Thursday, July 21, 2022

Fuck The Bosses & "The Boss"

Never gave one crap about B.S. Did we ever need another or a "next" Dylan? Frankly, one seemed more than enough. And this is plenty.
It is exceedingly clear that Bruce Springsteen does not care how much a given fan spends to see him play. If he did care, the rock icon who recently sold the rights to his publishing catalog for a cool $500 million — and whose concert tours typically rake in around $200 million at the box office — would refuse to work with Ticketmaster, finance the shows himself, buy permits to use unoccupied fields across America and set a ticket price he alone could control. He’d call it Brucestock or something and pocket considerably less from the fans who’ve supported him for half a century.

But, of course, he won’t do this, because no one does. As with all A-list acts, fans expect Springsteen to play their local arena or stadium, those venues usually have binding contracts with promotional juggernaut Live Nation to operate the performances, and Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster in 2009, creating a smothering entertainment conglomerate that essentially forces artists — who in many cases must also adhere to the desires of their record labels, which in turn have deep-seated relationships with Live Nation and Ticketmaster — to use Ticketmaster to fill their shows, turning a blind eye as fans are price-gouged over and over.

The great irony is that just before the ‘09 merger, Springsteen and his longtime manager Jon Landau condemned the move in an open letter, saying it would be “returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing” as they also railed against Ticketmaster directing their fans to a secondary site to purchase seats for inflated prices.

Yet 13 years later, here we are again.

We're sure Mr. Springsteen & Mr. Landau are constantly making big "charity donations". What a pair of pigs.

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