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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftstar Podcast. My

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Speaker 1: guest today is John Cher. John, what's the status of

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Speaker 1: the independent concert promotion business today?

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Speaker 2: Post a pitiful Live Nation overwhelmingly dominates the entire concert business.

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Speaker 2: I believe they are monopoly. So far, the Justice Department

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Speaker 2: has not said that AGE is a much much smaller competitor.

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Speaker 2: And then there are you know, literally a handful of

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Speaker 2: of independent promoters. Really only a handful of ones that

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Speaker 2: were once major promoters as we were. I mean we

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Speaker 2: were for many many years OP ten promoters. One or

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Speaker 2: two years, we were the biggest promoters in the country.

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Speaker 2: But what's happened is, you know, Live Nation. Look, their

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Speaker 2: model works for them. There's there's no question I did.

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Speaker 2: I didn't. I wasn't a believer. They tried to buy

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Speaker 2: me a couple of times, and I was not a believer.

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Speaker 2: I see now how they've been successful, and uh, you know,

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Speaker 2: you got to take your hat off to Michael Rippino,

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Speaker 2: who you know, is running a public company that, despite

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Speaker 2: the fact that many people, including myself, think it's a monopoly,

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Speaker 2: is is doing pretty well. So you know, it's very hard.

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Speaker 2: I don't think somebody young in the business could repeat

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Speaker 2: what I've done or what any number of other major

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Speaker 2: promoters Jerry Michaelson, Greg Proolf and Jerry Wasserman the few

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Speaker 2: of us that are left, but do it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, what is the status of your promotion business at

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Speaker 1: this point?

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Speaker 2: You know, it's pretty good. We've become a small hale

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Speaker 2: theater company. For the most part, We've got only an

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Speaker 2: occasional arena show. We've got two sold out Tool shows

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Speaker 2: at Madison Square Garden next month. But arena shows, where

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Speaker 2: I used to do fifty sixty a year are down

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Speaker 2: to a handful. So you can't make the profit and

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Speaker 2: nor therefore be able to support the infrastructure that you need.

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Speaker 2: So you know, over the last ten years or so,

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Speaker 2: we've gotten smaller. We're still doing about one hundred shows

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Speaker 2: a year, but almost exclusively anywhere from five hundred seaters

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Speaker 2: to six thousand seaters.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so you say you have Tool at Madison Square Garden.

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Speaker 1: How did you get that? As opposed to Live Nation

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Speaker 1: or aging.

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Speaker 2: Pure loyalty by the band in their agent. You know,

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Speaker 2: something that something that existed for most of my career.

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Speaker 2: If you play the act when they're small and you

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Speaker 2: keep doing a good job. They stay with you, especially

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Speaker 2: over the since the Ticketmaster merger with Live Nation, that

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Speaker 2: just isn't the case. I mean, I'll give you a

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Speaker 2: good example. I played Iron Maiden from the very very

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Speaker 2: beginning up through and including selling a mat at Madison

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Speaker 2: Square Garden and in the Meadowlands in a Nasau Coliseum

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Speaker 2: three tours ago. I got my Madison Square Garden date,

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Speaker 2: but I came to discover that I was one of

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Speaker 2: only two promoters in the country that got an arena.

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Speaker 2: Live Nation got all the rest of the dates. So

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Speaker 2: we did the show. It sold out. A couple of

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Speaker 2: years later, my phone rings and it's Rod Smallwood, who's

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Speaker 2: the manager of Iron Maiden, longtime manager, all right, and

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Speaker 2: he calls me a note the agent didn't call me.

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Speaker 2: The manager called me and said, I'm really sorry, but

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Speaker 2: I can't give you a date on this tour. And

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Speaker 2: I said, did we do anything wrong? Said no, You've

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Speaker 2: always been great. But Live Nation made a point of

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Speaker 2: saying that if they don't get New York, they're going

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Speaker 2: to change the offer they made and it will cost

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Speaker 2: me millions of dollars. So I'm sorry, John, You're a

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Speaker 2: good guy, but we can't play for you anymore. So,

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Speaker 2: right there, on a given Iron Maiden tour, which would happen,

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Speaker 2: say every two or three years, I'd usually get four

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Speaker 2: or five such shows New York, New Jersey, Long Island, Buffalo, Rochester, Albany,

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Speaker 2: those kinds of places. Now I've got none.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's do the math here. You're saying. Rod Smallwood

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Speaker 1: said if he didn't go with Live Nation, he would

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Speaker 1: lose millions of dollars. Now, if you look at all

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Speaker 1: the markets you were in, why couldn't he make those

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Speaker 1: millions and add them in to Live Nation? Where would

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Speaker 1: Rob have lost the millions?

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Speaker 2: Live Nation would have changed. I don't know what ultimately

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Speaker 2: they paid him her show or per tour, all right,

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Speaker 2: but he indicated to me that the offer that he

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Speaker 2: had if if they if they gave us New York,

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Speaker 2: and there's a promoter since passed away in Florida, he

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Speaker 2: got Florida John Stall, that they would change the deal

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Speaker 2: to to lesser terms.

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Speaker 1: Wow, so Rod called you. If you have this conversation

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Speaker 1: with other managers or agents, well.

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Speaker 2: In this case, the agent did never even called me.

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Speaker 2: Maybe Rod told him he called and and and that's

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Speaker 2: why I've had similar conversations, uh, with with the managers

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Speaker 2: and agents, you know, absolutely, you know, if it's an

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Speaker 2: act that we've had a long history with. For example,

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Speaker 2: I played Peter Gabriel a lot of times early in

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Speaker 2: his career and actually promoted the first Genesis tour ever

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Speaker 2: in America. You know, I when when I saw he

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Speaker 2: was putting a record out, I called his agent, John

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Speaker 2: Marks and at w A and I said, I see

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Speaker 2: Peter's putting an album out. You know he usually tours

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Speaker 2: behind albums. I said, can we talk about some dates?

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Speaker 2: And he said nope. I said, uh, why not? He said,

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Speaker 2: We're going with Live Nation. I said, what if I

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Speaker 2: could put together a consortium? Nope, we did the last

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Speaker 2: tour with Live Nation. We're gonna we're gonna do it

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Speaker 2: again with them.

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Speaker 1: Just to stay on your point, how difficult would it

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Speaker 1: be for you to put together a consortium?

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Speaker 2: Modestly difficult? You know. Uh, there's four or five independent

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Speaker 2: still that you know. I know we'd join together another planet,

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Speaker 2: jam Niederlander, Danny's Alasco. Uh, so yes, we could put

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Speaker 2: it together. We couldn't snap our fingers like Live Nation

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Speaker 2: and aeg can you know they can just snap their fingers,

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Speaker 2: you know, and in an hour put together a tour.

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Speaker 2: But you know, given a little bit of time, we

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Speaker 2: absolutely could do it.

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Speaker 1: So let's say you put together the consortium, you put

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Speaker 1: together twenty five dates. Do you believe your offer can

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Speaker 1: be as good as Live Nations in raw dollars?

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Speaker 2: No?

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Speaker 1: And why is that?

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Speaker 2: Because? First of all, they try very hard to lobby

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Speaker 2: acts the only tour in America between like late April

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Speaker 2: or early May to maybe October, early October. Because they

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Speaker 2: own or control ninety maybe ninety five percent of all

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Speaker 2: of the amphitheaters. So when you get an act to

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Speaker 2: play their amphitheaters, besides the ticket sales, which famously some

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Speaker 2: acts have gotten one hundred percent of the ticket sales

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Speaker 2: and amphitheaters, they have all the ancillaries. They have sponsorship,

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Speaker 2: they have food and beverage, they have merching, and they

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Speaker 2: have ticketmaster fees. And so at the end of the

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Speaker 2: day they can break even at the door, even maybe

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Speaker 2: lose some money all rightum, and still make a lot

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Speaker 2: of money. I'm told from my deep throat in a

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Speaker 2: Live Nation that they average about thirty five dollars ahead

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Speaker 2: in ancillaries. So you know, let's say the average amphitheater

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Speaker 2: show does ten thousand people. Due to multiplication, they don't

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Speaker 2: need to make any money at the door.

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Speaker 1: What if the act wants to play inside?

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Speaker 2: They buy tours that all the time that do inside. Now,

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Speaker 2: they don't have as many ancillaries, but they certainly have

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Speaker 2: Ticketmaster and when they put a tour together intoor or

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Speaker 2: they do everything they possibly can to only play buildings

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Speaker 2: that use Ticketmaster. And probably I don't know this, but

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Speaker 2: probably they have deals with certain arenas that they go

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Speaker 2: to with a lot of shows, so they you know,

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Speaker 2: they probably have a rebate situation.

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Speaker 1: Okay, if you could snap your fingers, what would you

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Speaker 1: like the live music business to look like?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think there's a couple of things wrong. I mean,

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Speaker 2: the monopoly, the live nation monopoly is the first thing

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Speaker 2: that's wrong. You'd like to believe that the promoter in

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Speaker 2: a given market that can do the best job and

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Speaker 2: or has a relationship with the act and has played them,

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Speaker 2: would have an opportunity to promote them and at least

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Speaker 2: match it. But the other issue that's very important is

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Speaker 2: that ticket prices have completely guns you know.

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Speaker 3: Walkers, you know, the average arena or stadium P one

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Speaker 3: ticket prices.

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Speaker 2: Top ticket prices are pretty normally close to one thousand dollars.

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Speaker 2: So what's happened to our concert industry is two things. Obviously,

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of rich people in North America, so

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Speaker 2: you know, it's it's a trophy. They can tell their neighbors,

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Speaker 2: the neighbors that you know, they're sitting in the fifth row.

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Speaker 2: And then of course the average fan all right, who

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Speaker 2: probably can't buy the P one tickets, but you know,

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Speaker 2: when the when the P two, P three tickets are

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Speaker 2: down at you know, a couple of one hundred dollars,

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Speaker 2: they can buy them, but they probably can't go to

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Speaker 2: a couple of other shows that they would during the year.

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Speaker 2: So I think that this monopoly is endangering artists development terribly.

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Speaker 2: I think there are a lot of good young promoters

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Speaker 2: who promote in clubs in small halls, but they have

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Speaker 2: little chance of being able to expand their businesses beyond that.

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Speaker 2: They basically have two choices. Stay modest, can make a

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Speaker 2: decent living in clubs and small halls, or try to

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Speaker 2: get Live nation or ag.

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Speaker 1: To buy what do you say to Live Nations claim

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Speaker 1: that their market share is somewhere in the neighborhood of

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Speaker 1: sixty I'd have to look. I think they say fifty something.

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Speaker 1: What would you say to that, Well, the question.

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Speaker 2: That's most relevant is what percentage of arena and stadium

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Speaker 2: and amphitheater headliners did they control? All Right, I've got

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Speaker 2: to then believe that that number is seventy and that

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Speaker 2: AEG's got another twenty or twenty five percent. It is

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Speaker 2: very rare these days that arena sized headliners, amphitheater sized headliners,

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Speaker 2: stadium headliners don't play for one of the two of them.

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Speaker 2: Tool is Is is a great example. They've stayed oyled

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Speaker 2: to me and they've stayed oil to you know, a lot,

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Speaker 2: a lot of independence. Diana Ross has stayed very loyal

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Speaker 2: and last time ran in New York, they made a

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Speaker 2: real run at Diana Ross, who I've been promoting for

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Speaker 2: forty years, and it forced me to have to, you know,

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Speaker 2: pay a larger guarantee. But it's all out, so you know,

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Speaker 2: it was fine, all came out in the wash. So

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Speaker 2: but at the end of the day, uh, you know,

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Speaker 2: when when the when when the Justice Department first investigated

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Speaker 2: Live Nation, they claim that yes they are and then

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Speaker 2: they owned a lot of the amphitheaters. Now they own

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Speaker 2: almost all of them. Uh. And they they claimed that

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Speaker 2: the acts could always choose to play indoors. But as

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Speaker 2: I've explained a minute ago, it's not there. Because if

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Speaker 2: I do a show at the Prudential Center in New York,

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Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden, uh, you know, Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, any

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Speaker 2: any any of the venues that we were going, I

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Speaker 2: don't get any of the ancillaries. The buildings keep the ancillaries.

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Speaker 2: Did they give you? You know, the buildings try to

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Speaker 2: give you a little taste usually they do, but not

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Speaker 2: a big taste versus Live Nation can say wait until May,

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Speaker 2: all right before you go out, or maybe end of

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Speaker 2: April and start down south and and you know, we'll

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Speaker 2: give you one hundred percent of the box office. Given

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Speaker 2: ninety percent of the box office, whatever it is, that's

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Speaker 2: nothing that you can do indoors.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's just nail indoors, because certainly there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of tours that go out during the winter or

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Speaker 1: even play arenas during the summer. So you compare the

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Speaker 1: economics of an arena date that you promote as opposed

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Speaker 1: to Live Nation promoting well.

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Speaker 2: An arena date that an independent like us does. There,

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Speaker 2: you know, are basic expenses, the guarantee to the act

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Speaker 2: first and foremost, the expenses of doing of doing the show, rent, advertising, staffing,

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Speaker 2: et cetera. All right, so you've got to pay to

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Speaker 2: guarantee put tickets on ill. You got to pay the

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Speaker 2: guarantee first, and you got to pay all the other

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Speaker 2: expenses and after. At that point you start to potentially

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Speaker 2: make a profit. And often the artist makes percentage money

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Speaker 2: at the amphitheaters. They don't have to do any of that.

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Speaker 2: They don't pay rent to themselves.

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Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, I got that. I got there.

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Speaker 1: But Live Nation also plays dates in arenas, yes, like you, Yes,

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Speaker 1: So tell me where the economics differ there.

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Speaker 2: They own ticketmaster.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's let's stop for a second. If you could

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Speaker 1: snap your fingers. You claim that Live Nation is a monopoly.

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Speaker 1: If you were to break up a monopoly, what would.

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Speaker 2: It look like? Well, you know, only the only one

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Speaker 2: who can really break up a monopoly is the government.

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Speaker 2: What would it look like? You know, they would perhaps

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Speaker 2: be forced to sell off a certain number of amphitheaters

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Speaker 2: that people like me could could pick up. Actually, there's

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Speaker 2: two amphitheaters that we built that they that they have

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Speaker 2: now one outside of Buffalo, one in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Uh

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Speaker 2: so that that you know, that's that's number one, uh

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Speaker 2: number number number two. Uh the whole uh guarantee idea

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Speaker 2: of what percentage of the growth they can they can

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Speaker 2: uh they can give the act, all right, you can't,

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Speaker 2: as I just explained, you can't do it indoors, all right.

