trying to sell his hard-charging sound to Canadian country radio, Cory Marks had finally found his hit song and opening tour slot to propel his career forward in 2020. The year prior he released his first bankable hit, “Outlaws and Outsiders” — an anthemic track produced by his new label boss and collaborator Ivan Moody from Five Finger Death Punch with features from country legend Travis Tritt and rock icon Mick Mars of Mötley Crüe.
The song hit No. 1 on Billboard’s rock chart and helped earn him an opening slot for Canadian country legend Gord Bamford’s 2020 tour.
Then the pandemic hit, and the breakout career of the former Royal Military College hockey player was temporarily put on ice. But after a three-year wait, Marks is returning to the road, opening for a joint headlining tour with 5FDP and country singer Brantley Gilbert.
“I am ready to get out there,” Marks tells Billboard from his home in North Bay, Ontario. “We came out of the COVID-19 lockdown much later than everyone else and now I’m ready to get back out there and perform some of the new music I’ve been working on.”
In August 2020, Marks released his debut album Who I Am, a mix of hard rock and metal with a countrified guitar-style and lyric-play on songs like “Blame it on the Double,” “My Whiskey Your Wine” and “Another Night in Jail.” Marks recorded the album with award-winning producer Kevin Churko in Churko’s Las Vegas studio and the pair will soon be dropping an EP with more rock-oriented tracks, including new single “Burn It Up” on Moody’s label Better Noise Music as a track for BPM’s 2021 film The Retaliators.
Staying busy, Marks said, helped his mental health and kept him balanced – he also got his pilot license during the pandemic and recorded a video at an airbase belonging to the Royal Canadian Air Force for his new song “Flying,” which will be his hardest rock oriented track yet.
“I almost got into some Lamb of God vocals with that track” Marks jokes. “It’s inspired by fighter pilots, which has always been my dream, and the intensity of that type of flying as well as the time spend waiting on the tarmac, sometimes for hours.”
Marks is managed by Jim Cressman. His tour with Five Finger Death Punch and Gilbert opens Nov. 9 at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, MI. Learn more at CoryMarks.com.
Get ready, North America — Paramore is coming. On Friday (Nov. 4), bandmates Hayley Williams, Taylor York and Zac Farro announced plans to embark on an arena tour in 2023, with shows in 26 cities across the United States and Canada.
The tour, simply titled Paramore in North America, kicks off in Charlotte, N.C., on May 23 — five days after the pop-punk group opens for Taylor Swift at one show on her recently announced Eras Tour — and ends in St. Paul, Minn., on Aug. 2 next year. Bloc Party, Foals, The Linda Lindas and Genesis Owusuare are slated to open for the band at select shows on the trek, which will also make stops at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, Austin’s Moody Center, Los Angeles’ Kia Forum and more.
Tickets go on general sale at 10 a.m. local time next Friday (Nov. 11), and will be available on Paramore’s website. A presale for American Express cardholders will go live 10 a.m. local time on Wednesday (Nov. 9), meanwhile a general presale for verified fans starts at 8 a.m. local time the following day.
Fans have until Monday (Nov. 7) to register for both presales on Ticketmaster’s website. A portion of ticket sales for all North American shows will be donated to eco-conscious hunger relief nonprofit Support + Feed and environmental nonprofit REVERB.
The tour will follow the Feb. 10 release of Paramore’s sixth studio album This Is Why, the band’s first LP in almost six years. The record’s lead single — which doubles as the title track — dropped in September.
The “This Is Why” era comes after Paramore took a nearly five-year hiatus from releasing music and performing. The trio made their official return to touring this fall with a run of intimate North American shows, their first circuit since 2017’s After Laughter Tour.
See the full list of dates for Paramore’s 2023 North American tour below:
PARAMORE IN NORTH AMERICA TOUR DATES
Tue May 23 – Charlotte, NC – Spectrum Center*×
Thu May 25 – Atlanta, GA – State Farm Arena*×
Sat May 27 – Atlantic City, NJ – Adjacent Festival!
