Touring
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When Nate Bargatze set the attendance record at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena last year, the comedian quickly figured out how to ensure his milestone stood: “I stole one of the chairs from Bridgestone,” he told Jimmy Fallon. “I have the record, so if I take one of the chairs home, no one can break that record.”
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Bargatze need not have resorted to such measures, joking or not, as he is seeing an attendance surge that has him breaking records and filling arenas across the country on the Be Funny tour, which started in January 2023 and has sold more than 1 million tickets.
In Billboard’s Mid-Year Boxscore Report, Bargatze’s outing ranked as the No. 1 comedy tour, ahead of those by fellow comics like Adam Sandler, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. For overall ticket sales, Bargatze came in at No. 12, narrowly behind such acts as P!nk, Coldplay, Madonna and U2. But he is likely taking home a much bigger percentage of the gross: Unlike music acts, who aim to net 30% of the gross, comedians in general have a much lower overhead and generally net between 50% and 60% of the gross, according to industry sources.
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As impressive as the numbers are, even more staggering is the rapid growth Bargatze, 45, is experiencing more than 20 years into his stand-up career. His 2023 shows averaged a gross of $240,000 from 3,612 tickets sold per show, according to Billboard Boxscore. As he progressed from theaters to arenas, his 2024 shows have averaged $781,000 gross from 11,429 tickets per show.
Bargatze is still digesting the boost in his popularity, which he attributes to social media, word of mouth, his specials on streaming services — including “Hello World,” which debuted last September on Amazon Prime Video — and, especially, hosting Saturday Night Live in October, which created “a giant, giant leap” in his career, he says. “It was my first kind of thing really on [a mainstream platform] and it just sent it to a completely new level.” (Bargatze’s “Washington’s Dream” sketch was the second most watched SNL sketch of the season, with more than 9.4 million views, according to NBC.)
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In an election year that feels increasingly mean and polarizing, Bargatze’s humor is decidedly apolitical, clean and relatable. His storytelling, delivered in a low-key, deadpan manner, is observational. If there’s a butt of the joke, it’s usually him and his feigned cluelessness.
The response he gets from the people who come to see his family-friendly shows assures him he’s on the right track. And for those times when he thinks “maybe I need to say something” or speak out on an issue, the appreciative feedback he gets from fans who feel uplifted by his gentle humor convince him he does not. “The world is serious. There’s plenty of people and information. You can go get whatever you want to go get. You do not need me to also add to that,” he says. “What I believe I need to do is be entertainment that you can go to as an entire family.”
In fact, he says some of his favorite moments are when he looks out into the audience and sees multiple generations sitting together. “I love when I can see a family sitting there, and if I start talking about my age, I can see the whole family look at the dad or look at the mom,” he says. “And when I talk about my parents, see them look at the grandparents. I love the connection that they’re like, ‘That’s you’ or ‘That’s me.’ That’s the best part.”
Appealing to a multi-generational audience is one of Bargatze’s greatest strengths, says Joe Schwartz, comedy touring agent at United Talent Agency, who has worked with the Brillstein Entertainment Partners-managed Bargatze for more than 10 years and handles his bookings with fellow UTA agent Nick Nuciforo. “The style of comedy that he’s doing lends itself to being so broadly appealing,” Schwartz says. “That gives him such a major advantage over a lot of the other stand-up comedians working today.”
As Bargatze hit new tipping points — such as the Amazon special or hosting SNL — UTA planned accordingly when rolling out tour announcements, knowing the exposures would bump up demand for tickets. But the demand has exceeded even their initial expectations, with Bargatze often playing every day of the week but Tuesday, and sometimes playing more than one show a day on the weekend. “We were holding additional dates where necessary, making sure the show times were at the hours that we knew would be best for that multigenerational audience,” Schwartz says. “We don’t do 10:00 p.m. shows in these arenas. We do shows at 4:00 p.m. after he sells out the 7::00 p.m. because we found that his audience prefers that.”
