After 35 years together – and an average age of 51 – U2 became the top earning live act of all time last week. With all but two of last year’s top 10 acts nearing (or past) retirement age, what does the future hold for live entertainment?
THE ONLY surprise about U2 breaking the world record for having the highest grossing concert tour in the history of popular music is the fact that it took them so long. The band only overtook the Rolling Stones’ previous record-breaking kitty of $558 million (€387 million) after a gig in Brazil last Sunday night.
U2’s current 360° tour should have entered the record books a good 12 months ago had it not been scuppered by the 51-year-old lead singer putting his back out. And that last sentence alone tells all you need to know about the current parlous state of the once-lucrative live touring industry.
With an average age of 51, U2 is the youngest of the big-selling live bands. And they seem positively youthful (despite forming all of 35 years ago) compared to their touring colleagues: Bruce Springsteen is 62; Paul McCartney is 70 next year and Leonard Cohen is 77.
But shove any of the above names on a concert ticket, charge €100-plus for a well-upholstered seat, and the gig will sell out in minutes. Which is great for promoters and punters alike – not to mention all the ancillary income that flows into airlines, hotels, bars, restaurants, merchandising, food stalls, etc, whenever they tour – but no one with the same box-office appeal is coming up to fill the stadia, castles and fields once the current masters hang up their Stratocasters.
The live touring market has calcified, and as it’s the only sector in the benighted music industry to turn a healthy profit, the consequences are severe.
Take a quick glance at the top 10 selling live acts from last year. It is dominated by 50- and 60-year-olds, with only one under-35 on the list: Lady Gaga. The top three earners of last year, Bon Jovi, AC/DC and U2, are all bands who hit their commercial peak way back in the 1980s. Elsewhere on the list, you can go even further back thanks to babyboomer acts such as Roger Waters and the Eagles, who both reached a peak even before punk broke in 1976.
THE OLDER ACTS WORKless for more than their younger counterparts. Bon Jovi topped the list by earning $200 million from playing 80 shows last year, but Lady Gaga had to play 138 shows to earn the $133 million that put her in fourth place.
Bon Jovi can charge so much more per ticket because they have 11 albums to draw from and can put on a (for their fans) quality two-and-a-half hour greatest hits show that spans their 28-year career, while Gaga had only one album to her name at the time and not much of a back story.
It’s not that there isn’t any new talent out there – contemporary bands such as Arcade Fire and The National are critically lauded and sell strongly (for their genre) but neither has anywhere near the mass appeal of a live Metallica or Roger Waters gig.
This year’s Slane headliners Kings Of Leon may be the only of the new breed with a chance of breaking into 2011’s top 10 live earners, but even they need a bit of a nudge with ticket sales with Elbow (who sold out Dublin’s 02 two weeks ago) being added to the undercard, along with Thin Lizzy, White Lies and Mona.
After a number of boom years, the worldwide concert revenue take was down by 12 per cent per last year. In years past, major Irish festivals such as Oxegen and Electric Picnic would sell out within days of being announced but it’s safe to predict that you will probably be able to pick up tickets for either on the day itself.
And with the recessionary blues finally impacting on the touring industry, there will be an over-reliance on “veteran” acts to take the headline slots at this year’s festivals.
In the UK, a recent survey by the trade magazine Music Week found that just two out of this summer’s 19 headlining acts broke through in the past three years.
Two of this year’s Glastonbury headliners – Coldplay and Beyonce – first achieved significant commercial success more than a decade ago, while the third, U2, broke through all of 28 years ago.
At Oxygen (which is aimed at a younger demographic) the headliners this year are Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Black Eyes Peas and Arctic Monkeys – and only the latter two could be reasonably described as recent acts.
Over at Electric Picnic (aimed at an older demographic than Oxegen) the headliners are Pulp, The Chemical Brothers and Arcade Fire.
Leading UK promoter John Giddings makes the arch observation that “there are now more festivals than there are artists” and says the reason for the popularity of “veteran” acts on the festival/general touring schedule is because “all of these acts have a brilliant back catalogue so as a promoter, you know what you’re getting – a body of work rather than just a couple of singles”.
With an average Irish music festival weekend costing the punter (all costs considered) around €500, and the average big gig at Aviva or the RDS not getting you much change from €200 (again, all costs included) for just one night out, punters are demanding bang for their buck – something Paul McCartney or Bon Jovi can provide. You’re simply not going to risk that money on a blog-hyped indie band who have only two albums to draw from and are prone to the odd “artistic strop”.
THERE IS ALSO THEnot inconsiderable fact that the older bands came up the hard way – playing live for years and years before achieving their first chart breakthrough. They have a keen awareness of putting on a show and the necessity of pulling out the big hits, even if they have been playing the same song every night for the past 30 years.
By contrast, the speed at which acts are signed up today and thrown on the international circuit by management teams looking for a quick return on their investment means many of the newer bands don’t have any notion of stagecraft or showmanship. Frequently, these bands pride their “artistic sensibility” over their desire to send the punters home happy.
There are newer bands out there who deliberately won't play "the hit" and even discourage sing-alongs because (as I heard once) "this is not f**kin' X Factor".
But if you look at someone such as Bruce Springsteen, even before he had released his first album in – gasp! – 1973, he had built up a formidable live reputation along the New Jersey shore. Bring that experience and showmanship up to today and you will have your work cut out to find anyone coming out of a Springsteen gig complaining he didn’t give it his all and provide a real rock ‘n’ roll extravaganza. Can you really say that of many of this year’s new headliners?