Tue May 30 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden*×
Fri June 02 – Washington, DC – Capital One Arena*×
Sun Jun 04 – Cleveland, OH – Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse*×
Mon Jun 05 – Indianapolis, IN – Gainbridge Fieldhouse*×
Wed Jun 07 – Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena*×
Thu Jun 08 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena*×
Sat Jun 10 – Columbus, OH – Schottenstein Center*×
Sun Jun 11 – Pittsburgh, PA – PPG Paint Arena*×
Tue Jun 13 – Orlando, FL – Amway Center*×
Wed Jun 14 – Hollywood, FL – Hard Rock Live*×
Thu Jul 06 – New Orleans, LA – Smoothie King Center+°
Sat Jul 08 – Fort Worth, TX – Dickies Arena+°
Sun Jul 09 – Austin, TX – Moody Center+°
Tue Jul 11 – Houston, TX – Toyota Center+°
Thu Jul 13 – Denver, CO – Ball Arena+°
Sun Jul 16 – San Diego, CA – Viejas Arena+
Wed Jul 19 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum+
Sat Jul 22 – San Francisco, CA – Chase Center+
Mon Jul 24 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena+°
Tue Jul 25 – Portland, OR – Veterans Memorial Coliseum+°
Thu Jul 27 – Salt Lake City, UT – Vivint Arena+°
Sat Jul 29 – Tulsa, OK – BOK Center+°
Sun Jul 30 – St Louis, MO – Enterprise Center+°
Wed Aug 02 – St. Paul, MN – Xcel Energy Center+°
*With Support Bloc Party
+With Support from Foals
°With Support from The Linda Lindas
×With Support from Genesis Owusu
!Festival Performance
LONDON — One of the 22 people killed in a suicide bomb attack outside an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena in 2017 would probably have survived had it not been for “significant failures” by the emergency services responding to the atrocity, a public inquiry has found.
John Atkinson, 28, died on May 22, 2017, when bomber Salman Abedi detonated a home-made explosive device in the foyer of Manchester Arena (now known as the AO Arena) at the end of a Grande’s sold-out show. More than 800 people were injured in the terror attack, many of them children.
An 884-page report detailing the emergency services response to the attack, published on Tuesday (Nov. 3), found that Atkinson, a caregiver for adults with autism, could have survived the attack “if given prompt and expert medical treatment.”
Instead, Atkinson, who was standing only six meters (nearly 20 feet) away from the bomber when he detonated his device at 10:31pm U.K. time, suffered severe injuries to his legs. He had to wait 47 minutes before he was treated by paramedics and then went into cardiac arrest and died on the way to the hospital.
“It is likely that inadequacies in the emergency response prevented his survival,” the report concluded.
The report is the second of three being produced by the public inquiry from the U.K. Home Secretary, which began in 2019.
The chair of the inquiry, John Saunders, said many things went “badly wrong” in how the emergency services responded to the attack, including “significant failings by a number of organizations in preparation and training” for such an emergency. On the night of the bombing, the national terror threat level in the U.K. was severe, meaning an attack was highly likely.
While praising the heroism of the first responders and citizens on the scene, Saunders identified “very significant” failures by Greater Manchester Police and an “unduly risk-averse” approach from the fire service. He also cited substantial problems with how the North West Ambulance Service handled the emergency, as well as serious failings by British Transport Police.
“Some of what went wrong had serious and, in the case of John Atkinson, fatal consequences for those directly affected by the explosion,” said Saunders. He concluded that none of the other 20 victims could have survived their injuries from the explosion and “inadequacies in the [emergency service] response did not fail to prevent their deaths.”
The report is highly critical of Greater Manchester Police for failing to declare a major incident in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. Two of the department’s most senior officers were on duty that night but made “no effective contribution to the emergency response.”
There was “non-existent” communication between emergency service senior offices and “individual failures” that further undermined the joint response, the report stated.