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Even during the COVID shutdown, Bargatze built his audience, first through drive-in shows and then 2021’s Netflix special, The Greatest Average American, which he taped outdoors (complete with the whirl of helicopters interrupting his set). He received his first Grammy nomination for the special’s comedy album companion.
Through it all, Bargatze has stayed focused on his craft, making incremental gains, preparing for when his big shot came. “You never know when all the eyes are going to switch over to you,” he says. “I’ve done this now for 21 years, so you just kind of keep doing what you’re doing — and then when the eyes end up hitting you, you need to be ready,” he says.
With an exhausting schedule, Bargatze also realized a number of years ago he needed to take better care of himself if he wanted to reach his goals. “I stopped drinking in 2018. I was starting to sell clubs out, and so we’re about to go to theaters [and] I wasn’t able to drink like a regular person.” he recalls. “I knew, ‘Alright, well, if I want to go to the level I want to go to, I have to get this out of my life or I’m not going to be able to get to that level.’ And I’ve seen that now, with even the training and the food.”
Bargatze grew up in Nashville and honed his comedy skills living in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York before moving back to Tennessee several years ago.
The son of a clown-turned-magician, Bargatze absorbed show biz tactics, though he didn’t realize it at the time. “My timing definitely comes from my dad,” he says. “He was working on his magic all the time. Even at home, he was doing it. So, subconsciously, you’re taking it in, like, ‘Well, if you want to be great at something, you have to do this all day long.’”
Though doing magic didn’t appeal to him, stand up did. And once Bargatze began stand up, “I was pretty exposed to already be kind of obsessed with it,” he says. “If you want to get to a high level, I mean, you have to be obsessed with it — you can’t just kind of have your foot half in. The longer I do it, the more I realized how much it was good for me to see that through my father.” His dad often opens Bargatze’s shows and frequently travels with him on the road, as does his mom.
His singlemindedness has always been apparent, says Schwartz. “For as long as I’ve been working with Nate, he has been so driven and so singular in what he has wanted to do. He has just devoted all the time and effort to becoming a great stand-up comedian. He has truly mastered the craft.”
In conversation with Bargatze that devotion to his technique is obvious. He intensely and thoroughly talks about the contrast between playing arenas on this tour, where he can draw out the jokes for his one-hour set, and then having to get back into the late-night television mindset to prep for Saturday Night Live by practicing in New York comedy clubs to come up with his tight, 8-minute opening monologue.
When Bargatze first began playing arenas several months ago, he utilized a traditional setup, with the stage at one end — but quickly changed to an in-the-round configuration to have a closer connection to the audience.
With the stage at one end, “the [audience] is so far away from you and it’s very easy for them to feel disconnected. But the round really changed everything because I’ve cut the distance in half from the farthest person,” he says. He also increased the size of the screens and put TVs on stage so even when his back is to people sitting in the front, they can see his face. “Comedy can work in arenas,” he says. “Weirdly, it can even work better. In a 2000-seat theater, you can’t see my face that great. But in an arena, I play to the cameras.”
He also adjusts his cadence each night. “When you’re doing the arena, it’s like music. My timing is based off their laughter, and it changes according to where you’re at. Every night, it’s a little different,” he says. But he also likes the challenge: “To keep 20,000 people’s attention, I love it. I love how hard it can be. You’re on kind of a tightrope. You’ve got to keep them intrigued the whole time. It’s amazing.”
The Be Funny tour ends Oct. 18. A streaming special filmed April 13-14 at Phoenix’s Footprint Arena will premiere this fall, and a companion album will come out through Capitol Comedy. Bargatze is the first artist signed to the new comedy imprint started by Universal Music Group Nashville.
Bargatze will take several months off from the road while he works on developing other projects, though Schwartz promises he’ll be back in 2025 with “the biggest, most impressive tour he’s ever done.”
