Touring
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Some Oasis fans celebrated like a champagne supernova, while others looked back in anger on Saturday (Aug. 31) as online ticket sites strained under demand for the band’s first shows for 15 years.
The Britpop-era behemoth led by brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher is scheduled to play 17 gigs in Cardiff, Manchester, London, Edinburgh and Dublin starting July 4.
More than one million tickets went on sale Saturday morning, with prices starting at about 74 pounds (just under $100) and rising to a 506-pound ($666) package that includes a pre-show party and merchandise.
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The band’s representatives said later in the day that all the tickets were sold, but hinted more shows may be announced, saying “anticipation for details of the tour’s international dates is now rapidly mounting.”
Many fans were frustrated in their attempts to secure tickets. Some people attempting to get onto the handful of authorized sales sites, including Ticketmaster and Gigs and Tours, received error messages, while many others were informed they were in a lengthy queue.
Josh Jeffery, a videographer who lives near Edinburgh, spent hours moving up the online ticket queue, before “the whole site collapsed” at the last step.
“I’ve given up, my friends have given up,” said Jeffery, who first saw Oasis in Manchester as a teenager in 1996. “We just decided it’s too much hassle.”
“As I was in the queue, I heard ‘Wonderwall’ blasting out from my neighbor’s house,” he added ruefully. “He’d obviously got tickets.”
Some fans managed to buy tickets through a presale lottery on Friday. Barista Isabelle Doyle said she was “over the moon” after snagging two seats for one of the band’s London shows.
“I’ve been a fan of Oasis for about 10 years now, literally since I was 11 years old,” the 21-year-old said. “Finally to be able to see them after they got me through as a teenager, it’s absolutely amazing and I’m so excited.”
Within hours, tickets began to be offered on resale websites for as much as 6,000 pounds ($7,800). Oasis issued a warning, saying tickets could only be resold at face value through authorized sites.
“Tickets appearing on other secondary ticketing sites are either counterfeit or will be cancelled by the promoters,” the band said in a statement.
Megan Gordon, a 25-year-old fan from Manchester, said she was “fuming” after failing to get tickets.
“I don’t really want to pay resale, but I will,” she said.
Formed in Manchester in 1991, Oasis was one of the dominant British acts of the 1990s, producing hits including “Wonderwall,” “Champagne Supernova” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” Its sound was fueled by sing-along rock choruses and the combustible chemistry between guitarist-songwriter Noel Gallagher and singer sibling Liam.
Oasis split in 2009, with Noel Gallagher quitting the band after a backstage dustup with his brother at a festival near Paris. While the Gallagher brothers, now 57 and 51, haven’t performed together since, both regularly perform Oasis songs at their solo gigs. They’ve also each fired off criticisms of the other in the press.
Announcing the reunion, the band said fans would experience “the spark and intensity” that occurs only when they appear on stage together.
Alice Enders, head of research at media consultancy Enders Analysis, said touring was now the major source of revenue for many musicians, and Oasis could expect a big payday — though the tour, limited for now to the U.K. and Ireland, pales in comparison to global juggernauts like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
She said Oasis is playing catchup in a live music market that has seen “a relentless climb in expenditure, consumer expenditure, demand for festivals.”
“It’s been 15 years of a mega-trend that they missed out on, basically,” Enders said. “So it’s a good thing they’re jumping on now. … If they wait too long, then they are just a bunch of old geezers.”
The tour is due to begin July 4 and 5 at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium. Oasis will also perform at Heaton Park in Manchester, on July 11, 12, 16, 19 and 20; London’s Wembley Stadium on July 25, 26 and 30 and Aug. 2 and 3; Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh on Aug. 8, 9 and 12, and Croke Park in Dublin on Aug. 16 and 17.
The host cities anticipate an economic boost to hotels, bars, restaurants and shops — especially Manchester, the band’s hometown and a city renowned for its musical heritage.
Sacha Lord, Manchester’s official nighttime economy adviser, said “there’s a big buzz” in the city about the reunion.