Only three paramedics entered the arena’s foyer to help the injured following the explosion. Fire officers took more than two hours to arrive at the scene after senior officers wrongly believed they were attending a marauding terror attack and it was not safe to send in firefighters – a delay that Saunders said was “serious and unacceptable.” Their presence would have resulted “in the safer and faster extraction of the severely injured” to another location where they could receive proper clinical care, he said.
The inquiry also found that there was a “remote possibility” that eight-year-old Saffie‐Rose Roussos — the youngest victim of the attack — could have been saved “with different treatment and care.” Roussos drifted in and out of consciousness for 26 minutes after the bomb blast and was able to give her name to the first member of the public who helped her, but no tourniquets or leg splints were applied to her injuries.
She was subsequently carried out of the foyer and taken to a hospital, where trauma doctors were unable to save her.
Following the report’s publication, David Russel, chief fire officer for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, apologized for what he called a “wholly inadequate and totally ineffective” response that “will forever be a matter of deep regret.”
In all, the report makes 149 recommendations, including requiring first aid training for all police officers and firefighters and more regulation and enforcement to improve the standard of healthcare services at public venues.
The public inquiry’s first report into the terror attack, published last June, looked at whether police and security should have done more to prevent the bombing. It found that arena operators SMG, security company Showsec and the British Transport Police, who were responsible for policing the area where the bomb exploded, were “principally responsible” for missed opportunities to prevent or minimize the “devastating impact of the attack.”
The third and final report will focus on the radicalization of Salman Abedi and what intelligence services knew about him and his family. The bomber’s brother Hashem Abedi was sentenced in 2020 to a minimum of 55 years for his part in the bombing.
“Nothing will ease the pain of the families of those killed during the cowardly terrorist attack at Manchester Arena,” U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak said on Twitter on Tuesday after the report’s release. “It is my solemn commitment to the victims, survivors and their loved ones that we will learn from the lessons of this inquiry.”
If you were bummed that your city wasn’t on the initial list of dates for Taylor Swift‘s massive 2022 Eras Tour, Friday morning (Nov. 4) brought some good news. After announcing earlier this week that she will embark on a 27-date U.S. tour that will celebrate all 10 of her studio albums released since 2006, the singer dropped another handful of stadium dates that adds eight more stops to what has already proven to be an out-of-the-box blockbuster run.
“UM. Looks like I’ll get to see more of your beautiful faces than previously expected… we’re adding 8 shows to the tour,” the singer tweeted on Friday morning.
The new stops include an April 14 gig at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, a May 5 stop at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, as well as gigs at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia (May 14), and gigs in Foxborough, MA, East Rutherford, NJ, Seattle, Santa Clara, CA and an Aug. 3 show at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
Swift hasn’t hit the road since 2018, when she launched her best-selling Reputation Tour. She had planned on performing again after the release of her 2019 record Lover in a concert series called Lover Fest, but canceled the shows due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For those keeping score at home, this means that Tay has six albums-worth of new material that she’s never played live — if you include the previously unreleased vault tracks on 2021’s Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version). Studio albums Folklore, Evermore and, of course her latest, Midnights, which have all also been released in the time between Lover and the Eras Tour.
Check out the new dates and opening acts and Swift’s tweet containing all the dates below.
April 14 – Tampa, FL @ Raymond James Stadium (beabadoobee, Gracie Abrams)
May 5 – Nashville, TN @ Nissan Stadium (Phoebe Bridgers, Gracie Abrams)
May 14 – Philadelphia, PA @ Lincoln Financial Field (Phoebe Bridgers, Gracie Abrams)
May 21 – Foxborough, MA @ Gillette Stadium (Phoebe Bridgers, Gracie Abrams)
May 28 – East Rutherford, NJ @ MetLife Stadium (Phoebe Bridgers, OWENN)
July 23 – Seattle, WA @ Lumen Field (HAIM, Gracie Abrams)
July 28 – Santa Clara, CA @ Levi’s Stadium (HAIM, Gracie Abrams)
August 3 – Los Angeles, CA @ SoFi Stadium (HAIM, Gracie Abrams)
Fans waiting to buy tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour next week should expect two things: high demand and high prices. After all, it’s been five years and four albums since Swift toured, with her newest album, Midnights, on track to be the best-selling record of the year — earning Swift the title of first artist to ever have 10 songs dominate the top 10 of the Hot 100 chart.