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Speaker 2: So uh if they got broken up selling off say

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Speaker 2: half of the amphitheaters to other people. Number one number two,

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Speaker 2: I don't want them to. You know, they don't have

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Speaker 2: to uh divet from Ticketmaster. They simply have to uh

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Speaker 2: let in in you know, the with buildings that they

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Speaker 2: have exclusively Ticketmaster, which are a huge majority of the

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Speaker 2: arenas in his country. They and they are exclusive. So

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Speaker 2: if I go to Madison Square Garden with two sold

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Speaker 2: out tools shows, the Ticketmaster fees are enormous. They scalped

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Speaker 2: their own tickets. They have this thing called t M plus,

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Speaker 2: but they've also been caught scalping their tickets. So uh,

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Speaker 2: you know, if if I had the freedom, I would

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Speaker 2: go into Madison Square Garden or the Prudential Center or

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Speaker 2: or any other venue, and I would use a different

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Speaker 2: ticketing company. There are a lot of them right there,

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Speaker 2: all right, but none of them have anything close to

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Speaker 2: the volume that that ticketmaster has. So those are the

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Speaker 2: two main things. If we can be entrepreneurial with with

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Speaker 2: with the ticket providers, and if uh we can break

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Speaker 2: the the sort of uh gatekeeping of the amphitheaters, uh,

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Speaker 2: you know, that would make a business such as mine

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Speaker 2: much much healthier.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's say you do a date a building that

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Speaker 1: has an exclusive ticket master contract? Don't you share in

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Speaker 1: the fees?

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Speaker 2: Very rare?

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Speaker 1: If you do share in the fees, Why would that happen?

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Speaker 2: Well, it hasn't happened in a long time. I mean

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Speaker 2: you know there there. You know, there was a lot

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Speaker 2: of years that we would do and in the main

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Speaker 2: AMP in the main arenas that that we worked at,

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Speaker 2: you know, fifteen twenty shows a year. We essentially were

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Speaker 2: a franchise. And so if you guarantee a lot of

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Speaker 2: shows like I did at the old Meadowlands Arena for example,

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Speaker 2: all right, you had a leverage so that you could say, hey,

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Speaker 2: I need a piece of you know, I need to

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Speaker 2: bring my own ticketing in or I need a piece

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Speaker 2: of what you're getting kicked back, all right, So you know,

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Speaker 2: but I can't do that volume anymore. And so the

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Speaker 2: arena is that I, you know, used to do that

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Speaker 2: with I. You know, if I'm doing two, three four

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Speaker 2: shows a year versus twenty or twenty five, I've got

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Speaker 2: no leverage whatsoever. And then you know, the contract with

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Speaker 2: almost all the buildings includes the use of TM plus,

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Speaker 2: all right. Every single show that we do, we tell

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Speaker 2: the buildings we don't want TM plus. But what I

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Speaker 2: found out a number of years ago was even if

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Speaker 2: we and he acts, as long as the agent or

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Speaker 2: the manager will will confirm in writing that they don't

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Speaker 2: want TM plus, all right, they take it down except

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Speaker 2: for when the show becomes ninety five percent sold out

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Speaker 2: or some number like that, and then without your permission,

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Speaker 2: they put it on on Ticketmaster on TM plus. And

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Speaker 2: suddenly where sometimes you look at a show that you

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Speaker 2: know was almost sold out, and there was only saying

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Speaker 2: a given arena with a capacity of let's call it

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Speaker 2: fifteen thousand, and you only saw as a tool right

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Speaker 2: now that there's a few hundred tickets left in each category.

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Speaker 2: Once they turn on TM plus, all of a sudden

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Speaker 2: miracle of miracles, there's two thousand tickets available. Now. They'll

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Speaker 2: tell you that independent scalpers, and it may be, but

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Speaker 2: it's also them. It's also them. And they, you know,

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Speaker 2: they've got court scalping tickets. I mean they, you know,

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Speaker 2: they got caught with Metallica, which you know, you could

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Speaker 2: you could have knocked me over with a feather when

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Speaker 2: I found out that that Metallica was complacent with Ticketmaster

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Speaker 2: scalping tickets. You know, two best managers in the business

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Speaker 2: as far as I'm concerned. You know, I don't think

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Speaker 2: they had a lot of control over their clients in

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Speaker 2: this regard. So you know, you simply can't compete with

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Speaker 2: the money they make Ticketmaster. And look, when I first

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Speaker 2: got into the business, actually when I first got into business,

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Speaker 2: there was no computerized ticket in at all. But early

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Speaker 2: on there was ticket tron and I you know, I

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Speaker 2: done off the top of my head, but I think,

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Speaker 2: you know, the ticket tron feed was probably a buck,

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Speaker 2: you know, maybe it was two bucks all right. Now

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Speaker 2: it can be twenty five dollars of which the promoter

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Speaker 2: gets none up. But if your ticketmaster, sometimes they'll make

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Speaker 2: more money on one of my shows than I will

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Speaker 2: on the show at no risk.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's stay with your tool shows. Ay, do you

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Speaker 1: have any idea with the off the top of your

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Speaker 1: head what the fees are on the tool tickets?

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Speaker 2: I do, but not off the top of my head.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's put it this way. Of the shows that

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Speaker 1: you do in an arenas of the overall price, what

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Speaker 1: would you say your fees percentage was.

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Speaker 2: The ticketing fees? Yes, I'd say somewhere between ten and

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Speaker 2: twenty dollars. And for bigger shows to hire the ticket

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Speaker 2: prices to hire the service charges, which makes no sense

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Speaker 2: from a business perspective except for them. But for a fan,

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Speaker 2: Ticketmaster does nothing more to sell a fan a ticket

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Speaker 2: if the ticket's twenty five dollars or whether it's one

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Speaker 2: thousand dollars, same process, same computer use. But the industry

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Speaker 2: has let them get away with it, and there's no

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Speaker 2: looking back right now.

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Speaker 1: Okay. Ticketmaster might say that the majority of the fees

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Speaker 1: go to the building, that's something you agree with.

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Speaker 2: I don't think it's reasonably close to the majority. I

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Speaker 2: think the buildings get rebates, no question, the buildings get

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Speaker 2: huge advances, and especially when they're you know, municipally owned

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Speaker 2: buildings or state owned buildings, they often need the money,

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Speaker 2: so they basically get bribed into making a Ticketmaster deal.

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Speaker 2: And that advance is against a certain percentage of of

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Speaker 2: the service charge. But I would not think it was

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Speaker 2: a majority or even close.

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Speaker 1: A live nation would say otherwise, But we don't have

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Speaker 1: the facts in front of us, so let's move on

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Speaker 1: from that. How do you feel about these exclusive deals

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Speaker 1: with buildings with Ticketmaster? To begin with?

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Speaker 2: I think it's terrible. I think it's it's it's it's

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Speaker 2: you know, helping towards the ruination of of of the

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Speaker 2: of the marketing of the concert business. You know, if

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Speaker 2: we could, if if if a promoter could come into

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Speaker 2: a building and use somebody other than Ticketmaster, all right,

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Speaker 2: Number one, the service charges would be less much less,

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Speaker 2: all right? And number two, I think the TM plus

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Speaker 2: and the scalping would be reduced tremendously.

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Speaker 1: Okay, you mentioned these municipal buildings that need the money,

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Speaker 1: So if we get rid of the advances, what are

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Speaker 1: these buildings going to say? If we got rid of exclusives,

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Speaker 1: we're taking money directly out of the bottom line of

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Speaker 1: these buildings.

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Speaker 2: Yes, but you see, they still can. In other words, first,

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Speaker 2: if they were opened, if the if the ticketing was

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Speaker 2: open to the promoters, all right, certainly Live Nation would

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Speaker 2: use Ticketmaster. Certainly AG would use their system, all right.

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Speaker 2: But the independent promoters, all right, would probably go to

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Speaker 2: other independent companies, all right, And the buildings could say, Okay, look,

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Speaker 2: we get x amount of dollars from Ticketmaster, not from

375
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Speaker 2: an advanced point of view, but from a per ticket

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00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:06,360
Speaker 2: point of view, and to let you use your own

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00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 2: ticketing company, you've got to match that. Now, I'm not

378
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 2: sure that would be legal, but at least it would

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Speaker 2: be something.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back a step. Yes, like with Taylor Swift,

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Speaker 1: they said they turned off TM plus. You know from

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Speaker 1: personal experience that when you and the act have told

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Speaker 1: them to turn off TM plus, they have turned it on.

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Speaker 2: At the end. Yes, I don't know whether they did

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00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 2: a Tails Swift because I didn't promote any I've thought.

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Speaker 1: Always said, I know the only reason about Taylor swhich

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Speaker 1: is I know that she said to turn it off.

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Speaker 1: I can't tell you what happened there, but I'm using

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Speaker 1: an example. You have done shows where the promoter in

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Speaker 1: the act, usually the acts and control anyway, saying no

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Speaker 1: TM plus. And there has been TM plus.

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Speaker 2: Yes, not from the beginning, always towards the end, always

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Speaker 2: towards the end.

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Speaker 1: Now this is something theoretically you could document.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh absolutely. Look I'll go back. I'll go

396
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 2: back to uh Diana Ross. About five or six years ago,

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Speaker 2: we're playing Radio City. We say no TM plus. Diana's

398
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Speaker 2: agent puts into writing no TM plus. Show sells very

399
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 2: very quickly, and we're holding the next day for a

400
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 2: second show. Right, we're now ninety five percent sold out.

401
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 2: They turn on ticket man, the ticket TM plus. I

402
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 2: you know, I jump up and down screaming, yel all right,

403
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 2: they do it anyway.

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Speaker 1: So I see that.

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00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 2: Suddenly they're all a lot more tickets available. All right?

406
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 2: Where did they come from? I can't tell you. I

407
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 2: can't document, But suddenly there's more available, all right. So

408
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 2: now I have to go to Diana Ross and her

409
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 2: agent and her lawyer and say, look, here's the problem.

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00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 2: We add the second show. All right, all the potential buyers,

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Speaker 2: fans that we're going to buy off of TM plus

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00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 2: for inflated prices, are going to first try to run

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Speaker 2: to buy the best tickets for the second day, and

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00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 2: we were only like three weeks before the shows. So

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Speaker 2: I said, it's very possible that the first show we'll

416
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Speaker 2: have a couple of one hundred empty seats right up front,

417
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Speaker 2: and that's not a good look. And I don't, you know,

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00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 2: I can't recommend to to Miss Ross that that that

419
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 2: we do that She and her her advisors agreed we

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00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 2: didn't add the second day. The Madison Madison Square Garden executives,

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00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:21,719
Speaker 2: who are pretty good people to work with, you know,

422
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 2: tried everything they could to get us they add the

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00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 2: second day, but it didn't make sense. Manna Ross is

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Speaker 2: a legend, she's a superstar, and she shouldn't play a

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00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 2: show that there's you know, two hundred and fifty or

426
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 2: three hundred empty seats in the first ten rows. So yes,

427
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 2: I gave up a second show that I could have made,

428
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 2: you know, a good profit in. But you know, as

429
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 2: I've always tried, and I try to protect the act.

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Speaker 2: The act gives you the ability to promote them. You

431
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:57,240
Speaker 2: do everything you can to help that act. I mean, Bob,

432
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 2: I've been doing this for nearly fifty years. I've never

433
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 2: scalped the ticket for one of my own shows ever.

434
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 2: And if you think about my representation of the grateful dead,

435
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 2: how many millions of dollars I could have made scalping

436
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 2: those tickets? All Right, all you can say is I'm

437
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 2: a schmuck.

438
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 1: Okay, all the shows you've put on, have you ever

439
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: found that you're the managers or the ask themselves have

440
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: scalped some of the tickets that they'd been allotted?

441
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 2: Very rarely. There are two instances in the eighties when

442
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 2: the Meadowlands Arena first was built. You know, I was

443
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:48,480
Speaker 2: in business probably for about ten years before that arena opened,

444
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 2: and you know, we owned a Capitol Theater in Passaic,

445
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 2: and you know, did hundreds and hundreds of shows there,

446
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 2: but there was no arena in New Jersey. I used

447
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 2: to do some summer shows at an old Triple A

448
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 2: baseball park in Jersey City, some very famous shows, but

449
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 2: you know, I'm waiting for an arena so it gets built.

450
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 2: It was an industry that was still, uh, you know,

451
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 2: very personally involved. That loyalty was pretty much there all

452
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 2: the time. So as acts that I've played before and

453
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 2: even acts that I that that I didn't. I was

454
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 2: the logical promoter. Our company was the logical company uh

455
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 2: to get to get those shows. Now there's there's a

456
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 2: there's a whole long story about uh my, my relationship

457
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 2: with Royan Dell's no over that. But it's neither here

458
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:46,280
Speaker 2: nor there.

459
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 1: Wa whoa, whoa what? Just give us a little taste

460
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 1: of that.

461
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 2: When when I had a good relationship with ron all right,

462
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 2: I stayed in Jersey, he stayed in New York. You know.

463
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 2: I did hundreds and hundred shows in Pasake and Hasbury

464
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 2: Park and Jersey City and stuff like that. When the

465
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:09,480
Speaker 2: Middle Ends Arena was starting to be built, Ronie asked

466
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 2: me out to lunch, and uh like, I said. We

467
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 2: were pretty family in those days, and I said sure.

468
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 2: So we went to lunch and at lunch he says

469
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:23,239
Speaker 2: to me, John said, they're building this new arena, right,

470
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 2: And I said, oh yeah, I'm you know, I'm real involved.

471
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 2: I've been been involved in the you know, in the

472
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:31,920
Speaker 2: ployment and all the pulminary stuff with the sports authority.

473
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 2: You know, I can't wait. He said, well, you know what, John,

474
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 2: I'm going to lose some shows. I said, uh, you know,

475
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 2: because the most acts were playing two shows at the Garden.

476
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 2: There was no New Jersey show all right. So I said,

477
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 2: you're not going to lose them all, you know. So

478
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 2: he says to me, well, we and I we should

479
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 2: be partners on those shows, all right. So I looked

480
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 2: at him and I said, Ron, I, I'll tell you what.

481
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 2: Let's go back to nineteen seventy one when I opened

482
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 2: up the Capitol at age twenty, and let's go back

483
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:16,799
Speaker 2: to whatever that date was in the eighties. I'll show

484
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:19,920
Speaker 2: you my books. You show me your books, all the

485
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:21,880
Speaker 2: money that you made at Madison Square Guard, and you

486
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 2: write me a check for half of it, all right,

487
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 2: and we can be partners on everything. So he lost

488
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:35,920
Speaker 2: his temper a little bit and he said, listen, if

489
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 2: you don't do this, I'm going to put you out

490
00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:43,279
Speaker 2: of business, all right. And I said I don't think so.