“This is a homecoming gig,” he said. “When they set foot on that stage for the first time, it’s going to be a really special moment.”
Fans acknowledged that, given the brothers’ frequent feuds, there is a risk not all the dates will go to plan. But most were undeterred.
Louise Hudson got tickets for London’s Wembley Arena, and plans a “family night out” with her brother, sister-in-law and niece.
As for the Gallaghers, “if they fall out, they fall out,” she said. “Families, eh?”
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LONDON — Nearly three decades after Oasis‘ cultural and commercial peak, the Gallagher brothers — songwriter/guitarist Noel and singer Liam — are once again making headlines around the world, following the shock announcement that the long-warring siblings are to reunite for a series of huge outdoor shows in the United Kingdom and Ireland next year.
In the U.K., anticipation for the band’s comeback has been building since rumors began circulating several weeks ago that the feuding brothers had buried the hatchet after a 15-year war of words and were set to return. The group split up in 2009 when Noel quit before a show at French music festival Rock en Seine following an argument with Liam.
Oasis fans’ wildest dreams were realized on Tuesday (Aug. 27) with the announcement that the band will play a massive 14-date stadium tour of the U.K. and Ireland next summer, marketed as ‘Oasis Live ’25.’
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“The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised,” Oasis bullishly said in a statement, prompting a feverish rush of news coverage in their home country and beyond that has reignited interest in the Britpop-era rock act.
Registration for the tour’s ticket pre-sale opened the same day. 48 hours later the group announced three extra concert dates due to “unprecedented demand.”
The additional gigs mean Oasis will now play five nights at London’s 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium, five nights at Heaton Park in their home city of Manchester (80,000 cap.) and three shows at Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh (67,000-cap.), as well as two performances at Dublin’s Croke Park (83,000-cap.) and two shows at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium (74,000-cap.).
With tickets expected to quickly sell out when they go on sale Saturday (Aug. 31), Oasis look set to perform to around 1.3 million people across the 17-show run, according to Billboard‘s calculations.
That puts the band’s live return at a similar level to Taylor Swift‘s recent U.K. and Ireland leg of her “Eras Tour,” which spanned 18 sold-out stadium shows, including eight nights at Wembley Stadium – a new record for a solo singer at the venue. The estimated total attendance for Swift’s U.K. shows was 1.2 million, not including her three shows at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium.
With tickets to Oasis’ live shows priced between £65.00 ($85.00) and £250.00 ($330.00), excluding fees, Billboard estimates that the tour — jointly promoted by Live Nation, SJM Concerts, MCD and DFC — could gross the band around £200 million ($262 million) on ticket sales alone (based on an average ticket price of £150.00). When VIP and premium packages, merchandise, sponsorship, performance rights and future filming revenues are factored in total earnings are likely to be at least double that amount, according to talent agent Jonathan Shalit, posting on X before the three extra concert dates were announced.
FINANCIAL WINDFALL
“It’s a once in a generation moment for a lot of music fans to experience an iconic rock band that has a very special place in many people’s hearts. It’s also going to be a really big economic moment for the country and music industry,” Tom Kiehl, chief executive of umbrella trade body UK Music, tells Billboard.
In 2023, 19.2 million “music tourists” — defined by UK Music as someone who travels outside of their hometown or city for a gig or visiting from overseas — attended live concerts and festivals in the United Kingdom, up 33% on the previous year, generating 8 billion pounds ($10.3 billion) for the country’s economy.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown, says the frenzy of interest in Oasis’ return ensures it will create large revenues for hotels, taxis, bars, restaurants and pubs in cities where the band is performing “bringing a significant boost to the U.K. economy.”
The U.K. leg of Swift’s “Eras Tour” was estimated to have earned £1 billion ($1.3 billion) for the U.K. economy, according to analysis by Barclays bank, based on Swifties each spending a projected £848 ($1,100) on tickets, travel, accommodation, outfits and other expenses.