That popularity means that Swift can set high prices for her tickets — most seats will be priced between $200 to $400, with floor tickets going for as much as $800 a piece. Platinum tickets will cost even more with some selling for thousands of dollars per ticket.
If there’s any consolation for the impending sticker shock, though — which has caused outcry over recent Bruce Springsteen and Blink-182 tours as well — it’s that unlike with some of Swift’s past tours, most of that money will be going into her pocket, and not scalpers.
Much like with album marketing and record-breaking sales, as well as revolutionary stances around artists owning their masters and streaming royalties, Swift has had a profound effect on the concert ticket market over the years. Throughout much of her early career, Swift was a master of pricing and marketing and distributing concert tickets to her growing fan base, who eagerly bought up tickets to tours arounds hit albums like Fearless and Red. Unfortunately, scalpers were buying up tickets too. By 2015, with her tour supporting Swift’s crossover pop album 1989, average prices on the secondary market were going for two to three times face value.
In 2016, promoter Louis Messina — who has been working Swift since she was 17 — had been celebrating the mega-successful 1989 tour, which grossed a staggering $250 million worldwide, when a well-known entertainment executive and friend bragged that he had made more on the tour than Swift or Messina. The executive enjoyed a far more profitable haul from the tour thanks to his ownership in a ticket scalping business that was selling 1989 tickets at a four-to-five-times markup. Messina and Swift had priced the tickets so low, and fan demand was so high that anyone flipping tickets for the concert was bound to make a big return.
The nexus between ticket prices at the box office and what ticket flippers can sell them for on sites like StubHub was also a problem that Live Nation chief executive Michael Rapino wanted to solve. Working with then Ticketmaster president Jared Smith, newly hired head of music David Marcus and company product engineers, the team developed an aggressive pricing strategy to make more money for artists by pricing tickets closer to what they would sell for on the secondary markets.
After piloting the program with Jay-Z in early 2018, Ticketmaster began implementing its new pricing strategy for Swift’s Reputation Tour later that year. Compared to the 1989 tour, the Reputation Tour average ticket price was only about 10% more, but the best seats in the venue were priced significantly higher than in past years, thanks to new Ticketmaster tools that allowed it to optimize a venue’s seat map on a seat-by-seat basis. Ticketmaster also created a fan identification tool for Swift called SwiftTix, which had fans register in advance for an opportunity to buy tickets during the show’s presale, with their place in line partially boosted by purchasing fan merch and posting about the Reputation tour online. Today, the pricing strategy Swift used has become a staple of how most major tours are priced to capture more profit for artists, while advance registration has become a staple of most high-demand shows. For the Eras tour, for example, fans who register in advance get first crack at tickets while those held onto tickets for Swift’s canceled 2020 Lover Fest shows received even higher priority access for the Nov. 16 onsale.
Swift initially faced massive backlash over higher-than-expected ticket prices for the Reputation Tour, as well as criticism that SwiftTix was a money grab at the expense of fans. She was excoriated in the press, bashed on Twitter and targeted by ticket brokers for allegedly ruining her career. Not long after tickets went on sale, Gary Adler, executive director of the North American Ticket Brokers association penned a piece called “Why Taylor Swift’s Reputation Tour Is a Total Disaster” saying Swift’s sales scheme was the “best example of how not to sell tickets to a large tour.”
Adler could not have been more wrong. By avoiding the urge to price tickets so that they would immediately sell out, Swift’s long game, higher priced approach brought in $345.7 million, making it one of the highest grossing tours of all time.