491
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 2: I'm pretty confident. So the meeting ended. One of the

492
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:51,920
Speaker 2: guys who worked for him at the time, guy named Jonathan.

493
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:58,239
Speaker 2: Sure really good guys, passed away, hung back and said

494
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:02,320
Speaker 2: to me, John, the acts and the agents love Ron.

495
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,320
Speaker 2: He's gonna put you out of business. He's not kidding.

496
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 2: And I looked at him and I said, Jonathan, no offense,

497
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:15,240
Speaker 2: I'm not worried. So when Herina opens. For the first

498
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 2: number of years, we basically do every single show, all right,

499
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 2: except for two. One Rod Stewart, the other Madonna. Rod

500
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 2: Stewart's manager and Madonna's manager at the time was Freddy Demand.

501
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 2: In each case asked for something like five hundred tickets

502
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 2: to be held for them. It was obvious what they

503
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 2: were going to do. They didn't say, We're going to

504
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 2: scalp them. They just said, and I turned them down. Uh,

505
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:51,040
Speaker 2: and then I didn't. I didn't get those shows. Delse

506
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 2: New got those. That was the first shows that Delsne

507
00:35:53,680 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 2: ever got there. So you know, you know what, I

508
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 2: can look you in the eye and I can say

509
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 2: I've been really pretty pretty straight across the board. And

510
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:13,800
Speaker 2: I'm more I'm a schmock. I've told you that before,

511
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 2: all right, I said, I never scapped any tickets. I

512
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 2: never did any funny business with the books. And it's

513
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,800
Speaker 2: it's what I thought, you know, A one can just say,

514
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:30,719
Speaker 2: it's the way my folks brought me up. But it's

515
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 2: also early in my career. The most significant or one

516
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 2: of the most significant relationships I developed early on was

517
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 2: with Frank Barcelona, all right and Premier Talent, And you know,

518
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 2: there's never been anything like Premier Talent, even as huge

519
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:52,960
Speaker 2: as CIA and WM and some of the other ones.

520
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:57,759
Speaker 2: Premier probably represented more than fifty percent of the headliners

521
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 2: in the business for a long time. And I was

522
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 2: sort of the youngest guy to get in on the

523
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 2: you know, on the Barcelona gang, all right. You know,

524
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:11,359
Speaker 2: people like Don Wung, Larry Maggott. You know, we're at

525
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 2: least ten years older than me. Graham was twenty years

526
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 2: older than me. And it changed my life, obviously. And

527
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 2: you know, Frank didn't want to hear about people scalping

528
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 2: tickets now, so you know, between my upbringing and Frank's

529
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:37,400
Speaker 2: guidance and Barber's guidance, I never scalped tickets. And I

530
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,320
Speaker 2: and I you know, I stayed away from the managers

531
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 2: who did.

532
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:46,919
Speaker 1: Okay, let's just go back to uh dellsoner, how come

533
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:48,719
Speaker 1: you got all the dates?

534
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,280
Speaker 2: I got all the dates because for ten or twelve

535
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:58,239
Speaker 2: years before that, I would be doing probably fifty or

536
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:01,839
Speaker 2: sixty shows a year at the Capitol and Convention Hall

537
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:05,400
Speaker 2: in Asbury Park, all right. Doesn't ever tried to do

538
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:09,240
Speaker 2: shows in New Jersey, all right. And I worked really

539
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 2: hard from the day I started to establish Jersey as

540
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 2: a separate market from New York. All right. Now it's

541
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:22,359
Speaker 2: even more separate because of financial reasons. But uh, you know,

542
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 2: it's it's you know, I've said this a thousand times.

543
00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 2: There's six million people that live in the what was

544
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 2: the old two to oh one area code, so the

545
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 2: northern part of New Jersey. It's the second most densely

546
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:40,440
Speaker 2: populated state in the country, and I think it's the

547
00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:43,840
Speaker 2: second highest per capita income. It was a market just

548
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 2: in need of a city, all right. And when I

549
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 2: was little, Newark was a big city, right, and a

550
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 2: lot of act played Nework. There was no arena, but

551
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 2: you know, every played, from everybody from Lawrence Welk to

552
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 2: the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan played Symphony Hall in

553
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:06,360
Speaker 2: New York. Then there were these nineteen sixty seven riots,

554
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:08,919
Speaker 2: and it wiped Nork off the face of the earth,

555
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 2: and still to this day hasn't completely recovered. It's come

556
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:16,759
Speaker 2: a long ways. You know. There's two great facilities there

557
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:20,239
Speaker 2: in a Prudential Center and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Uh,

558
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:24,959
Speaker 2: and still symphony holes there. But for a long long time,

559
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 2: York was wiped off the face of the earth. But

560
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:34,719
Speaker 2: the Metropolitan Nirk was a huge, wealthy market, and I

561
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 2: grew up there and I understood it. Uh, And that's why,

562
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:43,919
Speaker 2: you know, no one was trying to book the Capitol Theater.

563
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 2: You know, nobody was trying to book Asbury Parker ventional

564
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:49,279
Speaker 2: I shouldn't say that. There was a guy named most

565
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 2: SEPTI very nice man who in the fifties into the well,

566
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 2: I don't know about the fifties, but the sixties into

567
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 2: the early seventies book shows at Convention Hall. He knew

568
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:05,840
Speaker 2: nothing about rock and roll. He was a classical music

569
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:11,839
Speaker 2: promoter and he just believed whatever the agent's told him.

570
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:17,360
Speaker 2: But then when we came on board and started to

571
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 2: look to do shows. At the time, we knew what

572
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:24,360
Speaker 2: we were doing. You know, we knew that the band

573
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 2: who he never heard of, could sell three thousand tickets. Yeah,

574
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 2: you know, So we competed for about a year, year

575
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:37,279
Speaker 2: and a half, and then finally he was a very

576
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 2: nice man. He called me up, said let's let's have lunch,

577
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 2: and he said, I'm going to give you my contract,

578
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 2: all right. I can't compete with you, all right, And

579
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 2: he admitted, you know, he knew classical music inside out,

580
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:55,799
Speaker 2: but you know what was happening is we were we

581
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,279
Speaker 2: were booking the shows down the other end of the

582
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 2: borderwalk at a place called the Casine Arena, all right,

583
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 2: and we were you know, we we we knew what

584
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 2: we were doing. You know, it was of our age.

585
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 2: I mean, we were kids. You know. One of the things,

586
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:12,799
Speaker 2: you know that was so much fun for me was,

587
00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 2: you know, while my friends were in graduate school, you know,

588
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:18,799
Speaker 2: I was out there promoting concerts with acts that we

589
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 2: all loved. So he saw the handwrite in the wall,

590
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 2: like I said, he was a very nice man, and

591
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 2: he said, stop down the other end of the board walk.

592
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 2: I'm going to give you my contract, set you up

593
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:38,720
Speaker 2: with the town in the city. And so for probably

594
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 2: close to twenty years we did all the shows in

595
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:43,239
Speaker 2: the summer in Asbray Park.

596
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:47,480
Speaker 1: Let's go back to Frank Barcelona. You and me know

597
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 1: a lot about it. A lot of people don't. So

598
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 1: tell me how you got included Frank and how he

599
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: kept everybody in their own area.

600
00:41:57,040 --> 00:42:03,560
Speaker 2: Well, let's start with the second part. Frank envisioned the

601
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 2: concert business almost like pro sports, almost like the major leagues.

602
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:13,360
Speaker 2: All Right, everybody had a franchise if they did their job. Well,

603
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 2: they were professional, innovative, all right. They got all his acts,

604
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:24,880
Speaker 2: all his acts, all right. And I, you know, I,

605
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 2: like I said, I was a generation or a half

606
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 2: a generation behind when that first got set up. But

607
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:35,320
Speaker 2: when I started and I started doing shows in Jersey

608
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:41,080
Speaker 2: while I was in college and then you know, so

609
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:44,240
Speaker 2: it was hard in those days when the Fillmore East

610
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 2: was still open. Graham had an exclusivity that was like

611
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 2: one hundred miles or seventy five miles around New York.

612
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:56,840
Speaker 2: So you couldn't get very many acts to play Jersey

613
00:42:56,920 --> 00:43:00,359
Speaker 2: except for mostly the American acts, all right. I used

614
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:04,319
Speaker 2: to play Mountain a lot because you know, you know,

615
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:09,360
Speaker 2: uh and and so uh. In the case of Mountain,

616
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:12,800
Speaker 2: Frank was their age, all right. So when I found

617
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 2: the Capital, and I had a partner in those days

618
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:20,839
Speaker 2: when when when we found the Capital, I you know,

619
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 2: I went to Premiere and went to you know, my

620
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 2: agent there and got in to see Frank and Barber, uh,

621
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 2: and I told them what I wanted to do. They

622
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:34,880
Speaker 2: gave me the blessing. We opened the Capital with Humble

623
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:39,960
Speaker 2: Pie in the Jay Giles band instant sell out. You know,

624
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 2: Frank was there, uh and uh you know, from that

625
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 2: point on, the Capitol was a massive success for its

626
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 2: size in the day it opened. Uh And so you

627
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 2: know what that proved more than anything else was. You know,

628
00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 2: it proved me right about the market, all right. Pasacica,

629
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 2: Jersey was a little run down on industrial town, all right,

630
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 2: no place people were going to hang out. But you know,

631
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 2: we did a lot of set out shows. We did

632
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 2: a lot of enormous shows. I mean the Rolling Stones

633
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:15,920
Speaker 2: played there, The Who played there, Springsteen played there, Billy

634
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:19,359
Speaker 2: Joel played there, and in many of those cases way

635
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 2: after they became a renax. So uh, you know. And

636
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 2: and Frank, Frank was really once he got past meeting him,

637
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 2: he's an incredibly nice, friendly guy, as his wife June

638
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 2: is uh. And so I got close with him, and

639
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 2: then I started to to to manage some acts. And

640
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 2: the first considerable act that I that that that that

641
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 2: I managed was Renaissance, all right, and uh I signed

642
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 2: him the premiere and they were, you know, that had

643
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 2: about a ten year run where they were really successful.

644
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:06,839
Speaker 2: They were selling out three thousand seaters, a couple of

645
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:11,719
Speaker 2: gold and platinum records, and the relationship just grew and

646
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 2: grew and grew from there.

647
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's say you wanted to do something in

648
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:32,959
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania fifty miles from Philadelphia. What would Frank say, that's

649
00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:34,760
Speaker 1: Maggot's territory end.

650
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 2: If it was fifty miles, which is why eventually I

651
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:43,319
Speaker 2: built an amphitheater in scrant all right. Nobody was doing it,

652
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:47,160
Speaker 2: all right? If you could find a market that nobody

653
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:50,280
Speaker 2: else was putting shows into, and there was another market

654
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 2: to be added to a tour, instead of thirty dates,

655
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:58,040
Speaker 2: there could be thirty one dates. Frank and the other agents,

656
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 2: you know, we're fine if I wanted to go to

657
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:06,360
Speaker 2: Cherry Hill or Camden or something like that. Not a shot,

658
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 2: you know, Larry Maggott and Allen speedback all the way.

659
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 1: Okay. What about Jerry Weintraube when he wants to be

660
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:17,880
Speaker 1: the national promoter and also Bill Graham when he starts

661
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 1: promoting the seventy four Crosby Stills, Nation and Young tour.

662
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 1: What'd you feel about that?

663
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 2: Well, early on, before my relationship with the Grateful Dead,

664
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:37,320
Speaker 2: Jelled Graham was my hero, all right, and you know

665
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:42,440
Speaker 2: I could fall follow along like a puppy dog, and

666
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:46,919
Speaker 2: so Chrisby, Stills, Nash and Young seventy four. We got

667
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:50,840
Speaker 2: the show at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, and actually

668
00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 2: it's a very famous show in that it happened the

669
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:58,480
Speaker 2: night that Richard Nixon resigned, all right, and it was

670
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:03,320
Speaker 2: you know your four Yeah, Jerry wan Troupp, I guess

671
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 2: before I was in in the business, I think he

672
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:09,799
Speaker 2: you know, he did most of the Elvis states, if

673
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:14,399
Speaker 2: not all of them. He did led Zeppelin dates and

674
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:20,200
Speaker 2: oh and Sinatra dates. All right. So here's an interesting story.

675
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:25,080
Speaker 2: When Giants Stadium was first built and it opened a

676
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:28,799
Speaker 2: year before the arena opened, I was working with the

677
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:31,320
Speaker 2: Sports Authority and the shows, the Sports and Exposition Authority,

678
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:35,840
Speaker 2: and you know, I was going to promote the opening

679
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:38,279
Speaker 2: show at Giants Stadium, which was actually in year two.

680
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 2: They didn't want that. They barely finished the stadium for

681
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 2: the Giants to open in September. But in year two

682
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 2: they were ready to do concerts, and there weren't a

683
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 2: lot of stadium concerts in those days. So you know,

684
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:54,440
Speaker 2: I went out and tried to put a show together

685
00:47:54,480 --> 00:48:00,960
Speaker 2: and did Beach Boys, Steve Miller Band, Pablo kuz all Right,

686
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 2: so we're holding the date talking to the agent, Wan

687
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:11,160
Speaker 2: trap is the manager of the Beach Boys in those days,

688
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:16,000
Speaker 2: all right, and although they were big, he wasn't promoting

689
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:23,320
Speaker 2: all of the dates. So you know, I'm patiently waiting, waiting,

690
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 2: waiting for the dates to get confirmed. And I get

691
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 2: a phone call. I'm one of the guys who runs

692
00:48:28,960 --> 00:48:32,440
Speaker 2: the Sports Authority, guy named Lauris Smith, who's passed but

693
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:37,880
Speaker 2: very important guy in my life. And he, you know,

694
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:42,399
Speaker 2: he ran the stadium in the Arena for a long time.

695
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 2: So I get a call from Morris and he says

696
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:49,719
Speaker 2: to me, tomorrow morning, I want you to be in

697
00:48:49,760 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 2: my office at nine o'clock. I said, what's up. He said,

698
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:55,440
Speaker 2: you'll see when you get here. And he was a

699
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:57,720
Speaker 2: bit of a wise guy. Great guy, but a wise

700
00:48:57,719 --> 00:49:01,080
Speaker 2: guy all right. So you know, I picked my ass up.