Much of Bargatze’s time off from touring will be spent building out The Nateland Company, the umbrella content company geared toward producing family-friendly entertainment that he launched in October. Already off the ground is The Showcase, a six-part YouTube series filmed at Zanies Comedy Club in Nashville featuring up-and-coming comics, as well as three full-length comedy specials directed by Bargatze. The Nateland Company also houses Bargatze’s The Nateland Podcast, which is in its fourth year, and Bargatze has his eye on developing scripted tv and film projects.
Ultimately, Bargatze is aiming for a career and a production company that builds on his nice guy, everyman stand-up image, where fans know what to expect no matter how big his universe expands and what roles he may take on next.
“I tried to do auditions at the beginning and it’s hard. I can [only really] be me. And so if you don’t want this, then it’s not going to completely work out,” he says. “I see Adam Sandler and [Sandler’s production company] Happy Madison … I love that, where Adam Sandler goes and he’s him. You know what you’re getting when you’re in his world. He did Uncut Gems, and he can do all that other stuff and maybe there will be stuff like that down the line, but I gotta get some stuff on the board. The only thing I’ve really had is Saturday Night Live as a thing outside of stand-up comedy. So, there’s a lot of things that I need to get on the board and get moving forward.”
As he builds the Nateland empire, Bargatze feels confident that the audiences he plays before every night prove there is great demand for the kind of humor he and his fellow like-minded comics provide. The proof of concept is there in his hundreds of sold-out shows around the country. “This direction is working, so I want to keep going in this direction,” he says. “I’m in every town in America, and I’m just telling you, it seems to be working.”
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On July 18, 1991, Phoenix, Arizona hosted the first Lollapalooza. By the time gates opened, those who were there estimate it was 110 degrees.
Many artists on the bill — Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, Ice T — felt beat up by the heat, but it was only Nine Inch Nails, whose sequencer malfunctioned after sitting in the sun, that ended their performance after two songs because of it. Frontman Trent Reznor made his feelings about the situation known as he flipped over amps and mic stands on his way offstage.
“I would advise groups like that not to play outside in that type of heat,” says Danny Zelisko, who partnered with Perry Farrell to promote the festival that year. “Fortunately, there was a whole lineup of groups behind them that didn’t have to rely on electronics.”
Thirty-three years later, Phoenix has grown into the nation’s fifth largest city, with 1.6 million residents. It’s also the country’s hottest major metropolitan area, with scientists attributing the city’s rising average temperatures to both carbon emissions and heat trapped by man-made structures as development sprawls further into the Sonoran Desert. Last year was the warmest on record globally, according to the National Weather Service, and the fourth hottest on record in Phoenix.
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Amid a heatwave last July, the city clocked 19 days with record-high temperatures, including two that reached 119. Last July 22, a show by rock act Disturbed at the city’s Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre was postponed when the band’s equipment wouldn’t work in the 118-degree heat. A month later, 50 Cent postponed a show at the same venue due to an excessive heat warning.
A major tour stop for acts moving through the Southwest, Phoenix is home to many small, mid-sized and large-scale venues. Outdoor spaces include the 20,000-capacity Talking Stick, which is operated by Live Nation, and the 5,000-capacity Mesa Amphitheatre in nearby Mesa, Ariz., both of which host shows over the summer. (This summer, Mesa’s schedule is down to one summer show, in August, from several last year. May and August 2023 sets by Interpol and My Morning Jacket were moved to nearby indoor venues. A representative for the Amphitheatre did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment about whether these moves were heat related.)
But amid extreme heat — which is again currently gripping the city, many other areas of the U.S. and the world beyond — is Phoenix simply getting too hot to play in the summer, or is it business as usual?
Zelisko, who’s put on shows in the city for the last 50 years and has worked in nearly all its indoor and outdoor venues with his company Danny Zelisko Presents, says agents often ask about the realities of playing there in the summer. But despite concerns, “The fact is that economics come into it as well, and in many cases they can make more money outside, so sometimes acts just grin and bear it.”
Given that many summer tours are routed through amphitheaters and thus designed specifically for these types of spaces, it can also be difficult to move into a different kind of venue for a single show.