When Swift’s tickets go on sale next week, millions of fans will be waiting for a confirmation email to notify them when it is their turn to buy tickets and fans will collectively spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying up seats. Based on the size of the tour, the popularity of Swift and the five years since Reputation, some fans will not be able to get the seats they want or will not pay the asking price, either because they can’t afford it or because they do not think it’s worth the money.
Again, angry fans will go on Twitter to complain about soaring prices, rage at Ticketmaster and lament about how things used to be, when tickets cost less — and, as they’re likely to forget, when scalpers bought them up in a frenzy. And they can thank their favorite “Anti-Hero,” Swift, for helping to develop a ticketing model that shifted more money into the pockets of artists, instead of scalpers — raising upfront prices for fans in the process. Whether that’s a solution or a new problem altogether, those who do buy tickets are likely to be applauding next year anyway when she sings, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”
Live Nation set records for concert revenue and ticket sales in the third quarter of 2022 as the touring industry continued its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Third-quarter revenues were $6.2 billion, 66.8% greater than the same period in 2019, while adjusted operating income increased 45% to $621 million, the company announced Thursday (Nov. 3).
“Fans around the world continue prioritizing their spend on live events, particularly concerts,” said president and CEO Michael Rapino in a statement. “Despite varying economic headwinds including inflation, we have not seen any pullback in demand, as on-sales, on-site spending, advertising and all other operating metrics continue showing strong year-on-year growth.”
The concerts division tallied its highest-ever quarterly attendance with 44 million fans at 11,000 events that generated $5 billion of revenue and $281 million of adjusted operating income (AOI), up 67% and 44%, respectively, from the same period in 2019. Demand was strong across all types of venues and markets. Stadium attendance tripled to almost 9 million as many top artists, including Bad Bunny (the highest grossing Latin tour in Boxscore history), Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Weeknd, took advantage of strong fan demand by performing the larger venues.
Ticketmaster also had a record-breaking quarter by delivering its highest fee-bearing gross transacted value of $7.3 Billion, a 62% increase from the same period in 2019. Ticketing revenue was $343 million, up 96.7% year-over-year and 36.8% greater than the same period in 2019. Ticketing’s AOI of $163.2 million was 5% lower year-over-year but 28.2% above the third quarter of 2019.
Ticketmaster has made headlines because some artists — namely Bruce Springsteen and Blink-182 — opted for dynamic pricing that charged more for the best seats. The practice may frustrate some fans, but Live Nation expects to transfer over $550 million to artists through higher primary ticket prices — value that might otherwise have been captured on the secondary ticketing market.
Sponsorship and advertising revenue was up 59.4% to $343 million on the strength of Live Nation’s festivals and Ticketmaster platform integration. The high-margin segment’s AOI of $226.2 million was 103.4% better year-over-year and 69.8% higher than the same period in 2019. Confirmed sponsorship revenue for 2023 is up 30% over the same period a year ago.
Through September, ancillary fan spending at U.S. amphitheaters was up 30%. “The consistent theme is that fans are eager to enhance their experience, as we continue elevating our hospitality operations and provide more premium options,” said Rapino.
Looking ahead, the busy touring season will continue into 2023 and consumer demand appears to be holding strong despite widespread fears of an upcoming recession and tightening budgets due to persistent inflation. “Ticket sales for shows in 2023 are pacing even stronger than they were heading into 2022, up double-digits year-over-year, excluding sales from rescheduled shows,” said Rapino. Through the third quarter, Ticketmaster sold over 115 million, up 37% from the same period in 2019.
Live Nation’s share price rose 4.6% to $79.90 in after-hours trading on Thursday following the earnings release.
Financial metrics
Total revenue: $6.2 billion, up 63.TK% from 2019
Adjusted operating income: $621 million, up 45% from 2019
Concert revenue: $5.29 billion, up 66.8% from 2019
Ticketing revenue: $531.6 million, up 36.8% from 2019
Sponsorship and advertising: $343 million, up 59.4% from 2019
Fan metrics
North America concerts; 8,261, up 14% from 2019
International concerts: 2,958, up 57.4% from 2019
North American fans: 29.1 million, up 27.7% from 2019
International fans: 15.2 million, up 71.9% from 2019
Fee-bearing tickets: 73.4 million, up 32.7% from 2019
“Is this America, or is this the bands?”