“While spending by Oasis fans might not reach those heady heights, they are unlikely to hold back from splashing the cash to celebrate the brothers’ return,” Streeter tells Billboard.
In Oasis’ home city of Manchester, the band’s five shows will earn the local economy over £15 million ($19.7 million), says Sacha Lord, the city’s nighttime economy advisor and founder of Parklife music festival.
WILL A RISING TIDE LIFT ALL BOATS?
Alongside the financial benefits, live execs hope that the explosion of interest in Oasis will strengthen support for the U.K.’s struggling grassroots music sector, where the band cut their teeth in the early 1990s, but has experienced a tide of small venue closures in the decades since.
According to the Music Venue Trust (MVT), just under 150 grassroots venues closed or stopped staging live music in the U.K. in 2023. Of the 15 venues that Oasis played on its first ever tour, nine are reported to have closed or are no longer putting on gigs.
To stop the wave of small venue closures, live execs are pushing for the British government to cut sales tax (VAT) on tickets for all grassroots music shows from 20% to the European average of between 5-7%. Doing so “will mean more shows and festivals, thriving venues of all sizes and [help] the next world class superstars off the U.K. talent production line,” says Jon Collins, CEO of U.K. music trade body LIVE.
“The Oasis reunion is a huge moment not just for fans, but for the live music industry too,” Andrew Foggin, global head of music at ticketing company DICE, tells Billboard. “These high profile, beloved artists serve as a catalyst to get people out more. They don’t just draw crowds to massive stadium events, but they also remind people what makes live music so special, creating benefits for the rest of the industry.”
As for the Gallaghers themselves, they stand to land a sizable royalty windfall even before a single ticket is sold. On the back of Tuesday’s reunion announcement, Oasis’ Spotify streams spiked 690% globally, says the streaming service, with some of the band’s lesser-known songs such as “Turn Up The Sun” and The Swamp Song” enjoying especially large spikes (450%-plus) in the U.K. The band has more than 24 million monthly listeners on Spotify with its most popular song, “Wonderwall,” having been streamed more than 2 billion times in total.
On TikTok, Oasis has seen a 101% increase in video views, creations and user engagement over the past seven days, with #OasisReunion having 109 million video views over the past two weeks, reports the platform. (Billboard understands that Sony Music owns the master rights to Oasis’ entire catalog, which it licenses back to the band’s label Big Brother Recordings, with the exception of 2008’s final album Dig Out Your Soul, which Sony doesn’t own).
“Oasis has always been popular on TikTok, and the news of the reunion has taken it to another level,” says Adam Read, TikTok’s U.K. and Ireland music programs manager. “Fans have celebrated in typically creative ways, whether it’s dressing up like Liam Gallagher waiting [for] the on sale or remixing classic Oasis tracks in unique TikTok videos. We’re excited to see how the community will continue to get creative with the band’s catalog on the platform.”
So far, the only live dates announced by Oasis are the 17 shows in the U.K. and Ireland, although the fact that the band is calling its 2025 outing a world tour suggests that international dates, including possible U.S. shows, will likely follow. It’s anticipated that additional U.K. shows could be announced if the initial ticket allocation sells out quickly, although the band has made it clear that it will not be playing next year’s Glastonbury festival, as previously rumored.
“Oasis were the last big band of the pre-digital era,” enthuses Kiehl. “There’s a legendary status attached to them and there’s a whole new generation of Oasis fans who have never seen them perform live, as well as all of their original fans from the Nineties, so their return is going to be a really big moment for the music industry and live music.”
Despite what Oasis singer Liam Gallagher promised us 30 years ago, we are, sadly, not going to “Live Forever.” In fact, most of us didn’t think we’d live long enough to see the band perform again after they famously called it quits in 2009 due to the bitter sibling rivalry that both fueled and faltered […]
Young Miko took the stage at New York’s The Theater at Madison Square Garden for two back-to-back performances on Tuesday and Wednesday (Aug. 27-28), captivating the audience with a one-and-a-half-hour show. As part of her XOXO Tour 2024 across the U.S. in support of her new album, Att., Young Miko delivered numerous highlights on her second day to her eager fans, including appearances from two special surprise guests: Villano Antillano and Tokischa.