But certain artists “just won’t play outside when it’s this hot,” Zelisko adds. “It’s a wise move, because you’re really putting your crew out. These people will finish a show in Albuquerque, drive all night, show up here at 7 a.m. to load in, then do it all over again. Throwing a super-hot day into the mix is hard on some people.”
Steven Chilton, who promotes mostly indoor club shows in Phoenix under the name Psyko Steve, agrees the city is “a little slower” in summer, with some artists routing further north.
But Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre’s head of venue operation Karl Adams says he’s seen “no major changes” in how shows have been routed through the venue in recent years. This summer, Talking Stick has hosted shows by artists including Kenny Chesney, Paula Abdul and Cage the Elephant, with Sammy Hagar, Megadeth and more on the calendar through the end of August.
With some artists and fans willing to brave the Phoenix heat for a show, safety protocols at both outdoor and indoor venues are crucial. In the last 30 to 40 years, Zelisko says more responsibility has fallen on promoters to look out for crowds in the heat. “As it’s turned into a business where you put an act up any time of year that you can get them, promoters really plan for what’s going to happen on game day,” he says. “You have to look out for people, because you want them back as a customer.” This is particularly true for venues that have large expanses of concrete or asphalt, which can get to 130 degrees or hotter on a warm day.
At Talking Stick, protocols include encouraging fans to bring their own water bottles and fill them at free water stations. The venue is equipped with misting fans and cooling stations, provides free sunscreen and even has onstage air conditioning for artists. It also emails ticket holders prior to the event with show information that includes advice on how to prepare for weather, with this info also posted to the venue’s social accounts. Zelisko recalls handing out cooling ice pack necklaces at particularly hot shows, creating shaded resting areas and putting up pools backstage for bands to jump in after a set.
“When you’re a fan in line and somebody goes through handing out water, it’s a simple gesture, but very appreciated,” says Zelisko. “You’ve got to be thinking about that stuff, because you don’t want people dropping by the time they come in.”
That was the worst-case scenario outcome last December in Rio de Janeiro, when a 23-year-old fan died from heat exhaustion in a hospital after passing out during the second song of a Taylor Swift concert. Fans lined up for hours before the show in temperatures that reached 105, and many accused organizers of not delivering enough water supplies for the more than 60,000-person crowd. Fans also reported that they were not allowed to take their own water into the stadium.
Last summer, heat exhaustion was widespread at shows throughout the U.S., with Jason Aldean experiencing heat stroke while onstage in Hartford, Conn. last July. Zelisko predicts that all promoters will eventually have to deal with some type of weather issue, and that the heat in places with humidity is more challenging than the dry heat of the desert.
Still, “most of our 911 calls are heat related,” Chilton says of the Rebel Lounge, the 300-cap venue he manages. “It’s a big issue every summer, and it’s always the shows [that skew younger] where kids arrive early and want to sit outside in the sun for 10 hours in 110-degree heat, because they want to be first in line. Then they come into the venue exhausted and dehydrated and pass out. That’s a constant struggle for us.”
At Rebel Lounge, fans are thus only allowed to wait outside an hour before any given show. Once inside, Chilton says the venue has a competitive advantage, given that it has stronger air conditioning than many other local indoor venues, with these places losing out on summer bookings because they don’t get as cool inside.
While he says the cost of running multiple air conditioners is “very significant,” it’s worth it for the comfort of fans and artists. He recalls seeing a show at a nearby venue with weaker A.C., “and the band was furious at the end of the night.” Chilton says no one in the crowd complained, as locals know the realities of summertime in Phoenix.
The general vibe among those interviewed for this story is that the effects of climate change don’t yet feel hugely significant “because it’s always blazing hot in the summer,” says Zelisko, who once successfully fried an egg on a sidewalk during a 120-degree day. “I’m not saying it’s not getting hotter, because there’s a lot of proof that says it is, but what are you going do about it? We’ve still got to live.”