That’s the question that Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield remembers asking himself back in the ’90s, about the destructive impact that touring the United States seemed to have on so many bands (particularly British ones) of the era. At the time, the question was most directly inspired by his then-tourmates in Oasis and Screaming Trees, both of whom appeared to be disintegrating as the three acts were trekking across the U.S. in 1996. But Brett Anderson, leader of the London Suede, recalls his own band being something of a casualty of stateside touring in their own early days.
“I’ve seen bands fall apart in America – our own included, actually,” Anderson says. “And I’ve seen what it can do to you … I’m slightly wary of the pressures that the States kind of exerts on bands, actually.”
This wariness may have contributed to both bands — two of the U.K.’s most successful and best-enduring alt-rock outfits of the ’90s — mostly refraining from touring the States in recent years, with the London Suede’s last full U.S. trek now a full quarter-century in the rearview. But older, wiser, and newly motivated post-pandemic — and with a pair of excellent recent albums to promote in the Manics’ 2021 effort The Ultra Vivid Lament and London Suede’s September release Autofiction — the two veteran groups are linking up for a dozen North American tour dates, starting Thursday (Nov. 3) in Vancouver, and taking them to both U.S. coasts and a handful of cities in between. “We’re not all 25-year-old lunatics anymore, so hopefully we can bring a bit of judgment to bear with that,” Anderson says.
It also helps that the two groups, who toured together in Europe in 1994, are longtime well-wishers and kindred spirits. It’s a familiarity obvious in Billboard‘s Zoom conversation with Bradfield and Anderson, who spend the first five minutes catching up about each other’s lives, and laughing about how unimpressed their kids are with them. (“I think it doesn’t really matter what your parent does, they’re automatically uncool, aren’t they?” Anderson remarks. “It’s just the definition of being a parent — that they’re a bit naff, d’ya know what I mean?”)
Below, Billboard discusses the two bands’ histories of touring America with Bradfield and Anderson — as well as what they expect on this current tour, and why them actually getting along with one another is more the exception than the rule with bands of their era.
So obviously it’s been a while since you’ve both been on tour – and it’s even longer since you’ve been to the States, in both your instances. So what made now the right time?
Bradfield: I suppose I should just be really honest … after COVID, after lockdown, and then looking in the mirror too many times … as a band, we started talking about the things that we wanted to do again, just in case — well, just in case, really. And we had realized that we hadn’t toured America that much, and we wanted to go back. And places like America and Japan were places that we always want to go back to. It was just that thing of the near future not being so definite anymore – it spirited us on to actually do it again, I think.
Anderson: Yeah, uh, from our point of view – I can’t remember where the suggestion came from, but one day someone suggested this … did it come from you guys?
Bradfield: I think it may have come from our dear manager, Martin [Hall].
Anderson: Well, that’s lovely. Then it was a fantastic suggestion. Like most things with one’s career, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. And I think that you kind of have this sort of idea that everyone’s got these incredibly sort of strategic plans for their careers, and it’s not really like that. You kinda stumble into things. Someone suggested it, and we thought, “Yeah! F–k it, why not? Let’s do it.”
Bradfield: We have no delusions about what we mean in America as a band, y’know, the Manics. And the idea of going with another band that could help us with the lifting – sometimes lift more than we could, or vice versa, just helping each other – was appealing to us. Because we’re not delusional about our status in America. And just touring with Suede, in terms of – some kind of kinship there, some kind of empathy that we share, I think – and the idea that we could actually help each other get there, and for it to mean something… we definitely looked at touring with Suede – with you, Brett – and we just thought, “God, that could just be a great experience for us,” simple as that.