701
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:06,560
Speaker 2: I went got to his office and he was sitting

702
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:10,280
Speaker 2: in his office with the chairman of the Sports Authority,

703
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:20,839
Speaker 2: so his boss operationally, not but his boss. And they said, uh, John, Uh,

704
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:25,480
Speaker 2: I'm gonna walk into another office, all right, and I

705
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 2: want you to there's somebody in there and I want

706
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 2: you to talk to him. So we got up, we

707
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 2: walked into the other office and there was Dave Ferana,

708
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:39,200
Speaker 2: worked for Winehop in contract Twist at the time, and

709
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:43,919
Speaker 2: Lauris walked me in and then left and just left

710
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:51,359
Speaker 2: the two of us, all right. So I said, Dave,

711
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:57,480
Speaker 2: what are you doing here? And he, like, you know, stammered, said, well,

712
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:01,719
Speaker 2: you know, you know, Jerry's decided we're gonna Jerry and

713
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 2: Tom Mulett decided that, you know, we're going to promote

714
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:08,960
Speaker 2: the show. And I said, do you see what just

715
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 2: happened in the last five minutes? I said, I don't

716
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:17,320
Speaker 2: think so, all right, and you know, the light bulb

717
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 2: went up in his head. You know, he saw the

718
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:23,759
Speaker 2: way they played it. I got the show, sold it out,

719
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:33,439
Speaker 2: and I got a phone call from Winetop. I can't

720
00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:35,439
Speaker 2: remember if it was before the show or right after

721
00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 2: the show, but he was laughing. He got a huge

722
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:43,920
Speaker 2: kick that I stared him down, huge kick out of it.

723
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:47,360
Speaker 2: And from that point on and the same thing with

724
00:50:47,360 --> 00:50:52,000
Speaker 2: with uh uh Tom Mulett and Terry Bassett, all right,

725
00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:56,279
Speaker 2: they almost always found uh, you know, a show or

726
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 2: a half a show for me with all the stuff

727
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:04,240
Speaker 2: that they that they would doing. So you know, uh

728
00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:07,319
Speaker 2: it was you know, listen, I was I was a kid,

729
00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 2: I was maybe I was thirty. Uh so you know

730
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:15,360
Speaker 2: that was great. Now that led to another great story,

731
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:22,759
Speaker 2: which was you managed the Moody Blues, not just whole

732
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 2: their whole career, but you know, in the latter part

733
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:26,920
Speaker 2: of their career for a long time. And he played

734
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 2: for me in New York. It is after I went

735
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:37,439
Speaker 2: into New York and uh he he uh. I get

736
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:42,080
Speaker 2: the date from the agent and the phone rings and

737
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:46,520
Speaker 2: it's Tom Eulet and he's hysterically laughing so much, and

738
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:48,279
Speaker 2: I couldn't understand what the hell he was saying. He

739
00:51:48,320 --> 00:51:52,240
Speaker 2: was just belly laughing out loud. So I finally said,

740
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:57,040
Speaker 2: come get a hold of yourself. You called me right,

741
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 2: So he did, and he said, you know what I've

742
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 2: been doing for the last twenty minutes. I said, I

743
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 2: have no idea, he said, getting screamed at it. Bill

744
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 2: Graham for giving you the Moody Blues. All right, I said,

745
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 2: Did he want it? No, he didn't want He wanted

746
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:16,239
Speaker 2: me to give it to dells Ner. Now, now this

747
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 2: is a whole other, huge part, you know, of my story.

748
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:24,480
Speaker 2: But Graham and I eventually became, you know, bitter enemies.

749
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:29,399
Speaker 2: More on his end in mind. But he hated me

750
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:33,080
Speaker 2: so much at that point because of the relationship I

751
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:37,719
Speaker 2: had with the grateful dead that he actually tried to

752
00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:44,239
Speaker 2: hurt me, and and Tom thought it was so he

753
00:52:44,280 --> 00:52:45,600
Speaker 2: thought it was the funniest thing he ever heard in

754
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:48,719
Speaker 2: his life. All right, So of course I got the

755
00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:53,640
Speaker 2: date and you know later that day where that night

756
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:58,960
Speaker 2: is what Graham died in the helicopter crash. So the

757
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:02,040
Speaker 2: last thing to Build did that I know of, was

758
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:09,080
Speaker 2: try to fuck me. So and you know what I

759
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:12,359
Speaker 2: can say, truthfully, in many ways, he was my hero

760
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:19,800
Speaker 2: when he started, you know, this this sort of war

761
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:22,919
Speaker 2: with me. You know, I learned a lot about him.

762
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:25,840
Speaker 2: I learned a lot from him. He was a great showman,

763
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:29,399
Speaker 2: no question, but he wasn't quite as squeaky clean as

764
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:33,239
Speaker 2: as he would have had you believe that that he was.

765
00:53:33,800 --> 00:53:36,759
Speaker 2: I didn't want to fight with him, you know, there

766
00:53:36,800 --> 00:53:39,160
Speaker 2: was no reason to fight with him. He's more successful

767
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 2: than I was. He was a lot older than me,

768
00:53:42,120 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 2: but uh he you know there. You know, there's hours

769
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:50,080
Speaker 2: of stories I can tell you about our interactions over

770
00:53:50,120 --> 00:53:54,000
Speaker 2: the years, but that was one of them.

771
00:53:54,440 --> 00:53:58,279
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to something you said earlier that

772
00:53:58,440 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 1: the tickets are so expressed that it's hurting artist development. Now,

773
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:09,800
Speaker 1: I would say the tickets are so expensive because of demand,

774
00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 1: that's what people want to pay for them.

775
00:54:14,680 --> 00:54:19,560
Speaker 2: Well, look, we will see in a couple of years,

776
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:24,360
Speaker 2: all right. There's no question at post COVID the the

777
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:28,279
Speaker 2: you know, there was an enormous amount of pent up

778
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:32,239
Speaker 2: excitement about going to live shows again, all right, and

779
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:34,960
Speaker 2: I don't think we've seen the end of that. I

780
00:54:35,000 --> 00:54:40,759
Speaker 2: think that there's no question that that ticket prices for many,

781
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:44,879
Speaker 2: many many years were undersolved. All right.

782
00:54:45,560 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 3: Underpriced, yeah, underpriced, yeah.

783
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:53,760
Speaker 2: But should they have dreamt to six hundred, seven hundred,

784
00:54:53,800 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 2: eight hundred, one thousand dollars twelve hundred dollars? No.

785
00:54:59,280 --> 00:54:59,360
Speaker 3: No.

786
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:01,560
Speaker 2: A friend of mine the other day told me he

787
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:03,759
Speaker 2: found an old ticket stuff of an Eagles show that

788
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 2: I did in Rochester, New York, and the ticket was

789
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:14,200
Speaker 2: seventy five dollars, and he remembers me going, and I did.

790
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:20,279
Speaker 2: I was at the time very friendly with Irving, and

791
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:22,800
Speaker 2: I said to you nuts, you know, because he averaged

792
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:28,360
Speaker 2: p one ticket price then was probably forty maybe fifty dollars,

793
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:32,839
Speaker 2: And he said there's a demand, and he's right, there

794
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 2: was the demand. But now that seventy five dollars is

795
00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:42,799
Speaker 2: probably five hundred dollars, and the ticket prices across the

796
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:49,040
Speaker 2: board for the major acts is way beyond five hundred dollars.

797
00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:54,719
Speaker 2: So I think what happens is I think the superstars

798
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:58,600
Speaker 2: will still continue to get those prices and still do

799
00:55:58,680 --> 00:56:03,760
Speaker 2: great business. But I think somebody who pays five hundred,

800
00:56:03,840 --> 00:56:07,040
Speaker 2: seven hundred, one thousand dollars for a ticket, that's a

801
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:10,960
Speaker 2: middle class person, won't be able to go to a

802
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:14,040
Speaker 2: couple of other shows that they'd like to go see

803
00:56:14,680 --> 00:56:16,880
Speaker 2: where the ticket price top ticket price might only be

804
00:56:17,760 --> 00:56:22,080
Speaker 2: eighty or ninety dollars, right, But if you're spending seven hundred,

805
00:56:22,680 --> 00:56:26,399
Speaker 2: you know, the next month or two you're not You're

806
00:56:26,440 --> 00:56:29,719
Speaker 2: saving your money, you know. Now, Look, there's a lot

807
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:32,759
Speaker 2: of rich people in this world, and in America especially,

808
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:36,560
Speaker 2: so you know, rich people are gonna pay whatever they

809
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:39,680
Speaker 2: want because it's a certain trophy. You know, it's you

810
00:56:39,719 --> 00:56:43,600
Speaker 2: know those some people are all driving Lamborghinis and porches.

811
00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:51,560
Speaker 2: All right. But I think it's going to hurt going forward,

812
00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:56,759
Speaker 2: and I think it's already hurt the rock business. As

813
00:56:56,880 --> 00:57:00,239
Speaker 2: you have written. I'm sure there's not all lot of

814
00:57:00,320 --> 00:57:03,160
Speaker 2: rock acts anymore, you know, all the old ones are

815
00:57:03,160 --> 00:57:07,560
Speaker 2: still there all right, but it's very rare that you

816
00:57:07,680 --> 00:57:14,279
Speaker 2: see a new rock act really really top off. There's

817
00:57:14,320 --> 00:57:19,120
Speaker 2: probably more Americana acts that have grown into being arenact

818
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:21,360
Speaker 2: and straight ahead rock and roll bands.

819
00:57:23,160 --> 00:57:25,680
Speaker 1: And you think that's because the prices for the so

820
00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:28,120
Speaker 1: called heritage acts are so expensive.

821
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:32,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do, I do, And look, you know it's

822
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:36,760
Speaker 2: it's it's a with a lot of these acts, well,

823
00:57:36,800 --> 00:57:41,600
Speaker 2: the heritage acts. Psychologically, even if they don't say it's

824
00:57:41,640 --> 00:57:45,680
Speaker 2: the last tour, everybody thinks it's the last tour, you know.

825
00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:50,080
Speaker 2: I mean this was on a what eight year final tour,

826
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:53,320
Speaker 2: and I still don't believe they won't get back together.

827
00:57:53,680 --> 00:58:00,240
Speaker 3: I agree, yeah, you know, uh, the Eagles, you know,

828
00:58:01,480 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 3: this is the last tour.

829
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:07,240
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe I think if gunn Fry was alive, it

830
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:12,920
Speaker 2: wouldn't be. But I think that that Henley knows he

831
00:58:12,960 --> 00:58:15,200
Speaker 2: can go out on his own and still draw pretty

832
00:58:15,200 --> 00:58:17,720
Speaker 2: big crowds. Not as big as Evils, but pretty big crowds.

833
00:58:19,360 --> 00:58:21,960
Speaker 2: And the pop and hip hop acts that have exploded,

834
00:58:24,240 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 2: you know, with few exceptions, I don't think they have

835
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:31,440
Speaker 2: a long career. There are some exceptions, no question. I

836
00:58:31,480 --> 00:58:38,680
Speaker 2: mean Beyonce and Taylor Swift. I think forever. But and

837
00:58:38,720 --> 00:58:40,440
Speaker 2: there are a couple of hip hop acts that that

838
00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:44,920
Speaker 2: will probably have a long, long career. But if you

839
00:58:45,040 --> 00:58:51,640
Speaker 2: look back at hip hop twenty thirty years ago, the

840
00:58:51,680 --> 00:58:55,440
Speaker 2: acts that were really big, Toy Hell, Cool Jay, they

841
00:58:55,480 --> 00:58:59,680
Speaker 2: can't sell any tickets anymore, all right. Snoop Dogg, you know,

842
00:58:59,840 --> 00:59:02,760
Speaker 2: I did you know. I think there's a resurgence for Snoop.

843
00:59:03,120 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 2: But I did Snoop a bunch of years ago and

844
00:59:05,720 --> 00:59:11,640
Speaker 2: couldn't sell out the Apollo. So it seems to me

845
00:59:12,800 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 2: that while hip hop is enormous, it doesn't seem to

846
00:59:18,600 --> 00:59:23,080
Speaker 2: be creating long term careers. I could be wrong, you know,

847
00:59:23,160 --> 00:59:23,800
Speaker 2: I could be wrong.

848
00:59:23,880 --> 00:59:27,000
Speaker 1: But let's go back to what you said. We have

849
00:59:27,160 --> 00:59:31,760
Speaker 1: the COVID build up. Some might say that the concert

850
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:37,120
Speaker 1: business will rage forever because it's unique experience in the

851
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:39,000
Speaker 1: world where we all have the same items, we have

852
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:41,720
Speaker 1: the same phone, we have this and that, and it's

853
00:59:41,720 --> 00:59:45,480
Speaker 1: a once in a lifetime maybe experience. Do you think

854
00:59:45,520 --> 00:59:47,760
Speaker 1: that the business will fall off in a few years.

855
00:59:49,640 --> 00:59:52,800
Speaker 2: I think the prices will fall off in a few years,

856
00:59:53,320 --> 00:59:57,200
Speaker 2: all right. And I think if the price is fall off,

857
00:59:57,320 --> 01:00:02,320
Speaker 2: then the business will still stay very healthy. It is

858
01:00:02,360 --> 01:00:06,600
Speaker 2: a unique experience, all right, and even to me, and

859
01:00:06,680 --> 01:00:10,360
Speaker 2: I'm sure you at the right show, they are in

860
01:00:10,400 --> 01:00:12,320
Speaker 2: the back of your next still stands up, you know.

861
01:00:12,400 --> 01:00:15,880
Speaker 2: And I've seen thousands of shows, you know, so there's

862
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:19,480
Speaker 2: nothing like that except for maybe, you know, championship sports.

863
01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:23,920
Speaker 2: So no, I don't. I'm not predicting the demise of

864
01:00:23,960 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 2: the conceptist by any way, shape or form. You know.

865
01:00:27,120 --> 01:00:30,400
Speaker 2: What I'm predicting is that I don't think it can

866
01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:35,920
Speaker 2: sustain these crazy ticket prices over the long haul. Some

867
01:00:35,960 --> 01:00:37,360
Speaker 2: of them will be there as long as there's a

868
01:00:37,360 --> 01:00:40,800
Speaker 2: super superstar, they'll be there, all right. But I think

869
01:00:40,840 --> 01:00:46,640
Speaker 2: the crazy ticket prices will will will have to come down, right,

870
01:00:47,160 --> 01:00:52,640
Speaker 2: and we'll have to give the audience a more reasonable

871
01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:56,800
Speaker 2: reason to go to shows, to go to acts that

872
01:00:56,960 --> 01:00:59,640
Speaker 2: you know, that that that they're not quite sure they

873
01:00:59,680 --> 01:01:03,080
Speaker 2: love what they like. And like I said, in the

874
01:01:03,120 --> 01:01:08,200
Speaker 2: Americana World, look, you know, Mumford and Sons, Luminears. I mean,

875
01:01:08,200 --> 01:01:10,120
Speaker 2: you can go on and on and on. You know,

876
01:01:10,400 --> 01:01:13,200
Speaker 2: some of those actually become a renact. You know, ten

877
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:15,200
Speaker 2: years ago there was no such thing as an American

878
01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:18,920
Speaker 2: act becoming an a renact, you know, So you know,

879
01:01:19,040 --> 01:01:23,200
Speaker 2: I think that's you know that that that is uniquely

880
01:01:25,040 --> 01:01:31,640
Speaker 2: American to the American upper middle class, well educated person.