For Chilton, the difference thus far is “not necessarily that it’s more miserable, it’s that it’s miserable longer,” with heatwaves lasting longer than they used to. Still, the biggest weather issue he’s experienced wasn’t heat-related, but a fluke rainstorm during the two-day Zona Music Festival he produced in December of 2022.
“I did the research, and since 1900 in Phoenix it’s only ever rained three times on that day,” he says. “It was the most rain Phoenix had seen on a single day in like, a decade.”
Promoters also emphasize that Phoenix’s desert climate offers its own advantages. Adams of Talking Stick says the venue has “a longer season than some outdoor venues” since it can start hosting shows in April and continue them through the fall.
Zelisko wishes more groups would come to town in January, February and March — when outdoor shows are impossible in much of the country due to the cold — “because that’s the best time of year here.”
But as things stand, it’s unlikely summer shows will stop anytime soon in America’s hottest big city. “Performing outside in Phoenix in July is crazy,” says Zelisko. “But money makes people do crazy things.”
VAI Resort, metro Phoenix’s new $1 billion hotel, culinary and live entertainment destination opening later this year, has partnered with Tixr, the privately-held primary ticketing and live event company. Tixr will exclusively ticket events and experiences for the property’s amphitheater, poolside area and nightclub.
The $50 million, 11,000-capacity VAI Amphitheater in Glendale anchors the 60-acre property with 1,100 guest rooms offering a number of views of the concert venue. From hotel room balconies, to sky boxes, VIP booths and high-end reserved seats, the property offers a number of unique vantage points to see performances. The property will also feature a dayclub, as well as regular programming at its nightclub, with Tixr powering all live event commerce.
“Everything we’re building at VAI Resort, from the property itself to the guest experience, is unique, bigger, bolder, and first-of-its-kind. That ethos is reflected in the technology partners we’ve chosen like Tixr and the innovative feature set they bring to the table,” said Howard Weiss, VAI Resort’s senior v.p. of Entertainment & Sponsorships. “After a long vetting process, there’s no question that Tixr was the right choice for us,” Weiss added, noting, “it’s a true partnership, and every day we’re reminded of why we chose them.”
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“VAI Resort is not just a world-class destination; it’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. With its diverse venues and experiences on property, each with their own tech needs, VAI is the forward-thinking kind of partner Tixr is uniquely suited for,” said Robert Davari, co-founder and CEO of Tixr. “We can power sales for the entire resort, from complex reserved seating to bottle service, hotel packages—virtually anything—which hasn’t been possible before on a single system. And we do it in an visual, elegant way that feels nothing like traditional ticketing. We’re working closely with the VAI team to bring their vision to life and can’t wait to get operational.”
Tixr powers more than 500 live entertainment brands in 40 countries. The Los Angeles-based company said that since its inception, it has processed nearly $2 billion in transactions through its unified commerce platform, designed for sales beyond admission tickets.
The beach-style resort is located near State Farm Stadium — home of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals — and a soon-to-be completed theme park from Mattel — VAI is set to open in 2025. In February, hotel officials announced they had inked a partnership with Live Nation and C3 Presents to book the amphitheater.
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Karol G wrapped the Mañana Será Bonito Tour on Tuesday night (July 23) to record-breaking results. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the trek grossed $307.1 million and sold 2.3 million tickets over 62 shows.
The Mañana Será Bonito Tour spanned almost a full year, kicking off Aug. 11, 2023, at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium. Karol G played 15 stadium dates in the U.S., bringing in $138.4 million, landing at No. 1 on last year’s annual Latin recap.
Then, Karol G played 29 shows in Latin America, adding $125.4 million. Finally, she played 18 shows in Europe, topping off with another $43.4 million.