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Dressed in a pastel-hued, shimmery BMX racing jersey set and with her brown hair slicked back, the rising hitmaker performed through her hits including “Wiggy,” “Lisa” and “Classy 101” originally featuring Feid, as well as “Fina,” originally with Bad Bunny.
The excitement peaked when Villano Antillano entered the spotlight, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Dressed in high leather boots, a black top and a thong, with her long black hair reaching her lower back, Villano exuded a fierce demeanor. The two Puerto Rican rappers teamed up to perform “Madre,” with Villano owning the catwalk across the stage, while Miko showcased some ballroom-style rave moves.
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“We have a legend in the house today, New York. She is la foking Villano, baby. Viva PR, queen!” Young Miko commanded, then turned her attention to the guest star. “You know how much I love you. This woman collaborated with me when no one knew who the hell I was. And now I have the honor to call her my sister. I adore you! Te amo, mi amor.”
Villano replied, “I love you, my love,” returning the affection.
Later in the evening, as the hard-hitting reggaetón banger Bad Gyal’s “Chulo pt. 2” started, both Miko and the audience amped up the energy. The crowd went wild as Tokischa hit the stage unexpectedly. Dressed in a short, sporty white skirt and a strapless black halter top, with her hair slicked back in a braid, the Dominican dembow rapper-singer flawlessly delivered every verse, adding some twerking with the night’s star for good measure.
The stage décor was tantalizingly playful. Miko first appeared in a setting resembling perhaps her childhood bedroom — dominated by pink, her favorite color, with a giant tamagotchi beside her on a bed. Later, the scenery shifted to a pixelated outdoor field where she sang atop a log surrounded by plants and flowers, looking exceptionally adorable. She also got naughty — at one point she made a sexual innuendo with her microphone, and briefly showed off her toned abs — sparking screams from her fans.
The Puerto Rican singer-rapper’s NYC performance not only showcased her rapidly ascending career, but also was packed with invigorating moments, including plenty of laughter. At one point, she paused to read some clever and hilarious cardboard signs brought by fans. “When I play with my kitty and think of you, I get a happy ending,” Young Miko read out loud. “I honestly love that for you. We all love a happy ending.”
Watch Young Miko perform with Villano Antillano and Tokischa below:
Coldplay’s sprawling Music of the Spheres World Tour – 156 shows on four continents over two and a half years so far – continues, taking the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s monthly Top Tours chart. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the Brits brought in $72.2 million and sold 575,000 tickets over 11 shows in July.
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It’s the fourth time that Coldplay has led the monthly review, all of which happened during its current tour (the monthly Boxscore charts launched in February 2019), following victories in July 2022, March 2023 and January of this year. The first of those was while the band played in Europe. The second was for shows in South America, and the third in Asia.
The Music of the Spheres World Tour clinches its most recent monthly victory with a return to Europe, marking the third continental leg of the tour. Stops in Rome, Dusseldorf and Helsinki packed the July calendar, peaking in the former with $29.4 million and 252,000 tickets at Stadio Olimpico July 12-13 and 15-16. That’s enough to take the No. 1 spot on Top Boxscores as well.
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Beyond the chart triumph on July’s Boxscore report, Coldplay’s tour has now reached record-breaking heights. Since its kick-off in March 2022, it has eclipsed $1 billion in concert grosses and sold almost 9.3 million tickets through Aug. 25. That makes it the highest grossing and bestselling rock tour in Boxscore history, surpassing Elton John in the former metric and U2 in the latter.
Four dates remain to be reported in Dublin, plus 11 in Oceania later this fall. Having averaged more than 50,000 tickets on all nine legs of the world tour so far, it’s likely that the Music of the Spheres World Tour will surpass 10 million tickets.