881
01:01:32,280 --> 01:01:34,439
Speaker 2: All right, I think they're you know, they're they're, they're

882
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:38,200
Speaker 2: they're listening to these acts, whether it be on their

883
01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 2: computer or whether on what little radio is left, and

884
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:44,280
Speaker 2: and the acts are getting big.

885
01:01:45,600 --> 01:01:49,600
Speaker 1: Okay, let's say you're talking about these tickets five hundred

886
01:01:49,680 --> 01:01:57,120
Speaker 1: to twelve hundred dollars. How can you control prices today

887
01:01:57,680 --> 01:02:04,200
Speaker 1: when the demand far out rips capacity and people are

888
01:02:04,200 --> 01:02:07,080
Speaker 1: willing to pay much more than the face value.

889
01:02:07,560 --> 01:02:10,280
Speaker 2: Well platinum tickets. You know, it's one of the things

890
01:02:10,280 --> 01:02:16,000
Speaker 2: that that ticketmaster was good at creating platinum tickets, taking

891
01:02:16,040 --> 01:02:20,800
Speaker 2: a certain amount of good seats and basically put them

892
01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:26,080
Speaker 2: up for auction so that the heavy hitters, you know,

893
01:02:26,360 --> 01:02:32,040
Speaker 2: will be able to pay, you know, higher prices than

894
01:02:32,080 --> 01:02:32,840
Speaker 2: the average punter.

895
01:02:35,400 --> 01:02:36,960
Speaker 1: What about the secondary market.

896
01:02:38,200 --> 01:02:43,720
Speaker 2: Well, I've been fighting this bob for forty five years

897
01:02:43,720 --> 01:02:48,920
Speaker 2: and beating my head against the wall. You know, I

898
01:02:49,520 --> 01:02:54,000
Speaker 2: was successful at one point in getting New Jersey to

899
01:02:54,040 --> 01:02:56,520
Speaker 2: put together an anti scalping law. It was a good law,

900
01:02:56,640 --> 01:03:01,880
Speaker 2: all right, except for law enforcement wouldn't enforce it, all right,

901
01:03:02,360 --> 01:03:04,480
Speaker 2: And you know. I remember sitting down once with like

902
01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:08,200
Speaker 2: a colonel from the New Yorsey State Police and saying,

903
01:03:09,240 --> 01:03:11,720
Speaker 2: why aren't you It's the law. It got passed, the

904
01:03:11,720 --> 01:03:16,040
Speaker 2: governor signed it, and he was pretty simple. He said,

905
01:03:16,520 --> 01:03:22,320
Speaker 2: I'm worried about killings and rapes and grand grand last larceny.

906
01:03:22,520 --> 01:03:25,760
Speaker 2: I get no time chasing after a ticket scout, so

907
01:03:26,160 --> 01:03:32,520
Speaker 2: you know it eventually, you know it went away. So

908
01:03:32,800 --> 01:03:37,600
Speaker 2: you know, I think that if you take complete greed

909
01:03:37,720 --> 01:03:41,280
Speaker 2: out of it, there's a way that the industry can

910
01:03:41,400 --> 01:03:47,360
Speaker 2: modify scalping all right, with something like platinum all right

911
01:03:50,160 --> 01:03:54,720
Speaker 2: and come back down to earth. You know. I speak,

912
01:03:55,600 --> 01:03:59,760
Speaker 2: you know, reasonably often at colleges, and I even for

913
01:04:00,120 --> 01:04:05,040
Speaker 2: one year toward a course at Syracuse. A lot of

914
01:04:05,160 --> 01:04:07,560
Speaker 2: kids these days, college aged kids, which should be the

915
01:04:07,600 --> 01:04:11,400
Speaker 2: heart of the music business, don't go to shows. They

916
01:04:11,440 --> 01:04:15,840
Speaker 2: go to clubs. They don't go to shows. I've lectured

917
01:04:15,840 --> 01:04:19,680
Speaker 2: at NYU a year or two ago. Probably there were

918
01:04:20,360 --> 01:04:24,400
Speaker 2: forty kids in the class. Maybe twenty five percent of

919
01:04:24,440 --> 01:04:28,200
Speaker 2: them went to shows. They all went to clubs, all right.

920
01:04:28,360 --> 01:04:30,360
Speaker 1: Just to be clear, you're talking about a club where

921
01:04:30,360 --> 01:04:33,720
Speaker 1: there's a DJ and bottle service and all that.

922
01:04:33,640 --> 01:04:36,800
Speaker 2: Stuff, or or even a band, but the ticket price,

923
01:04:36,840 --> 01:04:40,520
Speaker 2: the admission is ten dollars, you know, or they passed

924
01:04:40,520 --> 01:04:45,439
Speaker 2: a hat. So it's not a lack of interest by

925
01:04:45,480 --> 01:04:50,160
Speaker 2: young America in music, you know, it's that they can't

926
01:04:50,160 --> 01:04:53,160
Speaker 2: afford to go to the big shows, and certainly can't

927
01:04:53,200 --> 01:04:56,240
Speaker 2: afford to go to many of them. You know, we're

928
01:04:56,240 --> 01:04:59,600
Speaker 2: going to see We're going to see next year an

929
01:04:59,600 --> 01:05:03,760
Speaker 2: annoy or miss rolling Stone tour, biggest ever, all right,

930
01:05:04,200 --> 01:05:08,040
Speaker 2: probably as big as it possibly can be, because now

931
01:05:08,080 --> 01:05:09,520
Speaker 2: they don't have to say it's going to be the

932
01:05:09,560 --> 01:05:13,560
Speaker 2: last tour. The average person's gonna say, they're eighty years old.

933
01:05:13,880 --> 01:05:16,320
Speaker 2: How many more times can they do this? I better

934
01:05:16,400 --> 01:05:22,040
Speaker 2: go see it, you know. And who aren't far behind that? Yeah,

935
01:05:22,200 --> 01:05:25,720
Speaker 2: and look at you Look at the Genesis tour. You

936
01:05:25,760 --> 01:05:30,680
Speaker 2: know Collins couldn't couldn't stand up, he he you know,

937
01:05:30,720 --> 01:05:36,320
Speaker 2: he performed and sang reasonably well, sitting down. All right,

938
01:05:37,240 --> 01:05:40,440
Speaker 2: these acts are going to fade away, you know, and

939
01:05:40,440 --> 01:05:43,520
Speaker 2: and and uh, you know, some of them are retiring.

940
01:05:44,120 --> 01:05:46,280
Speaker 2: You know, some acts that you know that I did

941
01:05:46,320 --> 01:05:48,040
Speaker 2: a lot of business with over the years that we're

942
01:05:48,040 --> 01:05:52,600
Speaker 2: still doing great business. Retired Joan Baez retired, You know,

943
01:05:52,960 --> 01:05:54,640
Speaker 2: last time she played in New York, I sold that

944
01:05:54,760 --> 01:05:58,200
Speaker 2: three shows at the Beacon with her. She retired, all right,

945
01:05:58,400 --> 01:06:02,160
Speaker 2: Paul Simon Bass retired, all right. He might do a

946
01:06:02,240 --> 01:06:04,240
Speaker 2: date now and again, but he's not gonna tour again.

947
01:06:06,440 --> 01:06:10,240
Speaker 2: So you know, some of these acts, you know, are

948
01:06:10,280 --> 01:06:13,120
Speaker 2: gonna drag their asses out on stage until they drop.

949
01:06:15,600 --> 01:06:18,440
Speaker 2: So you know, we still got, you know, probably a

950
01:06:18,520 --> 01:06:23,920
Speaker 2: few more years of the Warhorses, but then what happens now?

951
01:06:24,000 --> 01:06:27,560
Speaker 2: Of course? Also I think that you know well, is

952
01:06:27,960 --> 01:06:34,240
Speaker 2: country's mainstream. Country was never mainstream in most of my career, never, never, never, right,

953
01:06:34,560 --> 01:06:37,880
Speaker 2: And as a matter of fact, very few big country acts,

954
01:06:37,920 --> 01:06:42,080
Speaker 2: big country acts ever played New York. All right, will

955
01:06:42,080 --> 01:06:44,920
Speaker 2: he always played New York. Will He even played stadiums

956
01:06:44,920 --> 01:06:48,240
Speaker 2: for me in in in New York and in upstate

957
01:06:48,280 --> 01:06:56,200
Speaker 2: New York. But you know, the mainstream big country acts

958
01:06:56,800 --> 01:06:59,400
Speaker 2: didn't play New York. Johnny Cash played. I played Johnny

959
01:06:59,400 --> 01:07:02,760
Speaker 2: Cash a couple of once at Carnegie Hall, an amazing shop,

960
01:07:03,160 --> 01:07:05,640
Speaker 2: all right, but they just didn't come. And I used

961
01:07:05,640 --> 01:07:08,360
Speaker 2: to argue with some of the agents I knew in Nashville.

962
01:07:08,480 --> 01:07:11,000
Speaker 2: Is okay, let's say you can sell out an arena

963
01:07:11,120 --> 01:07:15,680
Speaker 2: in forty of the fifty states. You can't in the Northeast,

964
01:07:16,280 --> 01:07:19,320
Speaker 2: but come and play at theater and I'll do something

965
01:07:19,440 --> 01:07:23,800
Speaker 2: to try to build your business. But of course, in

966
01:07:23,880 --> 01:07:27,080
Speaker 2: most of the Northeast there was not and still isn't,

967
01:07:27,320 --> 01:07:32,360
Speaker 2: any country radio. But the big country acts have basically

968
01:07:32,400 --> 01:07:38,240
Speaker 2: become mainstream rock bands, all right, And with all you know,

969
01:07:39,720 --> 01:07:42,000
Speaker 2: with all the things that go would be in a

970
01:07:42,000 --> 01:07:43,720
Speaker 2: big time mainstream rock band.

971
01:07:50,800 --> 01:07:52,080
Speaker 1: Well, how'd you beat the Grateful Dead?

972
01:07:54,120 --> 01:07:58,920
Speaker 2: I met the Grateful Dead by booking a show in

973
01:07:58,960 --> 01:08:02,800
Speaker 2: the early seventies. He's at this Triple A baseball park,

974
01:08:02,920 --> 01:08:08,640
Speaker 2: Roosevelt Stadium, and I booked it just from they had

975
01:08:08,640 --> 01:08:11,520
Speaker 2: an agent for one tour. Other than that, they never

976
01:08:11,560 --> 01:08:14,800
Speaker 2: had an agent. And a friend of mine named Ron

977
01:08:14,880 --> 01:08:18,479
Speaker 2: Rainey was the agent, and he sold me a show.

978
01:08:19,080 --> 01:08:21,000
Speaker 2: I don't remember what guarantee I played, but I knew

979
01:08:21,000 --> 01:08:25,320
Speaker 2: they were big enough to sell a lot of tickets,

980
01:08:25,880 --> 01:08:30,439
Speaker 2: and so I played that first show. I got along

981
01:08:30,479 --> 01:08:37,439
Speaker 2: with him. Well, it was a craft to be able

982
01:08:37,439 --> 01:08:39,559
Speaker 2: to get along with them, because of the zoo that

983
01:08:39,640 --> 01:08:44,640
Speaker 2: surrounded them roadies at all, all right. But you know,

984
01:08:45,200 --> 01:08:49,000
Speaker 2: I was a tough little kid, and you know I

985
01:08:49,000 --> 01:08:50,599
Speaker 2: took those ship and gave it back home.

986
01:08:51,880 --> 01:08:53,800
Speaker 1: So can you give me an example of taking their

987
01:08:53,800 --> 01:08:56,439
Speaker 1: ship and give a get back to him? Oh?

988
01:08:56,479 --> 01:09:02,920
Speaker 2: One time, one time when they're doing the sound check,

989
01:09:03,360 --> 01:09:07,040
Speaker 2: I'm on stage, I think it was up in Rochester

990
01:09:07,760 --> 01:09:13,000
Speaker 2: and Kid Candelario of one of their roadies. All right,

991
01:09:14,479 --> 01:09:17,160
Speaker 2: I'm standing on the side of the stage, and all

992
01:09:17,200 --> 01:09:19,599
Speaker 2: of a sudden, he throws a full can of soda

993
01:09:20,240 --> 01:09:24,320
Speaker 2: all right at me, whizzes by my head. It hit me.

994
01:09:24,360 --> 01:09:27,160
Speaker 2: It would have killed me probably or damaged me badly.

995
01:09:28,680 --> 01:09:32,240
Speaker 2: I didn't say a word. I turned around, I picked

996
01:09:32,240 --> 01:09:37,280
Speaker 2: it up and heaved it right back at it. They

997
01:09:37,320 --> 01:09:42,559
Speaker 2: respected me for that, you know. And the other thing is,

998
01:09:43,240 --> 01:09:46,240
Speaker 2: you know, they were very wary when I first met him. Now,

999
01:09:46,240 --> 01:09:48,880
Speaker 2: I wasn't around in the sixties, so all I know

1000
01:09:48,960 --> 01:09:52,040
Speaker 2: about the sixties, which is a very cold period for them,

1001
01:09:52,400 --> 01:09:55,360
Speaker 2: is what they told me. All right. But by the

1002
01:09:55,400 --> 01:09:59,680
Speaker 2: seventies they didn't trust agents, they didn't trust most promoters.

1003
01:10:01,840 --> 01:10:05,120
Speaker 2: And you know, I developed a nice relationship with you know,

1004
01:10:05,200 --> 01:10:10,840
Speaker 2: doing a few dates, and then one day, I think

1005
01:10:10,880 --> 01:10:17,920
Speaker 2: it was probably seventy four seventy five, I get a

1006
01:10:17,920 --> 01:10:22,799
Speaker 2: phone call like two o'clock in the morning, from Rock Scully,

1007
01:10:23,360 --> 01:10:27,639
Speaker 2: who was, you know, one of the characters in their

1008
01:10:27,680 --> 01:10:32,360
Speaker 2: lives and was their road manager at the time. And

1009
01:10:32,400 --> 01:10:35,400
Speaker 2: he called me and I woke me up at night.

1010
01:10:35,640 --> 01:10:39,960
Speaker 2: I said, you know what's up? He said, Garcia Hunter

1011
01:10:40,080 --> 01:10:45,160
Speaker 2: got busted. I said, okay, what do you want me

1012
01:10:45,200 --> 01:10:47,760
Speaker 2: to do about it? He said, they need to get

1013
01:10:47,760 --> 01:10:52,240
Speaker 2: bailed out. They're in I think was Mount Holly, New Jersey.