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The Mañana Será Bonito Tour is the highest-grossing Latin tour by a woman in Boxscore history, topping her own $trip Love Tour from 2022. On average, her per-show gross grew from $2.2 million on that trek, to $4.9 million on this trek. Her per-show attendance blossomed from 12,836 tickets to 36,371. And with almost double the workload – 62 shows on three continents, compared to 33 in the U.S. and Canada – her total tour gross multiplied more than four times, from $72.2 million to $307.1 million, with total attendance up 432%, from 424,000 to 2.3 million.
Karol G’s tour followed the release of its namesake album, Mañana Será Bonito. Released on Feb. 24, 2023, it became not only her first top 10 album on the Billboard 200, but her first No. 1. On a macro level, it was the first all-Spanish-language album by a woman to top the chart.
While Spanish-language music has blossomed in North America over the last decade, Karol G’s recent run of shows in Europe is particularly noteworthy. High-grossing tours by pan-generational Latin artists like Aventura, Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee, Peso Pluma and RBD have stuck to the U.S., Canada and Latin America. Luis Miguel is playing shows in Europe this summer, though he’s exclusively in Spain. Karol G played multiple arena dates in France, Germany, Italy and more, breaking ground for Latin acts abroad.
The Mañana Será Bonito Tour ended on a high note, with four shows at Madrid’s Estadio Santiago Bernabeu. Those dates collectively earned $23.6 million and sold 220,000 tickets. Both figures set venue records, passing previous appearances by Luis Miguel, The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen. It’s the second highest-grossing engagement from the tour, just under the $25.4 million double-header at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.
Ultimately, the Mañana Será Bonito Tour is the 30th trek in the Boxscore archives (dating back to the mid-80s) to gross $300 million. Among women, it’s just the seventh, joining a group with stints by Beyoncé, Madonna, P!nk and Taylor Swift.
Grouped by genre, the Mañana Será Bonito Tour is only the second tour by a Latin artist to clear the $300 million threshold, barely missing the 2022 high mark set by Bad Bunny’s World’s Hottest Tour ($314.1 million). Luis Miguel will likely join them with one more update, as his current tour sits at $298.7 million through July 13. Further, Karol G is the first Latin woman to join the $300 million club.
Dating back to reports from January 2018, Karol G has grossed $400.9 million and sold 2.96 million tickets over 128 reported shows, extending her margin as the highest-grossing woman in Latin music.
The Pointer Sisters and The Commodores have certainly marked time together.
Both began making their marks during the mid-’70s and had hits on the charts simultaneously; during 1981, for instance, the Pointers’ “Slow Hand” and The Commodores’ “Lady (You Bring Me Up)” were both in the Billboard Hot 100 top 10, and a few years later, the Pointers were ruling with “Automatic” and “Jump for My Love” just before their compatriots went on the “Nightshift.” Combined, they’ve sold more than 100 million albums and scored 20 chart-topping hits.
And they’ve found themselves sharing the same concert bills on more than a few occasions.
That will be the case again starting July 26, when the two acts kick off An Evening With Icons concerts, five dates starting in Oxon Hill, Md., and continuing Oct. 5 in Durant, Okla., Nov. 14 in Tampa, Fla., Nov. 15 in Hollywood, Fla., and Nov. 30 in Primm, Nevada. The current incarnation of The Spinners will open all of the dates.
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As the tour approaches, Billboard got together with Ruth Pointer, who currently leads her group with daughter Issa and granddaughter Sadako, and with multi-instrumentalist William “WAK” King, The Commodores’ sole remaining founding member, to discuss the shows, their collaboration and what we can expect.
How did these dates come together?
King: It was done through the agencies. It wasn’t as though we and The Pointer Sisters sat down one day and said, “Hey, let’s put a tour together.” It was brought about through the agencies we both worked with and we both said, “Yeah, it would be great.” So here we are.
Pointer: When they introduced the whole idea to me, I thought, “Yeah, that could be fun. I haven’t seen those guys in quite awhile, but that sounds like a good time to me!”
