Skip to content

The Biz

CMA Touring Awards logo

Nashville’s Road Warriors Have Their Own Awards Event

There’s touring, and then there’s touring Nashville style. Country artists are the hardcore frequent flyers of the music business, even if the “flying” is being done aboard a 1993 Golden Eagle with 350,000 miles on it. If you’ve ever been to Nashville on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening during the season, just about every Kroger and Walmart parking lot has several buses idling their engines there, the drivers in the store stocking up on beer and Skittles while waiting for band members and tour techs to assemble at these ad hoc staging areas before the three- and four-day short-run tours.

Read More »
Old-school record stores are a rare sight, yet recorded music and the concert industry are still interrelated.

Both Sides Now

Live music rules, but we still need recorded music to be healthy.

Readers of this column know that live music has become the engine of revenue for the music business. Of all the somersaults the industry has gone through in the last two decades, including seeing physical music formats all but disappear (vinyl’s cool but it’s still just a tiny hipster niche), the biggest one of all is how the status of recorded music changed places so completely with live music: the concert ticket that was once viewed as a promotional proposition to sell the LP that the tour was designed to promote has now become the object of desire that the recorded tracks are used to tout.

Read More »
Stock Photo courtesy AES

A Show of Our Own?

For all of its greatly enhanced significance in the music industry and elsewhere lately, live sound continues to live a somewhat rootless existence (much like many of its road-warrior practitioners), at least when it comes to having the centering effect that an annual symposium can bring.

Read More »
Nashville’s Hotel Indigo is among those nontraditional 'venues' that have begun featuring live music.

Here a Stage, There a Stage – All the World’s a Stage

If you were in the right place at the right time last January, you might have enjoyed a very intimate concert by Stevie Wonder. Local singer-songwriter Grayson Erhard was wailing away at Wonder’s classic “Superstition” from the small stage in the lobby of the Anaheim Marriott during the Winter NAMM Show. As Erhard plowed through the song, Wonder heard him and made his way over the stage, joining him on a couple of verses (and helping him remember a few of the lyrics, though Erhard can be forgiven if he seemed more than a bit surprised).

Read More »
Infrared satellite imaging is one of the tools that can indicate storm activity.

Something Else To Be Thankful For

Just before you dive into that turkey this year, be thankful you got through the entire festival and outdoor touring season without a weather-related fatality. Compare that with the experiences of the last decade or so, particularly 2011, considered the annus horribilis of the industry’s history, when the stage structure at the Indiana State Fair collapsed in high winds, killing seven people and injuring 58 others.

Read More »
Justin Bieber's 2016-2017 Purpose tour ended early. Tour photo courtesy Philips Vari-Lite.

When the Shows Don’t Go On

A Canceled Flight is Bad Enough. But What Happens when the Tour is Canceled?

The abrupt cancelations of several high-profile tours in the last year reveal the financial risks that touring professionals, including FOH and monitor mixers, have to accept in a much more active and unpredictable touring market and moment.

Read More »
Radiohead has provided fans with a video of its glitch-free performance on Coachella’s second weekend. To view it, go to plsn.me/FOH-Radiohead.

Well Done: Live Sound has Become Remarkably, Incredibly Good

Earlier this year, the chattering classes of the media were talking about Coachella’s cultural significance and its position as a political bellwether, with the festival’s owner, Philip Anschutz, taken to task for supporting groups that appeared to be hostile to LGBT rights. Those accusations prompted vigorous denials from Anschutz, who called the reports “fake news” and issued statements in support of “the rights of all people, without regard to sexual orientation.”

Read More »