The $1 billion gross and 10 million ticket thresholds are both unprecedented in Boxscore’s almost 40-year history. The obvious asterisk is unreported figures for Taylor Swift’s ongoing The Eras Tour, likely closer to $2 billion than one now that its own 48-date European leg has wrapped, and approaching 10 million tickets itself.
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band are No. 2 on July’s Top Tours ranking, pulling in $65.4 million from 500,000 tickets over nine shows. The Boss also earns his chart rank from shows in Europe, specifically playing in Belgium, Denmark, Germany and others, before closing out the run with two shows at London’s Wembley Stadium.
Springsteen’s London dates grossed $25.2 million and sold 154,000 tickets, mirroring his No. 2 rank over on Top Boxscores. A double header at Friends Arena in Solna, Sweden followed with $9.7 million and 108,000 tickets, landing further down the list at No. 23.
Since kicking off in May, the ’24 European leg of Springsteen’s tour brought in $158.5 million and sold more than 1.2 million tickets over 22 concerts. Though he has wrapped overseas, The Boss made his way over the pond, launching another leg of U.S. shows last week and ensuring a return on the August recap.
Europe fills out the top four spots, with Travis Scott and P!nk at Nos. 3 and 4, respectively. It was the first extended European tour for Scott, who was met with a well of pent-up demand. From June 28 through Aug. 4, he grossed $58.9 million and sold 520,000 tickets in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Portugal, and more. It’s the most that a solo rapper has earned on tour outside of the United States.
Combined with the North American shows from autumn 2023 and winter 2024, the Utopia Circus Maximus Tour has brought in $154.7 million and sold 1.2 million tickets over 63 shows. Scott has a slate of shows in Latin America and Oceania before closing for good on Halloween in Auckland, New Zealand.
For P!nk’s part, the Summer Carnival Tour continued with a second leg of European stadiums. Reaching a monthly high at Amsterdam’s Johan Cruyff Arena, she totaled $46.8 million and 377,000 tickets during July. Since its launch last June, the entire tour has grossed $469.3 million and sold 3.6 million tickets – not including the Trustfall Tour, which interrupted the stadium run with a swing of North American arenas, adding $60.8 million and 257,000 tickets to Pink’s enormous post-pandemic return to the stage.
On Top Boxscores, Europe takes up the top six spots with engagements from Karol G and Metallica in addition to Coldplay and Springsteen. There’s two more in the top 10 (Luis Miguel and P!nk), and eight more on the chart, including The Killers with six shows at London’s O2 Arena and Ed Sheeran at Polsat Plus Arena in Gdansk, Poland.
On Top Stadiums, European venues make up seven of the 10 spots, including the entire top five. Madrid’s Estadio Santiago Bernabeu rules with $37.2 million and 309,000 tickets, thanks to two shows from Luis Miguel ($13.6 million on July 6-7) and four from Karol G ($23.6 million on July 20-23). The latter closed out her yearlong world tour at the chart-topping stadium, re-setting her own records among women in Latin music.
Stateside, Las Vegas dominates the biggest and smallest venue charts. Sphere is No. 1 among rooms with a capacity of 15,001 or more (excluding stadiums), while the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas is tops among venues with a cap of 2,500 or less.
A version of this story appears in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Sturgill Simpson is keeping it simple for his Why Not? Tour this fall.
The country artist announced on his website in July that although he and his team were “doing everything in our power to keep tickets in the hands of fans and out of the hands of scalpers,” they were opting out of using dynamic pricing for the 37-date run.
Although dynamic pricing is one of the concert business’ most effective tools for keeping tickets off the secondary market, it’s also a major factor in the sharp rise of ticket prices, and Simpson was taking his fans’ wallets into account.
For years, promoters put tickets on sale at a handful of price points, then watched them sell out and get listed with huge markups on the secondary market — revenue that would not accrue to them.
