http://rollingtimes.org/news/Its-Not-Only-Rock-n-Roll-And-We-Dont-Like-It-5887/

AFTER months of widespread speculation and rumours scattered across the Internet and newspapers, the Rolling Stones finally announced last Monday that, to add to the mass of releases in celebration of their 50th anniversary as a band, including a greatest hits compilation, a photo-book  and a documentary, the aged yet seemingly timeless band of four would be hitting the stage once again, playing two shows in London in late November and two in Newark, New Jersey, in mid-December. Generally speaking, the initial responses from fans across the globe when the shows were announced at 12.00pm via a Youtube video  were ecstatic – a somewhat Internet based version of the energy emanated from hysterical teenage girls at the band’s very early gigs. "Surely you didn’t think we weren't going to do this”, teased the band from their rehearsal session in France. But at 12.30pm, when the American Express pre-sale of tickets began, the image of vibrant rockers having a great time playing music to their fans for the first time in seven years burst with a closer look at just how expensive the ticket prices were.

Every fan without their head in their clouds may have had an inkling that these tickets were going to be high priced; after all, it had been speculated prior to the announcement of the shows that the Stones were set to reap $25 million from the four gigs. Upwards of £100 was a given. But when it became clear that tickets would range from £106 to £406 (and beyond), millions of jaws dropped to resemble a nation of tongue-lip designs.

There are several key aspects of the saga that has played out in the past week, leaving many devoted Stones fans empty handed and feeling a great sense of loss and disappointment in what has been named the best rock band the world has ever seen – both in terms of access to tickets and what the band, its corporate sponsors and all the other suits are doing.

Firstly, the shows time well with the release of the GRRR! (the new greatest hits compilation), or, more properly, with the promotion thereof (including a lead single – Doom and Gloom -  and a worldwide competition involving an animated gorilla app). This is fair enough, as most concerts and tours played by performing artists are there to support some sort of product release. Nevertheless, the list would not be complete without pointing out that the growing popularity of the Stones in recent weeks could only mean that there would be more competition for tickets.

Secondly, the pre-sales were, on the whole, a farce. There was the Amex pre-sale, the O2 customers' pre-sale, the Stones Archive mailing-list subscribers' pre-sale, the Facebook fans' pre-sale. All of these included very few "cheap tickets" (ie the lower price bands) and a relatively large amount of the more expensive price bands (up to £406). Naturally, the cheaper tickets sold out in a flash, leaving the remaining fans with access to the pre-sale having to consider whether or not to delve into their funds for a more expensive ticket for what promises to be one of the best concerts of their lives. The psychology behind the pre-sales promoted a severe sense of exclusivity, leading many buyers to purchase more expensive tickets in the pre-sale and securing a seat at one of the concerts, rather than waiting until the general sale on the Friday to try and bag one of the cheaper tickets, which may have got them a better seat than an expensive ticket in the pre-sale. For many fans, the risk was simply one not worth taking. I can testify to this, having coincidentally had access to all of the available pre-sales.

Perhaps the most ridiculous element of the pre-sales was the Stones Archive mailing-list sale. It promised exclusive access to tickets for fans that subscribed to the mailing list of stonesarchive.com  by Tuesday 16th October. When the pre-sale started, it became clear that no tickets other than the most expensive ones (priced at £651, but two tickets must have been bought as part of a package that included one Brussels Affair Box Set) were included in the pre-sale. I have no doubt that the aforementioned 'exclusivity factor' saw most of these tickets sell out quite quickly despite this, but many fans were left feeling perplexed and cheated. All of these people had signed up for the mailing list, and for what? The answer came down on us like a ton of bricks when, on that same day (Wednesday 17th October), the Rolling Stones released their next bootleg recording, "Light the Fuse", which could now be promoted to thousands of new subscribers. Someone over there at Rolling Stones Corp got a big slap on the back for devising that cunning trick.

Another trick of the same variety was pulled when the highly-publicised documentary on the band, "Crossfire Hurricane", was released in cinemas across the world on the night before general sale of the tickets started. In fact, the previously mentioned Youtube video was trailed just before the film began.

Needless to say, when the general sale started on Friday 19th at 9am, the tickets (as expensive as they were) nonetheless managed to sell out in just seven minutes.

It has become clear that the Stones are making a lot of money out of all of this, which many fans have claimed is contrary to the ethos expected of such an anti-establishment rock n' roll band. But of course all of the fans that missed out on tickets, due to financial reasons or otherwise, will direct their anger towards the four musicians that are the face of the band. There is no one else to point the finger at.  When we say that "the Stones" are making an abundance of money out of these shows, releases and marketing ploys, whom do we really mean? Do we really think that Mick Jagger, pen in hand, devised a spreadsheet of block-by-block price determinations for the O2 Arena, drooling as he outwardly predicted, "With prices like these, we will sell out in seven bloody minutes!" Of course not. Tickets were, objectively, ridiculously expensive. Even the very rich (who will, no doubt, fill two-thirds of the Arena – the remainder to be occupied by die-hard fans that had to seriously consider what they were doing on an financial level before committing to buying a ticket) will get hot round the neck when they attempt to justify forking out so much money on a concert-ticket. But only a small proportion of this value goes to line Jagger, Richards, Watts and Woods' pockets.

This article does not seek to attack four of the greatest musicians – forming the greatest band – of all time, in fact I would stand up in the face of a multitude of fans claiming that they have 'sold out'. Rather, I criticise the other members of the Stones that we do not see on stage and who pay no regard or respect to fans that have followed their music from any time in the past fifty years, by charging astronomical ticket prices. They are, in their own defence, simply doing their jobs (very well indeed, with a big thumbs up to the marketing department), but on a theoretical level, somewhere down the line in the last 50 years the separation of the band as a group of musicians and the band as a corporate entity got severely overlapped, perhaps with the business-minded Mick Jagger as the main catalyst of this process. Any band that does this threatens to get itself too caught up in the corporate side of things, with main business decisions being elevated beyond the powers possessed by the band members themselves. A mistake? Perhaps not: on a basic level, the Stones make so much money because they are, in terms of musicianship and behind-the-scenes business acumen, a fantastic conglomeration of minds. They endeavour to bring the music straight to the doorsteps of their fans, and this they achieve brilliantly. But this comes at a cost that corporate suits  will inevitably pass on to us, the consumer, as a great financial expense for their goods and services. Whether or not it is worth it is a question that each individual ticket-holder will have to ask him or herself after seeing the Rolling Stones live.

Written in the hope of inspiring fresh opinion and less anger towards Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Charlie