1014
01:10:53,400 --> 01:10:55,840
Speaker 2: I said, okay, how much is the baill I think

1015
01:10:55,880 --> 01:11:00,519
Speaker 2: they said two thousand or three thousand dollars. The capital

1016
01:11:00,520 --> 01:11:03,040
Speaker 2: in those days had a safe with a fair amount

1017
01:11:03,040 --> 01:11:06,439
Speaker 2: of cashing it always, so said, okay, give me the

1018
01:11:06,479 --> 01:11:09,120
Speaker 2: address where it is, and you know, I'll go to

1019
01:11:09,160 --> 01:11:11,639
Speaker 2: the capitol. I'll get the money, and I'll go bail

1020
01:11:11,680 --> 01:11:18,120
Speaker 2: them out. What he didn't realize was this town was

1021
01:11:18,160 --> 01:11:21,559
Speaker 2: about half an hour outside of Philadelphia, and I was

1022
01:11:21,600 --> 01:11:25,040
Speaker 2: way up in Northern Jersey, all right. He didn't bother

1023
01:11:25,120 --> 01:11:27,040
Speaker 2: to look at a map, because the coolie should have

1024
01:11:27,040 --> 01:11:31,000
Speaker 2: made with Larry Maggott, all right, but he didn't. So

1025
01:11:31,800 --> 01:11:33,760
Speaker 2: I jumped in my car, I had a friend with me,

1026
01:11:34,360 --> 01:11:38,280
Speaker 2: drove for two hours down there, bailed them out of jail,

1027
01:11:39,880 --> 01:11:45,840
Speaker 2: drove him back to New York and hung out with

1028
01:11:46,240 --> 01:11:55,200
Speaker 2: with Garcia Hunter till you know daylight, and uh, you know, Garcia,

1029
01:11:55,240 --> 01:11:57,960
Speaker 2: I can tell you it was one of the smartest

1030
01:11:57,960 --> 01:12:00,200
Speaker 2: people I ever met in my life. He's up there

1031
01:12:00,200 --> 01:12:02,559
Speaker 2: with three or four other people, none of whom were musicians.

1032
01:12:04,320 --> 01:12:07,640
Speaker 2: And we were friends, you know, I can say that,

1033
01:12:07,720 --> 01:12:12,599
Speaker 2: not the brag, but we were friends. See that picture

1034
01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:13,759
Speaker 2: right there that I'm portant.

1035
01:12:13,560 --> 01:12:17,200
Speaker 1: To, well, we're audio only.

1036
01:12:17,640 --> 01:12:20,519
Speaker 2: Oh okay, you show you cancer me. Okay. So he

1037
01:12:20,600 --> 01:12:23,120
Speaker 2: painted me a picture, all right, and it's sitting on

1038
01:12:23,160 --> 01:12:26,640
Speaker 2: my wall. Nobody in the Grateful Dead ever got a

1039
01:12:26,640 --> 01:12:30,760
Speaker 2: picture from him, all right. So I you know, I

1040
01:12:30,800 --> 01:12:38,400
Speaker 2: had a very quiet, very interesting relationship with him. And

1041
01:12:38,560 --> 01:12:42,000
Speaker 2: one day they toured and I played him at Rosloe

1042
01:12:42,040 --> 01:12:49,080
Speaker 2: Stadium again their Wall of Sound tour, and technically it

1043
01:12:49,120 --> 01:12:52,080
Speaker 2: was a complete disaster. Sold a lot of tickets, but

1044
01:12:52,520 --> 01:12:56,599
Speaker 2: complete disaster, and they decided to get off the road

1045
01:12:57,040 --> 01:12:59,200
Speaker 2: for a while, all right, try to figure out that

1046
01:12:59,439 --> 01:13:03,200
Speaker 2: the whole sound thing, et cetera, et cetera. So they

1047
01:13:03,280 --> 01:13:07,559
Speaker 2: filmed the last dates of those tours, which were at Winterland, right.

1048
01:13:09,560 --> 01:13:13,559
Speaker 2: So you know, I'm sort of staying in touch, you know,

1049
01:13:13,720 --> 01:13:15,479
Speaker 2: but they're not on the road, not much to do.

1050
01:13:16,200 --> 01:13:20,600
Speaker 2: Phone rings. One day it's Jerry, and you know, I

1051
01:13:20,640 --> 01:13:23,200
Speaker 2: basically said, what's up. He said, I want you to

1052
01:13:23,240 --> 01:13:26,639
Speaker 2: fly out to LA to meet me. I said, okay,

1053
01:13:27,320 --> 01:13:29,200
Speaker 2: you know what's it about. He said, you'll see when

1054
01:13:29,240 --> 01:13:32,640
Speaker 2: you get here. So you know you're not going to

1055
01:13:32,680 --> 01:13:36,080
Speaker 2: say no to Terry Garcia again. In uplone, I fly out.

1056
01:13:36,120 --> 01:13:40,759
Speaker 2: He picks me up at the airport and I always remember,

1057
01:13:40,840 --> 01:13:42,720
Speaker 2: this is the first one I ever saw, the two

1058
01:13:42,760 --> 01:13:46,880
Speaker 2: thousand and two BMW, which was like the starter BMW

1059
01:13:47,520 --> 01:13:54,439
Speaker 2: in those days. And we went to a studio where

1060
01:13:54,479 --> 01:13:57,360
Speaker 2: they were cutting the film and they had a rough

1061
01:13:57,360 --> 01:13:58,680
Speaker 2: cut of the film. He said, I want you to

1062
01:13:58,720 --> 01:14:01,640
Speaker 2: see the film. So I sat there for whatever it

1063
01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:04,559
Speaker 2: was close to two hours, I guess, and it was great.

1064
01:14:04,760 --> 01:14:06,479
Speaker 2: It's still great. It's still one of the great rock

1065
01:14:06,520 --> 01:14:10,880
Speaker 2: and roll movies of all time. And he said, you

1066
01:14:10,960 --> 01:14:13,479
Speaker 2: like it. I said, yeah, I think it's fabulous. He said, okay,

1067
01:14:13,560 --> 01:14:16,400
Speaker 2: let's go. We're gonna have dinner at hal Kant's house,

1068
01:14:16,439 --> 01:14:19,080
Speaker 2: which is their lawyer, the Dead's lawyer. He's passed away,

1069
01:14:19,120 --> 01:14:23,080
Speaker 2: but very interesting guy. He was the Dead's lawyer and

1070
01:14:23,080 --> 01:14:29,640
Speaker 2: he was also a world poker Champion champion, and so

1071
01:14:29,800 --> 01:14:34,240
Speaker 2: we had dinner, and at the end of dinner we

1072
01:14:34,280 --> 01:14:39,719
Speaker 2: went and sat down in the living room and he said.

1073
01:14:40,360 --> 01:14:43,800
Speaker 2: I said to him, Jerry, the movie was great. I

1074
01:14:43,840 --> 01:14:46,439
Speaker 2: really enjoyed it. Could you tell me why you wanted

1075
01:14:46,439 --> 01:14:50,200
Speaker 2: me to see it so badly? All right? He said, oh, yeah, sure,

1076
01:14:50,680 --> 01:14:55,120
Speaker 2: you're going to distribute it. I said, Jerry, the only

1077
01:14:55,160 --> 01:14:56,840
Speaker 2: thing I know about movies is that I go to

1078
01:14:56,880 --> 01:14:59,240
Speaker 2: them once in a while. I don't distribute a movie,

1079
01:14:59,640 --> 01:15:02,479
Speaker 2: all right. He said, that might be true, John, but

1080
01:15:02,600 --> 01:15:04,680
Speaker 2: you know more about how to promote Grateful Dead than

1081
01:15:04,720 --> 01:15:08,800
Speaker 2: anybody else alive. So the vote of confidence that you

1082
01:15:09,560 --> 01:15:15,960
Speaker 2: can't beat. So I learned, and my staff learned very

1083
01:15:16,080 --> 01:15:19,960
Speaker 2: quickly how to distribute a movie and it was unique.

1084
01:15:21,600 --> 01:15:26,000
Speaker 2: We forwalled the best sounding theaters, and I think we

1085
01:15:26,280 --> 01:15:31,080
Speaker 2: ended up playing thirty maybe forty cities one at a time,

1086
01:15:31,880 --> 01:15:34,040
Speaker 2: a week or two at a time, and brought in

1087
01:15:34,120 --> 01:15:38,040
Speaker 2: sound systems so that because in those days movie theaters

1088
01:15:38,040 --> 01:15:42,360
Speaker 2: the only sound was behind the screen one giant speaker.

1089
01:15:43,840 --> 01:15:50,240
Speaker 2: So we did that, and you know, it was successful.

1090
01:15:50,520 --> 01:15:52,040
Speaker 2: And then I helped him make a deal with a

1091
01:15:52,600 --> 01:15:57,519
Speaker 2: distributor to do all the secondary markets and stuff, and

1092
01:15:59,200 --> 01:16:01,719
Speaker 2: you know, I talked to him nearly every day, and

1093
01:16:02,160 --> 01:16:04,760
Speaker 2: he had actually, Jerry had a manager, guy named Richard

1094
01:16:04,800 --> 01:16:07,639
Speaker 2: Loran at the time, who's a very good guy, still

1095
01:16:07,680 --> 01:16:11,680
Speaker 2: a friend of mine, and he was very instrumental in

1096
01:16:11,720 --> 01:16:14,880
Speaker 2: all of that. So you know, that's happening. And then

1097
01:16:15,439 --> 01:16:18,280
Speaker 2: when that's over with, I don't know how long, but

1098
01:16:18,360 --> 01:16:23,080
Speaker 2: you know, not long after that, I get a call

1099
01:16:23,439 --> 01:16:27,160
Speaker 2: from both Jerry and another one from Whir and said,

1100
01:16:28,680 --> 01:16:31,120
Speaker 2: we're thinking of going back out of the road. I

1101
01:16:31,160 --> 01:16:34,000
Speaker 2: want you to come out and meet with us. So

1102
01:16:34,200 --> 01:16:35,400
Speaker 2: you know, sure, I jumped at it.

1103
01:16:35,520 --> 01:16:39,040
Speaker 1: Just before you meet, it's The Grateful Dead. Did you

1104
01:16:39,160 --> 01:16:40,880
Speaker 1: make or lose money on the movie?

1105
01:16:42,120 --> 01:16:44,920
Speaker 2: The movie made money. Didn't make a lot of money,

1106
01:16:44,920 --> 01:16:45,639
Speaker 2: but it made money.

1107
01:16:45,960 --> 01:16:49,880
Speaker 1: So your flo They say where, and Jerry say come out?

1108
01:16:50,400 --> 01:16:55,080
Speaker 2: Yep. So I come out and we go to Weir's house,

1109
01:16:55,120 --> 01:16:58,960
Speaker 2: which is the ultimate bachelo pad at the time, all

1110
01:16:59,040 --> 01:17:02,080
Speaker 2: right on top of one mountain, and Marin and yeah,

1111
01:17:03,800 --> 01:17:08,720
Speaker 2: and we sit around for a long time, you know,

1112
01:17:08,920 --> 01:17:14,400
Speaker 2: probably six seven hours, and basically what they all say

1113
01:17:15,080 --> 01:17:18,479
Speaker 2: is we want to go on the road. They haven't

1114
01:17:18,520 --> 01:17:21,599
Speaker 2: figured out how to really play arenas yet all right

1115
01:17:21,640 --> 01:17:24,439
Speaker 2: where it would sound good see to them. The reason

1116
01:17:24,479 --> 01:17:29,000
Speaker 2: I think that their career is second only to the Beatles,

1117
01:17:29,560 --> 01:17:33,920
Speaker 2: that they were the most significant sociological act of the

1118
01:17:34,040 --> 01:17:37,240
Speaker 2: rock era was because they really gave a shit about

1119
01:17:37,280 --> 01:17:40,639
Speaker 2: the fans right, and they didn't want up having failed

1120
01:17:40,680 --> 01:17:44,360
Speaker 2: with this wall of sound, they wanted to figure out

1121
01:17:44,360 --> 01:17:45,880
Speaker 2: a way to be able, and then they weren't going

1122
01:17:45,960 --> 01:17:52,280
Speaker 2: to go to bigger places, especially indoors, until they could

1123
01:17:52,320 --> 01:17:55,080
Speaker 2: get the sound right. So he said, we're not playing arenas,

1124
01:17:55,600 --> 01:18:00,400
Speaker 2: so you know, what do you think? John? So it

1125
01:18:00,560 --> 01:18:02,920
Speaker 2: sort of just sort of fell out of my mouth.

1126
01:18:02,920 --> 01:18:06,679
Speaker 2: It wasn't really any stroke of genius. I said, let's

1127
01:18:06,680 --> 01:18:10,479
Speaker 2: pick ten cities. Let's play three days in each city,

1128
01:18:10,520 --> 01:18:13,160
Speaker 2: and you know, the theaters that you would normally play

1129
01:18:13,200 --> 01:18:15,120
Speaker 2: because at that point they were only playing like single

1130
01:18:15,200 --> 01:18:21,160
Speaker 2: nights in places. I said, and and you know, let's

1131
01:18:21,400 --> 01:18:25,360
Speaker 2: you know, let's get get get the buzz back. Uh

1132
01:18:25,400 --> 01:18:30,599
Speaker 2: and uh they said, uh, okay, but you know, won't

1133
01:18:30,640 --> 01:18:32,559
Speaker 2: they were very self aware of how big they were.