Since then, scalpers have hacked most efforts to foil them, including one of the strategies Simpson is employing: vetting presale buyers. The only proven deterrent has been dynamic pricing: charging what the market will bear during the initial on-sale in hopes of curbing secondary markups.
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In the early days of the music industry’s post-pandemic return to live shows, when pent-up demand led to robust sales, dynamic pricing became the go-to strategy for major acts. The move helped lead to a 30% rise in ticket prices from 2019 to 2024, however, according to Billboard Boxscore, with the average ticket price of a top 40-grossing tour jumping $111 to $144 at midyear 2024 — 6.6% in the past six months.
With the pandemic in the rearview mirror, many in the industry express concern about the sustainability of this upswing. In recent weeks, The Black Keys, Jennifer Lopez and other high-profile artists have canceled tours due to backlash over ticket prices. (The Black Keys fired their management in the aftermath.)
According to Billboard Boxscore, only a handful of acts can charge more than $200 a ticket and sell out, and yet more artists are pushing the boundaries on ticket price and quickly approaching average ticket prices between $150 to $200, getting very close to the ceiling of what fans can or will pay.
“Patronage is up — we are seeing more fans come out to shows, but our costs are eating into the increase in volume,” said Morgan Margolin, CEO of Knitting Factory Entertainment, who says agents and managers are charging 30% to 40% more for acts than they did prior to the pandemic.
“It’s getting more difficult to do business in the major markets, especially with minimum wage increases, insurance, rent, and other costs,” he added. “If artists and managers and agents keep escalating on top of those fees, where is the tipping point?”
The Black Keys successfully played U.S. arenas in the past but only a handful. Most of their dates were either festival slots or amphitheater and theater shows. In 2019, they grossed $28 million on their co-headlining Let’s Rock run with Modest Mouse. Tickets for that tour started at $36.50, with four price points under $100. For the band’s canceled International Players Tour, some tickets were priced at $59.75 and $89.75 but others were listed for $119.75, $159.75 and $199.75. In comparison, the bulk of Simpson’s tickets are selling in the $53 to $72 range.
Pricing tickets based on how much scalpers might profit is difficult and risky. If they are overpriced and the tour flops on the initial on-sale, it’s almost impossible to save. Reducing the price can alienate fans who paid the full cost. Stay the course, and if the tour is deemed a loser, fans will avoid it.
“I think a lot of these artists are getting bad advice and not thinking through the long-term consequences of chasing big bucks,” one arena booking executive says. “And that’s going to hurt them in the long run.”
A version of this story will appear in the Aug. 31, 2024 issue of Billboard.
Olivia Rodrigo has just a few more months left of her Guts World Tour, and after wrapping up the second North American leg of the gig earlier this month, the superstar sent out a newsletter to fans thanking them for all their support thus far. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest […]
On any given day, visitors to the University of California, Santa Cruz’s sprawling campus might stumble upon a grove of towering 150-foot-tall coastland redwood trees, a nesting white-tailed hawk, a handful of trailside yellow banana slugs or a full production concert attended by 2,800 music fans.
The latter would be courtesy of the historic on-campus Quarry Amphitheater, a natural limestone amphitheater that fell into disrepair in the 2000s and reopened in 2017 following a two-phase, $8 million capital improvement plan — before shutting down again due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the Quarry is officially relaunching as a concert venue on Oct. 12 with Kevin Morby Presents: This Is A Festival featuring Morby (formerly of Babies and Woods); singer-songwriter Jessica Pratt; Trevor Powers’ experimental-pop project Youth Lagoon; prolific Parisian-born drummer, composer and producer 3; beloved indie-rocker Ben Kweller; and rising hip-hop and alt-rock group Blackstarkids. Chris Black and Jason Stewart from the popular culture podcast How Long Gone will serve as emcees for the evening.
“The Quarry is such an incredible space and in looking to the future of the venue, we wanted to create a replica that looks like the original but holds its own with any other modern venue,” said Quarry Amphitheater GM Jose Reyes-Olivas, who works on behalf of UCSC and previously booked and helped produce the Stern Grove music festival in San Francisco.