King: I think it’s a good package because of the music. I always like the female-male combinations. We did it back in the day, and it gives a variety to the people. They’ve got some really good songs, and that’s what people come out for, right? They want to reminisce and enjoy the past as well as now. It’s all about hearing that music again and being in the past, in the present — if that makes sense. I’m just looking forward to it, man. Let’s go out and have a blast.
What kind of history do you have in working together?
Pointer: We worked with them — quite awhile ago, actually. They’re a band and they’re a boy band and boy bands were always big back then with The Commodores, DeBarge, The Spinners, there were so many of them and I loved them. We did Lionel [Richie]’s first solo tour with him, which was probably the best tour we’ve ever done; it was when he was just leaving The Commodores, so it was a big deal. And then we’ve done a couple other engagements with the actual Commodores after that.
King: In the early days we would do some shows together, but actually not a whole lot, I’m sorry to say. It was actually JD [James Dean Nicholas], one of The Commodores, who said, “Y’know what — we haven’t done anything with them for years. We haven’t played music with them, anything. So I think it would be a good idea.”
What’s your favorite song of each other’s?
King: “Jump (For My Love),” that’s my favorite. [Sings “Jump”] People think uptempo songs, fast songs are easy. I beg to differ; the whole thing about a song that’s uptempo is the groove. You’ve got to have the right groove to catch people, so it doesn’t just speed by them. It’s got to have a hook in there. The track has to grab you…and that’s what [“Jump”] does.
Pointer: I would probably say “Nightshift.” We were recording around the same time and we happened to be working with [producer-writer] Peter Wolf and he told us he worked on that song with them and we were like, “Oh, well, OK, let’s go…”
Both of your bands are still going, more than 50 years later, and you’ve both had some significant lineup changes. What is it that keeps you going?
Pointer: The way I look at it is it’s life. Me and my sisters, we were women starting off early in our 20s, and of course life brings on changes where you marry and have children and it changes your priorities. And life goes on and you lose people, which is what happened to us. It’s definitely a challenge a lot of times, but that’s just the way life is. You just roll along.
King: It’s just for the love of being out there, the love of music. We enjoy each other. We enjoy what we’re doing. We actually don’t fight, to tell you the truth, but we have spats, disagreements at times. But it’s kind of like a well-oiled machine right now. Everybody knows that they do, everybody knows what’s expected, and what’s expected is for you to sometimes come up with the unexpected. It’s about keeping things the way people want to hear them from the past but bringing some newness as well. That challenge keeps us on our toes.
You also both recorded for Motown — The Commodores for longer, of course. What does your association with that legendary label mean to you?
King: I’ve got to tell you, Motown was incredible for us. It was incredible for most of its star acts. For me it was just legendary because it was Motown; all the artists I had grown up with — The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye — all those people were there, it was like we’d really made the big time. So when we got there it was really nice that a lot of these artists came to our sessions. They all said, “You guys need anything? You want us to sing on it, do that, do this?” Marvin always wanted to go play basketball; there was a park right across the street, but I’d say, “Marvin, we’re paying for these sessions. We can’t leave here and go out and play basketball!”
Pointer: I appreciate it because Motown was always something I admired. Any artist that came out of there — The Supremes and Temptations, Michael and The Jacksons — they were always so polished with the perfection and the look and the direction and all of that. Even as briefly as we were with Motown, we had a chance to experience a little bit of that. As a matter of fact there’s a photograph we did while we were there that’s one of my favorites; I was thinking, “They really know how to dress a girl!”
Has there ever been a point in your careers where you’ve thought about packing it in?
Pointer: Definitely. I mean, recently I have had thoughts of…I wouldn’t call it throwing up my hands. I would just say I’ve really had some thoughts about whether I wanted to continue or not because all of my sisters are gone and I feel the pressure of being the last surviving sister. I’m still working with my daughter and granddaughter, but at the beginning when I first pulled them in it was really hard, and I dis have those thoughts of “Do I really want to do this?” ’cause I knew the sound and the energy were not gonna be the same. But the more I continue to just go on out there, I have to say that our fans and the audience give me the confidence and desire to keep going. I wasn’t sure how we were going to receive it with just me, but it goes over really well.