1134
01:18:33,120 --> 01:18:35,680
Speaker 2: Uh they said, uh, how are we gonna how are

1135
01:18:35,720 --> 01:18:40,080
Speaker 2: we going to distribute the tickets? You know, because there'll

1136
01:18:40,080 --> 01:18:44,920
Speaker 2: be more people than tickets available, and they they didn't

1137
01:18:44,960 --> 01:18:46,360
Speaker 2: want to do it. I don't remember if there was

1138
01:18:46,400 --> 01:18:49,400
Speaker 2: Ticketmaster yet or there was ticket tron still, but they

1139
01:18:49,400 --> 01:18:52,519
Speaker 2: didn't want to do that. So I said to him,

1140
01:18:53,200 --> 01:18:56,800
Speaker 2: we'll do lottery. How do you what do you mean

1141
01:18:56,840 --> 01:19:01,680
Speaker 2: we'll do the lottery. I said, We'll put the word out,

1142
01:19:01,960 --> 01:19:05,599
Speaker 2: give them a post office box, let them, you know,

1143
01:19:06,560 --> 01:19:10,759
Speaker 2: write a ticket request with money order, and we'll film

1144
01:19:10,800 --> 01:19:14,439
Speaker 2: until we're sold out. And I like that idea. So

1145
01:19:14,479 --> 01:19:16,360
Speaker 2: they said, who's going to do that? I said, I'll

1146
01:19:16,400 --> 01:19:20,479
Speaker 2: do it all right. So I had a little office

1147
01:19:20,920 --> 01:19:25,679
Speaker 2: in Jersey that was the second floor of a building

1148
01:19:25,680 --> 01:19:29,519
Speaker 2: that was an insurance broker on the first floor. Anyway,

1149
01:19:30,160 --> 01:19:31,800
Speaker 2: So we put the word out and it was a

1150
01:19:31,840 --> 01:19:34,840
Speaker 2: dead head hotline, and two dead head hotlines, one in

1151
01:19:34,840 --> 01:19:39,160
Speaker 2: San Francisco, one in at the Capitol got the word

1152
01:19:39,200 --> 01:19:44,720
Speaker 2: out and it was an amazing response. We got hundreds

1153
01:19:44,720 --> 01:19:48,320
Speaker 2: of thousands of requests for tickets, you know, and the

1154
01:19:48,439 --> 01:19:51,080
Speaker 2: average seat was probably seventy five hundred and eight thousand

1155
01:19:51,080 --> 01:19:56,719
Speaker 2: tickets three days in the theater. And the first amazing

1156
01:19:56,760 --> 01:19:59,560
Speaker 2: thing is they started to come in is the envelopes

1157
01:19:59,600 --> 01:20:04,680
Speaker 2: almost all of them had really intricate artwork on them.

1158
01:20:04,800 --> 01:20:08,240
Speaker 2: So you immediately said, Okay, I know they're a great band,

1159
01:20:08,760 --> 01:20:11,720
Speaker 2: but this is something really special, you know, for the

1160
01:20:11,760 --> 01:20:17,000
Speaker 2: fans to you know, draw other stuff. So we did.

1161
01:20:17,040 --> 01:20:20,240
Speaker 2: We did the whole country, twenty four hours a day,

1162
01:20:21,040 --> 01:20:25,519
Speaker 2: three shifts of people. I lost my lease, I got

1163
01:20:25,520 --> 01:20:29,479
Speaker 2: thrown out of the office, but we pulled it off.

1164
01:20:29,520 --> 01:20:33,040
Speaker 2: It did well, had a good time. And over those

1165
01:20:33,200 --> 01:20:39,680
Speaker 2: few years, uh, they you know, the sound companies were

1166
01:20:39,720 --> 01:20:44,000
Speaker 2: getting more and more sophisticated. Uh, and you know they're

1167
01:20:44,200 --> 01:20:47,800
Speaker 2: there sound people always were, you know, really on top

1168
01:20:47,840 --> 01:20:53,200
Speaker 2: of things. So first I introduced them to Claire Brothers

1169
01:20:53,800 --> 01:20:55,960
Speaker 2: one or two tours. They were the real state of

1170
01:20:56,000 --> 01:20:59,479
Speaker 2: the art at the time. And then slowly but surely

1171
01:20:59,760 --> 01:21:02,960
Speaker 2: they're techies took over it and built their own system

1172
01:21:03,360 --> 01:21:09,320
Speaker 2: all right. So we started to play arenas, and they

1173
01:21:09,360 --> 01:21:13,240
Speaker 2: put speakers not only on the stage, but they put

1174
01:21:13,320 --> 01:21:18,679
Speaker 2: sound like speakers in the back of the arenas all right.

1175
01:21:19,240 --> 01:21:23,200
Speaker 2: And they put small clusters of speakers in the hallways

1176
01:21:23,400 --> 01:21:26,760
Speaker 2: all right. So wherever you were, if you were, if

1177
01:21:26,760 --> 01:21:29,040
Speaker 2: you were a dancer, you were out in the hallways

1178
01:21:29,080 --> 01:21:32,360
Speaker 2: spinning away, all right. And the music was right there

1179
01:21:32,400 --> 01:21:35,759
Speaker 2: for so, like I said, they cared about their fans

1180
01:21:35,760 --> 01:21:39,920
Speaker 2: more than any act I've ever even imagined. All right,

1181
01:21:40,400 --> 01:21:44,920
Speaker 2: So you know at that point they said to me,

1182
01:21:47,080 --> 01:21:50,280
Speaker 2: you know, you booked the tour, and I said, uh,

1183
01:21:51,160 --> 01:21:53,680
Speaker 2: I can introduce you to some pretty good agents. No,

1184
01:21:54,040 --> 01:21:57,880
Speaker 2: we don't want an agent. You booked a tour. So

1185
01:21:58,280 --> 01:22:01,479
Speaker 2: we made a deal. How can't attorney was was involved,

1186
01:22:01,479 --> 01:22:06,960
Speaker 2: and sort of standard deals in those days were guarantees

1187
01:22:06,960 --> 01:22:11,000
Speaker 2: in eighty five fifteens, all right, So we made a

1188
01:22:11,040 --> 01:22:17,360
Speaker 2: deal that i'd co promote with local promoters because I

1189
01:22:17,360 --> 01:22:20,080
Speaker 2: always believe that was best for them, and I always

1190
01:22:20,080 --> 01:22:22,240
Speaker 2: did that with all my management acts. All right, you

1191
01:22:22,280 --> 01:22:24,720
Speaker 2: know you don't want you know, you want somebody on

1192
01:22:24,760 --> 01:22:30,000
Speaker 2: the ground, you know. And so they made those dates

1193
01:22:30,160 --> 01:22:33,280
Speaker 2: eighty twenties, and I split them with the local promoters

1194
01:22:33,600 --> 01:22:35,679
Speaker 2: except for the dates in the northeast that I would

1195
01:22:35,760 --> 01:22:40,360
Speaker 2: normally have promoted anyway. And they became eighty five to fifteen.

1196
01:22:41,479 --> 01:22:44,320
Speaker 2: And the only thing they didn't want me involved in

1197
01:22:45,360 --> 01:22:48,960
Speaker 2: was the West coast. They still wanted Graham to do it.

1198
01:22:49,720 --> 01:22:59,760
Speaker 4: They loved Graham, but they didn't trust Graham. Why did

1199
01:22:59,800 --> 01:23:07,160
Speaker 4: they trust Well, I think they suspected that he wasn't

1200
01:23:07,200 --> 01:23:11,200
Speaker 4: giving them suspected that he wasn't giving him a fair count.

1201
01:23:12,800 --> 01:23:15,640
Speaker 4: And then I found out more this. This went on

1202
01:23:15,760 --> 01:23:18,800
Speaker 4: for a number of years, and you know, once I

1203
01:23:18,880 --> 01:23:23,080
Speaker 4: was really established as their guy, Graham got angrier and

1204
01:23:23,160 --> 01:23:29,000
Speaker 4: angrier with me, all right, till finally one day they

1205
01:23:29,080 --> 01:23:33,519
Speaker 4: called and they said, we're playing Spartan Stadium.

1206
01:23:33,520 --> 01:23:38,840
Speaker 2: I think it was San Jose all right for Graham. Well,

1207
01:23:38,880 --> 01:23:42,400
Speaker 2: we want you to negotiate the deal. I said, are

1208
01:23:42,439 --> 01:23:47,840
Speaker 2: you fucking mind all of you guys? I said, this

1209
01:23:47,880 --> 01:23:50,679
Speaker 2: guy will put a hit out on me. They said, no, no,

1210
01:23:50,720 --> 01:23:52,120
Speaker 2: we're going to talk to him about it. He's going

1211
01:23:52,160 --> 01:23:54,840
Speaker 2: to be okay with it, all right. Said you know

1212
01:23:55,280 --> 01:23:57,000
Speaker 2: you're not. You're not getting any piece of it. You're

1213
01:23:57,040 --> 01:23:59,400
Speaker 2: not promoting it. You just you you cut the deal

1214
01:24:00,000 --> 01:24:02,599
Speaker 2: because you know we've exammed over the years, we've examined

1215
01:24:02,600 --> 01:24:06,160
Speaker 2: your deals. They're right, very righteous deals, et cetera, et cetera.

1216
01:24:07,560 --> 01:24:11,840
Speaker 2: So a day or two goes by and trying to

1217
01:24:11,880 --> 01:24:17,559
Speaker 2: remember who called me, it's either Bobby or Mickey called

1218
01:24:17,600 --> 01:24:19,840
Speaker 2: me and said, okay, the deed's done. We've told Graham

1219
01:24:20,240 --> 01:24:26,040
Speaker 2: he's accepted it. I said, you sure, said yep. Absolutely.

1220
01:24:27,520 --> 01:24:34,360
Speaker 2: So I called Graham and I said, Bill, you know,

1221
01:24:35,120 --> 01:24:37,280
Speaker 2: the dead telled me that that you're fine with me

1222
01:24:38,640 --> 01:24:43,240
Speaker 2: doing the deal with you. He said that's right. I said, okay, great,

1223
01:24:44,840 --> 01:24:47,920
Speaker 2: So I said, do me a favorite, you know, send

1224
01:24:47,960 --> 01:24:52,120
Speaker 2: me your proposed deal, the you know, the expenses, et cetera,

1225
01:24:52,160 --> 01:24:55,280
Speaker 2: et cetera. Let me look at him eighty five fifteen.

1226
01:24:55,439 --> 01:24:59,440
Speaker 2: No problem, you know, I'm not I'm not involved financially.

1227
01:25:00,479 --> 01:25:06,639
Speaker 2: So he says, uh, okay. A week goes by, Two

1228
01:25:06,680 --> 01:25:14,120
Speaker 2: weeks go by, no paperwork from Graham. Another week goes by.

1229
01:25:15,840 --> 01:25:18,439
Speaker 2: I called Greg Perloff, who I was friends with and

1230
01:25:18,520 --> 01:25:22,120
Speaker 2: still in transfer. All right, I said, Greg, do you

1231
01:25:22,160 --> 01:25:25,280
Speaker 2: have any idea what the fuck's going on? He said,

1232
01:25:25,840 --> 01:25:28,080
Speaker 2: Bill is not happy that he's having to deal with you.

1233
01:25:29,040 --> 01:25:30,800
Speaker 2: I said, then, why the fuck did he tell Did

1234
01:25:30,800 --> 01:25:33,519
Speaker 2: he tell the dead that he would? He said, I

1235
01:25:33,560 --> 01:25:37,640
Speaker 2: don't know, but he's not happy. I said, Greg, so

1236
01:25:37,760 --> 01:25:41,320
Speaker 2: I don't wrap him out to the vand get the

1237
01:25:41,400 --> 01:25:45,360
Speaker 2: fucking expenses and send them to me. Said okay, let

1238
01:25:45,360 --> 01:25:49,639
Speaker 2: me see what I can do. A couple of hours later,

1239
01:25:49,680 --> 01:25:55,200
Speaker 2: the phone rings and it's Graham and he is fucking berserk.

1240
01:25:56,000 --> 01:25:58,720
Speaker 2: The only way I can describe it is he was

1241
01:25:58,840 --> 01:26:03,280
Speaker 2: like a beached where just screaming at the top of

1242
01:26:03,320 --> 01:26:05,479
Speaker 2: his lungs, just doing anything to get back in the water,

1243
01:26:06,200 --> 01:26:13,400
Speaker 2: all right. And this tirade went on for half an hour.

1244
01:26:13,920 --> 01:26:17,160
Speaker 2: I couldn't get two words, and he's screaming at me.

1245
01:26:18,760 --> 01:26:24,719
Speaker 2: I've got to deal with Jersey for my band. So

1246
01:26:24,760 --> 01:26:26,960
Speaker 2: eventually the coal ended. I don't know if you hung

1247
01:26:27,040 --> 01:26:32,280
Speaker 2: up or just whatever. I picked up the phone. I

1248
01:26:32,280 --> 01:26:36,920
Speaker 2: think I spoke the Lash and Jerry and I said

1249
01:26:37,320 --> 01:26:41,360
Speaker 2: I'm fucking out, all right, I'm you know, I'm out.

1250
01:26:41,640 --> 01:26:43,439
Speaker 2: I said, you know, this guy will put a fucking

1251
01:26:43,479 --> 01:26:48,360
Speaker 2: hit out on me, you know. And and so they said, okay,

1252
01:26:48,360 --> 01:26:50,280
Speaker 2: we'll get the expenses. We just want you to look

1253
01:26:50,280 --> 01:26:53,400
Speaker 2: at them, all right, you know, and bless the expenses.

1254
01:26:54,479 --> 01:26:58,000
Speaker 2: So I said, okay. So they got the expenses, they

1255
01:26:58,000 --> 01:27:00,639
Speaker 2: sent them to me, all right. I look that. Everything

1256
01:27:00,640 --> 01:27:03,760
Speaker 2: looked pretty much in order, all right, except for one

1257
01:27:03,800 --> 01:27:07,479
Speaker 2: thing that I didn't understand. There was a fee I

1258
01:27:07,520 --> 01:27:10,759
Speaker 2: want to call ten thousand dollars, but I don't remember

1259
01:27:10,800 --> 01:27:15,360
Speaker 2: exactly how much was for the set that he built.

1260
01:27:15,479 --> 01:27:19,440
Speaker 2: Because outdoor shows he always built, you know, pretty elaborate

1261
01:27:19,479 --> 01:27:23,760
Speaker 2: scenery sets right, and he wrote it off. You know

1262
01:27:23,800 --> 01:27:26,960
Speaker 2: that they cost ten thousand dollars. Nobody ever questioned them.

1263
01:27:27,160 --> 01:27:31,840
Speaker 2: So when I asked the guys in the band, you know,

1264
01:27:32,000 --> 01:27:36,160
Speaker 2: was this kosher? They said, We've paid for this set

1265
01:27:36,240 --> 01:27:41,280
Speaker 2: three times already. He's got he's got a few of them.

1266
01:27:41,680 --> 01:27:43,759
Speaker 2: He rotates them around because he does it for everyone,

1267
01:27:43,840 --> 01:27:46,479
Speaker 2: not just a grateful day, all right. He paints him,

1268
01:27:46,760 --> 01:27:49,439
Speaker 2: he does a little little different color here or there,

1269
01:27:49,680 --> 01:27:53,840
Speaker 2: and then cycles him back around. We ain't paying for it, right,

1270
01:27:54,320 --> 01:27:58,719
Speaker 2: So I said, okay, who's going to tell him? I said,

1271
01:27:58,800 --> 01:28:01,439
Speaker 2: he won't take my call. Trust me, he will not

1272
01:28:02,200 --> 01:28:07,639
Speaker 2: answer my phone call. So they said, okay, why don't

1273
01:28:07,640 --> 01:28:09,560
Speaker 2: you call your friends? Would pearl off? Why don't you

1274
01:28:09,600 --> 01:28:12,880
Speaker 2: pull him and tell him? So I did to this day.

