Eddie supports Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger
From the full article at Reuters:
Live Nation and Ticketmaster might have plenty of people out there who are not pleased with the idea of the two companies coming together but they have received support from several superstars in the run-up to a U.S. anti-trust hearing in Washington DC on Tuesday.
Names like Seal, Shakira, Journey, Van Halen and Billy Corgan (The Smashing Pumpkins) have all offered support to a merger some legislators, smaller rivals and fan groups worry will put too much power over the U.S. and global live music industry in the hands of just one company.
Some of the superstars have long-running relationships with Live Nation’s concert promotion business or are clients of Front Line Management, the artist management firm owned by Ticketmaster. Front Line has more than 200 acts under its wing giving it plenty of leverage in dealing with many promoters, venues and even record labels.
Eddie Van Halen wrote in a letter to the anti-trust committee seen by Reuters that the merger could help up-and-coming musicians like his 17-year old son Wolfgang (pictured together}) who joined the band as a bassist a couple of years ago:
There are so many problems facing the music industry today. Van Halen succeeded based on our record sales and the many tours that we did to increase our record sales. But that business model just doesn’t work anymore. Today, the majority of artists earn their living from playipng live. What my son — and any future band he plays in — needs are new and innovative approaches to the problems facing the live entertainment industry. And I believe that the merger of Ticketmaster/Live Nation is one of those solutions.
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February 25th, 2009 at 9:34 am
I hope that when Eddie says “What my son — and any future band he plays in —” will translate into Wolfgang starting another band and leaving his spot open for Michael Anthony to come back to Van Halen for the next CD and tour.
Not probable…but hopeful.
February 25th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Ditto
February 25th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Ha. Double ditto.
February 25th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
This is just another example of what a money grubber Eddie Van Halen has turned into. He doesn’t give a s*#t about the fans… that means YOU reading this.
let’s take a look at the artists who support the ticketmaster/live-nation merger: Journey, Shakira, Van Halen.
All these artists have deals with live nation and stand to benefit off of the merger which puts more and more control in the hands of one company. That is called a monopoly, which is supposed to be illegal in this country. Furthermore, Van Halen is managed by Irving Azoff who has a controlling stake in Ticketmaster so Van Halen stand to make even more money off of this.
All you people who think you’re going to hear any new music from Van Halen should stop kidding yourselves. You will probably never hear any new music from Eddie Van Halen because he’s too busy figuring out ways to stuff his pockets with more cash.
It saddens me to see what greed can do to people like Eddie Van Halen. Eddie should take a lesson from Bruce Springsteen and be honest with his fans, not just try to fool them into lining his pockets.
February 25th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
hey bozo, if it wasn’t for Wolfie, we would never hear or see from Van Halen again. Why do you think Ed is doing all this? Wolfie rocks, Anthony is right where he belongs, herding sheep at the cabo wabo….
February 25th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I remember seeing VH play in the summer of 1980. The ticket price was $10.50, about the same price of an album. My cousin saw Hendrix play in 1969 and it only cost $6.50. The ticket price between 1969 and 1980 went up 60%. That sounds like a lot, but 60% more then six-and-a-half bucks still isn’t that much. Using that 60% per decade increase formula would put today’s concert ticket prices in the $45.00 range. Someone please tell me why the tickets are actually three and four times that amount! Yeah, the shows have way better sound and lighting these days, but the road crews are smaller (less wages, food, hotels, insurance, etc.) and many artists accept commercial endorsements when touring.
The tickets cost more these days because the artists make a hell of a lot more per show, and because fans will pay these stupid prices again and again. I suppose the high ticket prices reflect what the market will actually sustain; however, I (like many others) can no longer afford to go to as many shows today as I used to.
So, big groups like VH, Journey, Shakira, etc., who are backed my powerful corporations like Live Nation and Ticketmaster, not only gouge my pocketbook and yours, but they really limit opportunities for up and coming bands by making touring nearly impossible because the public simply can’t afford to see all of the big shows and all of the little ones. That translates into local promoters less willing to take a chance on booking a smaller venue and less known band. That means fewer live music options for the public.
Merging these two powerful ticket agency companies is not an exercise in open market expansion, it’s all about controlling options for others. Competition and market options are what lowers ticket prices, not mergers — especially ones designed to feed on artistic expression.
You and I are getting screwed.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Agreed. All signs point to one last desperate grab for cash. The flame went out long ago…
February 25th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Of course he supports it. A contract with people might influence that some. If I worked for anybody and they asked me to say something good, I would. Anybody under contract should be ignored and considered as doing “damage control”. Go sell some guitars to the common man for three grand and leave the politics alone. This article is as worthless as every interview he’s done since Dave left!