Anderson: Yeah, I think the same for us. You know, we haven’t been to the States in such a long time, and it didn’t really ever go off for us in the States. I mean, the first album [1993’s Suede] did OK, and then after that we had to change the name [to The London Suede], and there’s a lot of s–t that went down … and we didn’t, we just sort of, we left it alone for a while.
And when [this tour] was suggested, it was almost like – you know, more than the sum of its parts, almost. It’s a thing with both bands together – I think we share, not the same fanbase, because that would be oversimplified, but I think we have a fanbase in common. Lots of people like both bands, there’s a similar kind of thread that runs through both bands. So it seemed like a really exciting prospect. And we’d toured together before and we’d always got on, so it seemed … like yeah, a bit of a no-brainer.
Bradfield: They know that we’re quick sound-checkers! [Both laugh.]
Had there ever been any discussions either between your two bands, or between your bands and other like-minded bands from your era, of doing kind of this package thing, and sort of doing the strength-in-numbers approach and maybe getting to the States last decade or the decade before?
Anderson: The problem is … we don’t really like many other bands. That’s our problem. We’re one of the most miserable bands in the music industry, d’you know what I mean? So the Manics are one of the few bands that we like.
James: As I remember, there was a quote from Richey [Edwards, late Manics lyricist/guitarist] before — somebody asked him why he didn’t really like other bands, and he went, “You wouldn’t ask other plumbers if they hang out with other plumbers. You wouldn’t ask James’ dad,” who was a carpenter, “if he hangs out with other carpenters. Why do bands need to hang out with each other?” And he has a point!
I grew up in the music press of the ‘80s, and I grew up with Ian McCulloch, Mark E. Smith, Morrissey, all just taking shots at each other all the time. There was open warfare! And it was kind of part of the game. So we kinda grew up with that culture in the press, that bands didn’t necessarily have to like each other. So Brett – I can concur with that. I don’t have many musician friends.
We had supported Suede in France, and a couple parts of Europe back in the ‘90s. And so we knew that it worked, and we knew that we got on with those guys, and we knew that – importantly — we can give each other space. You don’t have to prove to each other that you have to socialize all the time. And you know that you can get on if you have to socialize … So, unless we’ve all irrevocably changed since then, I think we should be OK again.
Was it sort of a rite of passage for U.K. bands back in those days to build your audience at home, and in Europe, and then come to the States and have a bit more of an up-and-down experience? You say that you don’t really like a lot of other bands, but would you talk to other bands and kind of compare experiences at the time?
Bradfield: There was a strange thing in the ‘90s, where you were goaded by the British music press that you hadn’t really made it if unless you sold records in America. But then when you went to America, you realized that the British music press – NME, Melody Maker, Sounds – meant f–k all in America. You know? In fact, when we first came to America, we were just called “typical NME band”; that was used as the open insult to describe us when we first came to America. But then we’d come back, and the NME would say, “Well, if you haven’t sold quite a lot of records in America, you haven’t really made it.”
So there was always this strange kind of like, back and forth thing going on about the pressure of having to sell records in America for it to sort of define you kind of thing, from the British music press.
Anderson: I think [touring America is] an interesting cocktail of things, isn’t it? So often what happens is: a band becomes successful in the U.K., and then they go to America, and … they find a challenge, because they’re not received as warmly in America. So straight away, their egos are damaged. I’m just talking about as a broad thing, not anyone specific. But that’s what happens, and you’re not playing in front of your London crowd or whatever? You’re in front of a much more disinterested crowd. And then the size of the country as well, just the physical size of the country. All of these elements kind of get thrown into the mix.
And then there’s obviously – when English bands are in America, there’s a kind of sort of carnival element to it, where you kind of almost feel like you’re on holiday. We definitely did that in the early ‘90s, you know, partying much too much. You feel as though you’re not really working, you’re kind of on one long jamboree, almost. And all these elements, and drugs and drink and stress – they’re very harmful to bands.
It’s a crucible that kind of makes you or breaks you. And some people come through it unscathed and some people don’t. But it’s all kind of part of the contract that you enter into, you know?