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Last month, the Quarry hosted a screening of which Reyes-Olivas says was “rebuilt…from the ground up,” has added a new load-bearing roof system, lighting trusses and motorized rigging. The venue doesn’t have a PA system; tours bring their own sound or rely on third-party backline companies for amplification, which Reyes-Olivas points out is also the case at nearby Berkeley, Calif.’s Greek Theater and the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, Calif.
Once viewed as a stopover for touring bands between the Bay Area and L.A., California’s Central Coast has since become an important music market on its own. Oakland company Ineffable manages a number of venues in Santa Cruz and coastal towns like Ventura and Monterey, while nearby Stanford University reopened its 8,000-capacity Frost Amphitheater in 2021.
The Quarry — which technically reopened last month with a special screening of the 1984 Talking Heads concert documentary Stop Making Sense — has agreed to a preferred booking agreement with Bay Area indie concert promoter Noise Pop Industries, though Reyes-Olivas tells Billboard the venue is an open facility available to qualifying concert promoters. Noise Pop, which was founded in 1993 as a $5 club night boasting a five-band bill inside San Francisco’s Kennel Club — now known as The Independent — has since grown into one of the Bay’s premier indie promoters, booking hundreds of bands at dozens of venues each year and serving as one of California’s best-known music showcases.
When it came to booking the Quarry, Morby “was definitely on the shortlist,” says Noise Pop CEO Michelle Swing. “We’re really big fans of Kevin and everything that he does…so we reached out to his team about curating a full day at the Quarry and he loved the idea.”
She added, “I think what’s fantastic is that the university is really investing in finding ways to bring more shows to the Quarry by bringing down costs and invested in the venue even further. We’re partnering with them to find the right shows that make sense for Santa Cruz music fans.”
Tickets for Kevin Morby Presents: This Is A Festival are on sale now via QuarryAmphitheater.com.
Surely many Deadheads took in multiple performances of Dead & Company’s 30-date residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere this past spring and summer. It’s unlikely, however, that many of them saw more than Bernie Cahill.
Cahill — who, as a partner at Activist Artists Management, co-manages Dead & Company with Irving Azoff and Steve Moir — caught 20 Dead Forever shows at the fantastical, $2.3 billion venue, with his box suite perch offering impeccable views of the band as it seemed to lift off from the Grateful Dead’s former house in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district and hurtle into deep space.
“This definitely was a work in progress,” Cahill tells Billboard. “We were adding new content as late as the final weekend. We feel like we had made a commitment to the fans that we would continue to evolve the show and deliver, and we did.“
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The run made Dead & Company the third group to play Sphere after U2 opened the venue last September and Phish put on a three-night run of shows this past April. Dead Forever grossed $121.5 million and sold 429,000 tickets over 27 shows from May 16-Aug. 3, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore.
Here, Cahill talks about helping break in the cutting-edge venue, bringing Deadheads to Vegas and why, if asked, they’d likely do it all over again.
Was there a sense of learning as the residency went on, and if so, what were those lessons?
Getting in that room and dealing with the audio and some of the basics of not having amplified sound on stage, you learn a lot. Obviously, Irving had just gone through it with U2, so we definitely had a leg up and were lucky that U2 shared so much institutional knowledge with us.
But still, until you get in that room, you just don’t know what you’re in for, so it was a constant evolution. Every single night we were learning things about the room, the audio, the content. Sometimes we would see new content that we would have, and it would just pop and be remarkable, and other times it didn’t always work exactly as it was envisioned. That’s just part of the process of this new medium and new canvas.
I imagine by the end, you have this performance that feels really fully formed, because you’ve developed it over the course of all these shows.
I feel like the guys were inspired as well. They found a new gear at the Sphere. Maybe part of it is the residency, part of it is the challenge of doing something new. I think that was huge for them. You’ve been doing this for particularly as long as Bob [Weir] and Mickey [Hart] have, and I think they were really fired up about the challenge of it. They leaned into all parts of it without ever losing sight of the songs. They were just knocking it out of the park. After the final tour, I didn’t think the band could get much tighter and better, and they pulled it off.