February 25th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Hi Robert, I think ticket prices went up because artist don’t make that much from record sales as they used to do. Everybody is downloading for free or for very little as well as cd’s are being copied.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Wolfie was great. They were great last year. I have read interviews from 80’s and its seems Eddie has always had a beef with Mike. One interview in particular asked about the making of the Fair Warning album or Women And Children First, and he said everyone pulls their weight but Mike. Eddie was real serious. He said the guy is making money off of us he just bought a Porsche 911 turbo and so on. I like Mike, but it does not ruin Van Halen for me. As long as its Eddie on guitar and Alex on drums, it does not matter to me.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
As I’ve posted before, it’s pains me to read anything Eddie says anymore, he needs to shut-up and record.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
RIGHT ON ERIC FOLKS WILL NOT BUY MUSIC WHEN THEY GET IT FOR FREE. IT IS THE LIVE SHOWS WHERE THEY HOPE TO MAKE MONEY AS VH DID ON THE LAST TOUR WITH NO NEW MUSIC. HELL I SAW THE TOUR 2 TIMES AND PAID CLOSE TO $200. I LOVE CLASSIC VH
February 25th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
I agree with Robert and Top Jimmy on this. Eddie is just scratching Azoff’s back and ensuring that he will be able to gouge the fans even more on the next tour. What eddie does not realize is that the merger will eventually be bad for him too. When you combine the nations biggest ticket distributer and the nations biggest promotions company you have a monopoly. The first thing this will do is push out the competition. It will make it harder for smaller promotion companies to operate and get their tickets distributed to any effect. Do you think this mega-company is going to be nice to the bands? No, they will be the only game in town for big acts and they will gouge all the big acts like Van Halen in the contracts (not that these musicians will be hurting for money anyway). As for the argument that album sale slumps are causing this: The music industry has been screwing fans, promoters, artists and everyone else they can since the start of the modern music industry. Look at how poorly artists have always been treated by the big labels who make a majority of the money of record sales. Now that sales are down and piracy is up, they put the squeeze on the musicians even more, causing the musicians to be advocates against piracy and to fight for other ignorant things like this merger. I think it’s funny. An establishment that has made all it’s money by screwing everyone it can is dying do to piracy. It has weakly tried to defend itself with digital rights management and lawsuits. All of which have failed so far. It’s an industry that thinks it will save it’s product by giving the consumer a throwaway product, a product that deteriorates, a product that can’t be backed up or preserved. They are leaning towards making all digital transactions on a rental basis. You are no longer buying product that can be resold later, you are renting product. The movie industry is doing this as well. Now the industry thinks it can break the antitrust laws by trying to convince everyone that it is to save the industry and to support the musicians that we love. It’s not. It’s to secure their place taking our money and the artists money without limitations. The sad thing is, they will probably get by with it.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Back when Kiss was doing their big “original line-up” reunion tour, I read in an interview where EVH said he didn’t need to get back with DLR because he already had total creativity in the band he had, and that HE DIDN’T NEED THE MONEY either;
We’re on the verge of an economic collapse; Guess who needs the money? Hope he’s converting it all to hard currency…
February 25th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
I AGREE WITH ED…….
February 25th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Rermember this is the music BUSINESS not the music friendship! It is now a business first and foremost, sad but true!
February 25th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
also robert, there has been some inflation
February 25th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
In fact, $45 in 1969 is the equivalent of $250 today!! And i dont see tickets for that expenive usually (except for major shows, festivals, etc.), so actually it has increase less than 60% per decade
February 25th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
well, Wolfie and what the “state of the band is” aside, Ticket price is outta hand. It’s priced me right ot of van halen and a number of other bands too! It’s a shame. 75.00 bucks for third level and that was without their processing fees. (and w/ out mikey too!!!!!!!!) Sorry Ed, I just can’t aford it right now. Hopefully, someday I will soon.
I feel the same about hockey games, football, and other events.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
SHOCKING NEWS!!!!!!!
an artist signded to livenation supports livenation!!!
whodathunkit?
February 25th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
you people are a bunch of whining babies if you knew the first thing about the music business you wouldn’t even discuss this you would know why It makes sense.
February 25th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Ridiculous to have all major concert promotions handled by one company. Such a monopoly. “You will pay what we charge and you will like it…”
February 25th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
well if they merged it might cut down on the scalping of tickets. Nothing is worse then seeing the tickets going on sale then 20 minutes later the tickets are on sale at stub hub for 4x the price
February 25th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
The bottom line is how bad do you want to see the show!!! I never thought i’d pay $125.00 for a rock show after i saw VAN HALEN in 1981 for $10.50!!! I’m a die hard VH fan and thought it was worth it,even without michael anthony.I hate he’s not there but it’s not like he was replaced with joe blow!!! We got WOLFGANG VAN HALEN.Michael is in chicken foot and wolfie is in VH!!! i’m cool with it.If ticket prices get too high and i cant make the show i’ll hate it for sure but life goes on!!!!