Do you have any really positive experiences that you remember – shows where you did find a small audience that was really invested in the band?
Bradfield: Oh, yeah! Absolutely, the first time I played in Detroit, I absolutely loved it. I had a great day in Detroit. I had the best hot wings ever. I played the best gig in front of 350 people in a 1,000-2,000 people room. But the 350 people there were absolutely amazing. I did the corny thing of, like – because I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for the Red Wings, the ice hockey team – and I went to the Hitsville museum, I had a great gig, I had great food … that was one perfect date, that was amazing.
And then I’ve had other nights there that were strange. [America] is just like any place, it’s a mixed experience. But the road feels like a very real place in America. The contrast of experiences is so enormous, that it feels like a very real journey when you come to America. But that’s what makes it exciting. That’s why we’re coming back. Because there is a challenge there. And there is a bit of fear there. But you know that when it clicks, it’s a great experience, too.
Anderson: I’d echo that. You know, it’s a big country – it’s like saying, “What’s it like touring Europe?” “Well, you know, Sweden is different from Spain, it’s very different from Austrian …” America’s almost like a lot of different countries [in one]. There’s no one American experience. And it’s difficult to really sort of sum it up like that. It’s like, some gigs will be great, and some gigs will be terrible, I’m sure …
Bradfield: Hey, Coach, thanks for the pep talk! [Both laugh.]
Have you found in general that bands from the U.K. from the ‘90s have more of a U.S. base now than when you were touring at the peak of your popularity?
Anderson: I’m kind of keeping my expectations low and then I’ll be pleasantly surprised. It’s been such a long time ago since we’ve been to the States. I’d like to think that there’s kind of, y’know, universal appreciation of both bands. And as bands kind of age, they kind of like, grudgingly gain more respect. But who knows? It might be a disaster! I don’t think it will be, but …
Bradfield: I’ve done an interview like a week ago, and one journalist said, “These are quite small gigs for you.” I’m like, “F–k no! Some of these are quite big for us in America!” So we’re under no illusions.
Is there anything that you’re particularly looking forward to coming to America – places to visit, or venues you’ve never played before that you’re really excited to play for the first time?
Anderson: I’m looking forward to [all of it]. I’ve got that sort of slight nervousness, that slight sort of anticipation. But it could be really exciting. It’s going to be great touring with the Manics, and it’ll be great in the States, and let’s see what happens.
Bradfield: It kind of feels so novel to come back to America, that there will be that element of feeling like it’s the first time for a while. And you never know, it could be the last time! It could be.
Anderson: It could absolutely be the last time for us, as well. Who knows? We haven’t been there for 25 years. We might come back in another 25 years! It might very well be the last time we play for another 25 years. So if anyone is ummming and ahhhhing about it — come along, because you might as well see us now.
Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks are hitting the road next year for a very special concert series. On Wednesday (Nov. 2), the Piano Man took to Instagram to share that he and the Fleetwood Mac singer will be joining forces for a “one night only” event that turned out will be a little more than a single evening.
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“Two Icons – One Night Only, Billy Joel & @stevienicks, live at @attstadium on Saturday, April 8! Tickets go on-sale Friday, Nov. 11 at 10AM local time,” the “Uptown Girl” singer shared, along with a poster for the event to be held in Arlington.
Joel rolled out two more dates on his page on Thursday, revealing that Los Angeles and Nashville will also be getting concert dates on March 10 and May 19, respectively. Per Joel’s posts, tickets for the events will go on sale on Friday, Nov. 11, through Live Nation.
The “Rhiannon” singer also shared the news on Instagram Wednesday. “Excited to hit the road with the amazing @billyjoel in 2023,” she captioned her post. But, she also teased, potentially hinting at additional shows: “More soon!”
Fans in Joel’s posts expressed their excitement at his and Nicks’ joint venture, and begged for their cities to be added to the list, with one commenting, “ok now do this but in new york.” Requests from Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana and Mexico also rounded out the list.
See Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks’ posts below.