Do you feel they were leveling up because they had to compete with this fantastical thing they were in?
Yes, there’s some of that. But also, they were looking for ways to make this a complimentary integration of their visual storytelling and their music. With this immersive experience happening around you when you’re on that stage, I think they probably felt — and it shows — that they needed to deliver it at another level musically, and they did. I think the room invites that.
Were there unforeseen challenges that came up over the course of the residency?
Lots. [Laughs] I think some of the bigger ones were just things Derek Featherstone, our tour director and front-of-house engineer, had to manage, which was we had less rehearsal than we probably would have liked. When we’re loading in after they show the [Darren] Aronofsky movie [during the daytime], for instance, and we can’t do a full tech run-through of new content, that can be scary and flying without a net a bit. But I think what we see in our granular understanding of the show and then the fan experience, I don’t think they felt any of that stress or worry.
Were you finding that fans were going again and again, or was it more of a one-off experience for people?
Definitely repeat. There were so many repeats, and I think people were really gratified that they were doing more than just a show or more than just one weekend. We had people that saw shows every weekend. Most people saw at least two or three shows. That’s kind of the magic of this band and this community. They know that at a minimum, Bob and John [Mayer] are going tell a story over the weekend and they’re not going to repeat any songs. That story would unfold Thursday, Friday, Saturday, almost like a three-act play. That really appealed to our community.
Having done this, what advice would you give to a manager whose group is about to play the Sphere?
Well, for one thing, learn as much as you can from folks like U2 and Dead & Co. and Phish that have done it. We’re an open book, we’ll share whatever we can. We made mistakes, and we learned a lot, and we’re happy to share that with other artists that are coming after us.
Being a band that has always had visuals as a prominent part of the storytelling helped us a lot. It was very natural for us to explore that and go much deeper at the Sphere. I think bands that come after us who have those visual elements as a part their story and their brand will have an easier time creating their show. I would just advise to get started as soon as you can and don’t stop pushing the margin, either. Keep going with it and keep exploring and experimenting throughout your run.
The venue also really makes sense for a band with such a long a rich history, because the show so effectively leaned into that visually. Obviously, that’s not something a newer act can really do.
True. We have this very rich palette to draw from, and it really clicked in this venue. Yes, there were the crazy moments when it felt very 3D and hurtling through space. Then there were the analog moments and, I think, important emotional moments where the band was just connecting, whether it was Bob playing while standing on the moon and the ballads that just brought everybody to a whisper. I guess the other advice would be to strike that balance of those emotional, analog-feeling moments and then playing with the technology and how big you can go.
It was touching, thinking about the life of Bob Weir and where he and Mickey are coming from and now, they’re effectively playing in a spaceship.
Yeah, exactly. But by the way, it’s very Bob Weir if you know him. He loves technology. They’re all really technophiles. They love it. I think they love anything that allows them to go deeper with their storytelling and their exploration of this music. That is a gift to these artists, and I think is a big part of why the Sphere worked so well and was such a success.
Would they try it again?
When asked in interviews they’ve done since, I think they’ve all said they would definitely entertain an invite and would love to come back and do some things. Bob wants to really lean into this idea of being able to affect the visuals in real time and synching them more with the music itself.
But there were already some interesting things happening in that room that I don’t know if people even realized. [One night] there was a full moon outside, and we beamed the actual live full moon into the Sphere. That wasn’t video. That was a Weir idea.
If you were to do another residency, is there anything you would change?
Jim Dolan, you have to give him so much credit. He nailed it with this venue, which is impeccable in almost every way, from the backstage where we all spent most of our time, to front of house. Maybe [it would be] having a bit more time to rehearse, more tech rehearsal, just getting comfortable in the Sphere, because it’s one of one. It’s the only one in the world.