February 25th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
I liked it better when Dave was the spokesperson for the band.
February 25th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Come on Eddie are you that isolated to say that this merger is a good thing?
February 25th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Kevin, in response to my comment on ticket price increase, you wrote:
“In fact, $45 in 1969 is the equivalent of $250 today!! And i dont see tickets for that expenive usually (except for major shows, festivals, etc.), so actually it has increase less than 60% per decade.”
I wasn’t talking about $45 in 1969. I was comparing an average headliner concert ticket priced at $6.50 in 1969 to an average headliner concert ticket in 2009, which is about $125. This increase over 40 years has far exceeded the cost of inflation.
If an average ticket in 1969 was $6.50, and an average ticket in 1980 was $10.50, the increase is 60% over about 10 years. Therefore, using this logic (60% increase every decade), the rate of concert prices would calculate as follows:
Year Ticket Price
1969 6.50
1979 10.40
1989 16.64
1999 26.62
2009 42.59
Yet, average concert tickets today are three times that amount.
I just wish artists and the music industry were honest about everything. They are greedy; they want more money so they charge more money at the gate. It’s that simple. It all started with The Eagles on the “Hell Freezes Over” tour back in 1994. Once other artists and promoters saw what happened when The Eagles jacked up their prices way high, the cat was out of the bag. All subsequent major tour ticket prices went up. Now it’s the accepted norm.
It’s all under the umbrella of capitalism, and there is nothing wrong with it when view in that light. But making music should be more than just clever business tricks. My beef is that the concert industry hurts the local and regional music scene, and makes it so incredibly hard for a new band to make it on the road. The musicians at the top of the food chain are carelessly hurting their counterparts at the bottom. From an artistic point of view, that’s a moral wrong, in my opinion.
February 25th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Ladies and Gentleman say hello to the new corporate Edward Van Halen
February 26th, 2009 at 4:10 am
This is all a desperate money-grab.
Read Bob Lefsetz’ blog on the merger - great stuff!
(don’t think I can post links on here - you’ll have to copy/paste it)
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/two-sides-to-the-merger/
February 26th, 2009 at 6:39 am
I blame the ridiculous ticket prices on the Eagles. Back in the mid ’90s when they did the Hell Freezes Over tour, they were the first ones to break the “glass ceiling” of $100 for a ticket. Then you had all the other dreggs like Celine Dion, etc. jumping on that bandwagon. Today, it’s become the norm.
As for VH, my first show is still my fondest: 1984, Madison, Wisconsin, Dane County Colessium. I was 14 and had to plead like all hell to go as it was my first rock concert ever. The ticket cost me all of $9.50 and that included the quarter that Ticketron took. Two years later, I saw them at Alpine Valley for the 5150 tour and the reserved seating (not the lawn) cost me $12.50 including the 50 cents Ticketron took.
The best distance-to-cost ratio I ever experienced was for the FUCK tour. 4th row, right in front of Ed, at the Marcus Ampitheater for only $35 including the $2.75 that Ticketbastard was now taking.
20 years and five more shows later, I saw them last April at the Bradley Center. I paid $54 to sit in a way-up, nose-bleed section on the other end of the arena. There was absolutely no way I was gonna pay $125 to get close again.
It was a cool show and the big monitor behind the band helped tremendously but it wasn’t like the old days. There was one benefit of having such shitty seats: we could smoke cigarettes and joints all we wanted!
February 26th, 2009 at 8:05 am
Hey..it’s Bono Van Halen ( except Bono wants to save the world-not save greedy monopoly’s )You know it’s funny…Ed can barely articulate his own guitar sound ( comparing it to a race car- how original ) and now he is a articulate spokesman for industry change…Hmmmm….Maybe the next album will be written by the same guy who writes Ed’s statements and Interviews….The next album should be called ‘O.O.T.I.L.L.L’…..”Out Of Touch In La La Land”
February 26th, 2009 at 8:07 am
TicketBastard’……hahahahahahahahahaha….freakin priceless !!!!
February 26th, 2009 at 10:08 am
In response to Adrian, you don’t need to know much about the music business to spot shameless greed.
But I’d love to hear what you think you know about the “music business”… I’ll bet nothing… But please go ahead and explain why bullying smaller venues into using ticketmaster and removing all options for the consumer (not to mention independent bands) is a good idea.
February 26th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
As a struggling musician, I welcome any move/solution about the live entertainment industry. Music fans and normal people should give a thought to the life a musician/artist go through. It ain’t pretty!! Eg: The struggle, being ripped off, no gigs, no getting paid, not paid enough, paying to play, no crowd, venue doesn’t do their advertising, promoter does a run-off never to be heard of again, the list goes on…As a reference listen to the lyric’s of AC/DC’s ‘Long Way To The Top’ and all you non-musicians will get some idea of what life is like for us.