King: The one thing is when we knew Richie was going to leave, I wish we would’ve done that better. I don’t think we did it badly, I really don’t. It didn’t look like it was horrible and we hated each other, because we didn’t. And we both went on and had success. But it could’ve been better, between ourselves.
Are there prospects for new music from either of you?
King: I just finished doing a song for a movie that’s coming out soon about President Reagan and his wife, Nancy. I wrote the love song for that particular movie. And we’re actually working on a new album; we just finished the first three tracks and have to put the vocals on them, and we’ll be doing more after that.
Pointer: Not at the moment, no. I’m just cruising right now. I did write a book about myself and my experience with the Sisters, Still So Excited, and there are people who are talking to me about a biopic and also about [stage] musicals about the Pointers experience in the business. But we just want to honor the group really. I’m not desperate to have something out there just for the sake of having it out there. If it happens it’ll be right, and if it doesn’t happen, I’m good.
King: We’re in the midst of doing a bio of the group; hopefully that’ll be out in about a year, a year and a half. We’re just getting started. We’ve already done some of the interviews, and we’ve got a lot more of them to do. So many of the people we want to interview are older now so we need to get them as soon as possible.
Ruth, we’d be remiss to not ask you about what it was like to be Cupcake on The Masked Singer.
Pointer: [Laughs] That was fun, and kind of bittersweet for me ’cause me and Anita were supposed to do it together and she and I had gone to the fitting for the costumes. She got the call that day from her doctor that gave her the diagnosis of lung cancer, stage four. She said, “Look, I’m gonna have to pull out. If you want to continue and do it yourself, I would love for you to do that.” I just felt like I had to do it because she would’ve wanted me to do it. It was a fun show, but actually a lot more work than people can imagine, especially because no one can see you while you’re on the lots, so you have to wear [the costume] every time you’re there. But I had fun.
Italian producer Anyma has today (July 23) announced selling out all six of his upcoming Sphere shows, for a total of 100,000 tickets sold. Tickets went on sale earlier today, with a pre-sale event happening yesterday. The first show of the run, on New Year’s Eve, was announced just last week, with five additional dates […]
Desert Daze is returning to Lake Perris, California, after taking 2023 off with one of its most stacked lineups since launching in 2012. This year’s festival is being headlined by rock icon and former White Stripes frontman Jack White, next-gen shoegaze pioneers Cigarettes After Sex, singer-songwriter Alex G, reunited Latino prog rock masters The Mars Volta, bassist and singer Thundercat, ’90s icon Liz Phair and hip-hop legends De La Soul. Desert Daze also includes Death From Above 1979 performing a 20th-anniversary performance of You’re a Woman, I’m A Machine.
The lineup also includes Fleet Foxes, 100 gecs, Sleep, Marc Rebillet, Molchat Doma, The Kills, Floating Points, Power Trip, Beach Fossils, DIIV, Unwound, Shintaro Sakamoto, Danny Brown, All Them Witches, Mount Kimbie, Otoboke Beaver, Say She She, Converge, Souls Of Mischief and many more.
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A few of the special appearances at Desert Daze 2024 include original riot grrrl and punk-rock heroine Kathleen Hanna reading from her New York Times bestselling memoir Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk and in conversation with Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Temples’ 10th-anniversary performance of their debut album, Sun Structures.
New this year, Los Angeles venue, recording studio and hotel Gold Diggers will curate a tent featuring acclaimed Chicago-based jazz drummer, composer and producer Makaya Mccraven, Tortoise’s Jeff Parker, musician and skateboarding icon Tommy Guerrero, acclaimed British singer Carina Round (Tears for Fears, Puscifer), and more; and Los Angeles-based label and promoter Jazz Is Dead will showcase their artists including Ebo Taylor + Pat Thomas, and co-founder Adrian Younge.
For additional info & tickets, visit desertdaze.org
DESERT DAZE
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