Reality Check!! While all you normal people are all working and you buy your hot rods, buy your houses, pay the bills, start a family, go on your deserved vacations and just basically enjoying you hard earned dollar which you rightfully deserve!!
Now…just spare a thought the next time a concert ticket goes on sale and realize whether calling a musician like Eddie Van Halen greedy? Have you all forgotten he too has bills to pay, raise a family, etc? He has virtually given his whole life to you all, expressed his genius talents for you to forever have in your possession and almost paid the ultimate price, his life!!! Besides your getting the music for free nowadays with all this downloading going around. As Diamond Dave once said “modern day stealing!”
Yes I concur ticket prices are through the roof, but spare a thought about how long Van Halen and others have slugged it out on the road and compare it with some slut named Britney who hasn’t even touched the surface (and never will!) of what Van Halen and other legendary artist have endured through their careers!! How anyone would pay to see a slut fake artist like Britney is bewildering!!???
So if Van Halen’s next tour will cost me $300, $500 or $1,000 then so be it!! Besides I’m sure you all can save up that money in 2 years time?!! Or better still, for all you smokers and fat cunts out there…stop smoking and stop eating that fat greasy shit for 2 months!!!! You’ll be amazed how much money you can save when you eliminate that shit from your system and I hear it might be good for your health too!!!!!
Good to have ya back Dave, Eddie, Alex and Wolfgang!!!
VAN HALEN RULE
February 26th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I saw Cheap Trick and Sammy Hagar in 2007 for 35 bucks total, Sammy does not ripoff the fans,Bring back Sammy and Mike.
February 26th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Perhaps Dave needs to have a hand in the business aspect of things perhaps, but that ‘aint gonna happen. No question whose court the ball is in every step of the way.
I dunno, perhaps Eddie (who, BTW, is one of my heroes) has been a multimillionaire for so many years that he’s lost touch with the needs and wishes of his working-class fans. I’m not blaming him for anything, it just may be the case.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:05 am
What “family” does Eddie have to raise and pay for? Val’s gone and Wolf is almost an adult. Sorry, I don’t buy it, Phil. What bills do you really think he has when, as you state a moment later, he’s been a multi-millionaire for years? Again, I don’t buy it.
BTW, just how old are you, Phil, with that childish swipe at smokers and “fat cunts”? What is this, junior high again?!
February 27th, 2009 at 7:07 am
Whoops, seems I’ve mixed Phil’s rant with Ted’s comment about Ed’s personal net worth. My apologies to Ted!
February 27th, 2009 at 8:05 am
What’s “playipng live”?!? Also, how does Eddie feel this merger is innovative? Just saying it’s innovative and showing WHY and HOW are two different things altogether. I think Ed needs to take a critical thinking class.
February 27th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Oh, cry me a river, Phil! Maybe you are a financially stuggling musician becuase you are willing to pay $1,000 for a two-hour VH concert. What other dumb choices do you make with your money?
Your logic escapes me. All of us “normal” people provide a revenue source for perfoming artists. We are the ones who have skills that build roads for you to drive to your gig. We are the ones who grow produce for you to eat. We are the ones who design soundboards to record your music. We are the ones who allow you to persue your art and make money at it. And you’ve got the nerve to tell us “normal” people that we should pay whatever you want to charge for a performance just because you work hard? Give me a break.
Anyone who is successful in life works hard, regardless of their chosen field. So get over yourself. No one owes you a living and no one is holding a gun to your head. If being a struggling musician is too much for you, then quit and let someone else give it a shot.
February 28th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Hey ED,
The only thing you should be supporting is a new CD full of NEW SONGS. PLEASE just stop talking and RECORD A CD AND TOUR YOUR ASS OFF!! PLEASE!!
February 28th, 2009 at 11:39 am
oh yea, Hey Phil, I’ve been a musician for over 30 years and I can tell you from experience that you are way off with this one. when you are 10 or 11 and learning to play guitar you don;t think about all the bullshit you will have to eat just to put together a band you can keep together long enough to do anything worthwhile there are soo many egotistical people in the music industry it’s almost funny.The biggest problem is you MUST have a sellable product. just being committed is not enough. If there isn’t anyone showing up for a gig, then there’s a problem you must address by looking at yourself.EVH may have bills but I’m assuming he has enough money to last his lifetime and his son’s and maybe a future grandbaby. Oh and buy the way I consider myself a normal person. I work a regular job,still manage to play music and I also write for for a publisher. I don’t play music to get rich, I play music because it’s my first love and I couldn’t imagine my life without it whether I live in Beverly Hills or on the street. It sounds like you and EVH forgot what it means to be a musician. I’m just saying!