1275
01:28:13,400 --> 01:28:15,600
Speaker 2: I don't know whether they paid for it or I

1276
01:28:15,640 --> 01:28:19,280
Speaker 2: didn't do the settlement. I didn't know. But this made

1277
01:28:19,960 --> 01:28:24,280
Speaker 2: Bill fucking crazy, and I understand why it made him crazy,

1278
01:28:24,320 --> 01:28:26,840
Speaker 2: which I said to him at first, you're nuts. You know,

1279
01:28:27,200 --> 01:28:31,680
Speaker 2: the guy doesn't like me to start with. And the

1280
01:28:31,760 --> 01:28:36,960
Speaker 2: relationship continued till the day Jerry died. I made the

1281
01:28:37,080 --> 01:28:42,400
Speaker 2: arrest record deal for him, together with Hal can't their attorney.

1282
01:28:44,400 --> 01:28:47,400
Speaker 2: At the very end of my relationship with him, with

1283
01:28:47,520 --> 01:28:51,200
Speaker 2: Cameron Sears, who became their their tour manager, good friend

1284
01:28:51,200 --> 01:28:56,240
Speaker 2: of mine still and John Frankenheimer, the attorney, we made

1285
01:28:56,280 --> 01:29:01,040
Speaker 2: the deal at Warner Brothers, which brought the two catalogs together.

1286
01:29:01,400 --> 01:29:05,600
Speaker 2: It's a monumental deal. And that was the last thing

1287
01:29:05,640 --> 01:29:13,559
Speaker 2: I did for them and Jerry passed away. And the

1288
01:29:13,560 --> 01:29:16,080
Speaker 2: only way I can describe it, I don't really I

1289
01:29:16,200 --> 01:29:19,920
Speaker 2: managed Weir Cameron and I managed Weir for about ten

1290
01:29:20,040 --> 01:29:25,200
Speaker 2: years after that, no longer. And the only way I

1291
01:29:25,240 --> 01:29:31,040
Speaker 2: can describe it is that, you know, they weren't difficult.

1292
01:29:32,520 --> 01:29:34,360
Speaker 2: I didn't manage them. Lots of people want to say,

1293
01:29:34,360 --> 01:29:37,439
Speaker 2: I man, I didn't manage them, but I represented them,

1294
01:29:37,800 --> 01:29:43,839
Speaker 2: you know, in a number of ways. And it's very interesting.

1295
01:29:43,880 --> 01:29:48,400
Speaker 2: You'd go to board meetings and I didn't have a vote,

1296
01:29:48,560 --> 01:29:51,720
Speaker 2: but I sat in on them, and they'd bring up

1297
01:29:51,920 --> 01:29:57,160
Speaker 2: various different things, both unimportant and important. And I saw

1298
01:29:57,240 --> 01:30:01,559
Speaker 2: the pattern when you Gerry was okay with whatever was

1299
01:30:01,560 --> 01:30:07,040
Speaker 2: being proposed. He just sort of sat back and voted

1300
01:30:07,120 --> 01:30:10,519
Speaker 2: last year next to last when it was something that

1301
01:30:10,600 --> 01:30:13,519
Speaker 2: Jerry really wanted to do or really didn't want to do.

1302
01:30:14,040 --> 01:30:20,800
Speaker 2: He voted first, so there was never an argument that

1303
01:30:20,960 --> 01:30:27,400
Speaker 2: I saw until at one point Phil lesh we had

1304
01:30:27,400 --> 01:30:29,799
Speaker 2: formed the REX. I was a founding member of REX,

1305
01:30:31,400 --> 01:30:33,360
Speaker 2: and we formed REX and it was great and to

1306
01:30:33,400 --> 01:30:38,839
Speaker 2: this day it's still a great charity. And Danny Griffkin,

1307
01:30:39,560 --> 01:30:42,559
Speaker 2: who was, you know, one of the half a dozen

1308
01:30:42,600 --> 01:30:47,760
Speaker 2: of management kind of people from earlier days, was made

1309
01:30:47,760 --> 01:30:50,280
Speaker 2: the head of REX. And I had my problems with

1310
01:30:50,360 --> 01:30:53,200
Speaker 2: Danny early on, but we were fine. We were great friends.

1311
01:30:53,200 --> 01:30:56,840
Speaker 2: We still are. Phil marches into a board meeting with

1312
01:30:56,880 --> 01:30:59,960
Speaker 2: his wife Jill and says, right in front of them,

1313
01:31:00,360 --> 01:31:03,280
Speaker 2: in the whole band, I want to fire Danny from REX,

1314
01:31:04,400 --> 01:31:08,599
Speaker 2: and I want to put Jill in charge. Now, Danny

1315
01:31:09,439 --> 01:31:12,479
Speaker 2: did a great job, was as mellow as could be,

1316
01:31:13,760 --> 01:31:18,200
Speaker 2: and they all looked to Phil like he was joking,

1317
01:31:19,520 --> 01:31:23,559
Speaker 2: you know, and finally he said no, he was dead serious.

1318
01:31:24,680 --> 01:31:26,960
Speaker 2: And I can't remember, but more than one of the

1319
01:31:27,000 --> 01:31:32,400
Speaker 2: members said, we're not firing Danny. So that was the

1320
01:31:32,479 --> 01:31:40,639
Speaker 2: beginning of the real hard feelings would Phil. He founded

1321
01:31:40,680 --> 01:31:48,600
Speaker 2: his own charitable organization, his wife managed him, and it

1322
01:31:48,840 --> 01:31:51,719
Speaker 2: just it got and to this day is still really ugly.

1323
01:31:52,360 --> 01:31:57,760
Speaker 2: Phil in my view, decided with Jerry Kahn. He was

1324
01:31:57,800 --> 01:32:01,439
Speaker 2: the leader of the band. Jerry never even acknowledged he

1325
01:32:01,520 --> 01:32:04,320
Speaker 2: was the leader of the band. Just by osmosis, he

1326
01:32:04,400 --> 01:32:09,599
Speaker 2: was the leader of the band. And so, you know,

1327
01:32:09,760 --> 01:32:14,559
Speaker 2: it deteriorated. And then Jerry died and I met with

1328
01:32:14,600 --> 01:32:18,280
Speaker 2: the band the day after the funeral. There's a funny

1329
01:32:18,280 --> 01:32:21,959
Speaker 2: thing on at the funeral. I go to the funeral,

1330
01:32:22,000 --> 01:32:25,400
Speaker 2: I speak at the funeral, and when we're walking out

1331
01:32:25,400 --> 01:32:28,559
Speaker 2: of the funeral, I walk I'm walking out with Dylan,

1332
01:32:29,240 --> 01:32:33,920
Speaker 2: and a San Francisco Chronicle photographer took a picture of

1333
01:32:33,960 --> 01:32:36,360
Speaker 2: the two of us walking out. Next day. On the

1334
01:32:36,360 --> 01:32:39,920
Speaker 2: front page of the San francis are Chronicle is Bob

1335
01:32:40,040 --> 01:32:48,479
Speaker 2: Dylan with an unknown person leaving Jerry Garcia is perfect,

1336
01:32:48,560 --> 01:32:52,479
Speaker 2: right right. And what I really remember about it is

1337
01:32:52,520 --> 01:32:55,960
Speaker 2: while we were walking out, Dylan leaned over to me

1338
01:32:56,000 --> 01:32:58,559
Speaker 2: and said, you know what, John, I said, what Bobby

1339
01:32:58,600 --> 01:33:01,680
Speaker 2: said the guyline there, He's the only one in the

1340
01:33:01,760 --> 01:33:05,320
Speaker 2: world and knows what it's like to be me, which

1341
01:33:05,360 --> 01:33:06,240
Speaker 2: was pretty profound.

1342
01:33:06,720 --> 01:33:07,400
Speaker 1: Absolutely.

1343
01:33:07,920 --> 01:33:15,519
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I met with the band the next day

1344
01:33:15,600 --> 01:33:19,280
Speaker 2: or maybe two days later, and and uh, you know,

1345
01:33:19,560 --> 01:33:23,799
Speaker 2: I I you know, I said to him, guys, Jerry

1346
01:33:23,920 --> 01:33:27,720
Speaker 2: would not want you to break up, you know, you

1347
01:33:27,760 --> 01:33:31,080
Speaker 2: know you guys, are you an extraordinary group? Sure you

1348
01:33:31,080 --> 01:33:39,000
Speaker 2: won't be the same. But so Phil announces absolutely not,

1349
01:33:39,680 --> 01:33:42,439
Speaker 2: and they vote to never call themselves the Grateful Dead again.

1350
01:33:43,479 --> 01:33:48,400
Speaker 2: And Phil says, I don't want to tour anymore. I'm

1351
01:33:48,400 --> 01:33:53,000
Speaker 2: going to write the Great American Symphony. And I think

1352
01:33:53,040 --> 01:33:56,280
Speaker 2: for two years he probably tried to do that, all right,

1353
01:33:56,920 --> 01:34:01,320
Speaker 2: But in the meantime we put together the Further Festival, right,

1354
01:34:01,800 --> 01:34:05,400
Speaker 2: and the Further Festival was just sort of traveling festival

1355
01:34:05,880 --> 01:34:09,960
Speaker 2: that was anchored by by Bob Weir and Mickey Hart

1356
01:34:10,160 --> 01:34:14,160
Speaker 2: and Bruce Hornsby and a rotating set of other people,

1357
01:34:14,200 --> 01:34:18,120
Speaker 2: sometimes Hart Tuna, sometimes Los Lobos, et cetera, et cetera.

1358
01:34:18,840 --> 01:34:22,439
Speaker 2: Everybody did their own set, and at the end of

1359
01:34:22,479 --> 01:34:30,200
Speaker 2: the show, everybody on stage jam. Phil decided in the

1360
01:34:30,280 --> 01:34:38,840
Speaker 2: third year that he would go out with it, but

1361
01:34:39,000 --> 01:34:45,080
Speaker 2: his conditions were, I only want one opening act, all right,

1362
01:34:45,760 --> 01:34:48,759
Speaker 2: and you know, I only want to play X amount

1363
01:34:48,760 --> 01:34:55,479
Speaker 2: of dates. So I booked the tour with Phil as

1364
01:34:55,479 --> 01:35:00,680
Speaker 2: part of it blows up, you know, enormously. We do

1365
01:35:00,800 --> 01:35:05,240
Speaker 2: the whole tour. The last two days are at Shoreline,

1366
01:35:05,800 --> 01:35:10,639
Speaker 2: uh in San Francisco. So, uh, you know, I'm out

1367
01:35:10,680 --> 01:35:14,880
Speaker 2: there early with the band for soundcheck, and uh, we're

1368
01:35:14,880 --> 01:35:21,080
Speaker 2: hanging out backstage and one of the runners comes over

1369
01:35:21,120 --> 01:35:23,439
Speaker 2: and says, uh, Phil and Jill want to see you.

1370
01:35:24,800 --> 01:35:26,840
Speaker 2: So we were all the rest of us were all

1371
01:35:27,160 --> 01:35:31,960
Speaker 2: in one trailer. They had their own trailer, and uh,

1372
01:35:32,240 --> 01:35:36,800
Speaker 2: so you know I had I had very little relationship

1373
01:35:36,840 --> 01:35:39,519
Speaker 2: with Phil, but I didn't have a bad relationship Phil,

1374
01:35:40,040 --> 01:35:43,360
Speaker 2: or did I think I did? All right? You know,

1375
01:35:43,520 --> 01:35:47,080
Speaker 2: most of my tenure with the Dead Phil was drunk,

1376
01:35:48,000 --> 01:35:50,640
Speaker 2: all right. He was a loner and and and and

1377
01:35:50,680 --> 01:35:53,400
Speaker 2: he was drunk. The one and only nice thing I

1378
01:35:53,400 --> 01:35:56,280
Speaker 2: can say about Jill is she sobered him up and

1379
01:35:56,280 --> 01:36:00,559
Speaker 2: and and saved his life. All right. So I go

1380
01:36:00,640 --> 01:36:04,920
Speaker 2: into this trailer and I say, what's up, guys? And

1381
01:36:04,960 --> 01:36:09,680
Speaker 2: they said, now now that the financials were all the

1382
01:36:09,760 --> 01:36:13,080
Speaker 2: members had an equal share, and I had a share,

1383
01:36:13,680 --> 01:36:16,080
Speaker 2: all right, and Cameron had like a half a share

1384
01:36:16,680 --> 01:36:18,679
Speaker 2: something like that because he was still on the payroll

1385
01:36:18,680 --> 01:36:24,000
Speaker 2: of the Great Gravel Dead productions. So I said, what's up?

1386
01:36:24,080 --> 01:36:33,400
Speaker 2: They said, we we we see no reason why anybody

1387
01:36:33,439 --> 01:36:38,000
Speaker 2: but Weird Heart and me should get you know, a share.

1388
01:36:38,640 --> 01:36:40,760
Speaker 2: Everybody else should be, you know, on salary, I said,

1389
01:36:41,000 --> 01:36:43,800
Speaker 2: this is the last two dates of the tour, all right,

1390
01:36:44,160 --> 01:36:47,240
Speaker 2: you knew what the deal was going in. I'm not

1391
01:36:47,280 --> 01:36:48,800
Speaker 2: going to these guys and tell them they're not going

1392
01:36:48,800 --> 01:36:51,840
Speaker 2: to get their money now. Thankfully at the time, I

1393
01:36:51,880 --> 01:36:57,720
Speaker 2: control the money. So they said, well, if they don't

1394
01:36:57,760 --> 01:37:00,759
Speaker 2: agree to this, we'll never play with them ever again.

1395
01:37:03,000 --> 01:37:07,560
Speaker 2: So you know, I tried my best to talk them

1396
01:37:07,600 --> 01:37:11,680
Speaker 2: out of that with good reason. Hornsby had been a

1397
01:37:11,720 --> 01:37:14,479
Speaker 2: member of the Dead all right, and added a lot

1398
01:37:14,720 --> 01:37:22,000
Speaker 2: to it. Cameron, you know, was my partner really and

1399
01:37:22,080 --> 01:37:24,040
Speaker 2: I put up all the money. I put up all

1400
01:37:24,080 --> 01:37:26,040
Speaker 2: the money, and did all the booking work all right

1401
01:37:26,120 --> 01:37:30,760
Speaker 2: in advance and all of that. So they said, well,

1402
01:37:30,760 --> 01:37:32,800
Speaker 2: that's not acceptable to us, and go tell them that

1403
01:37:32,840 --> 01:37:34,760
Speaker 2: if they don't do it the way we want it,

1404
01:37:34,800 --> 01:37:39,320
Speaker 2: we'll never play with them again. So I can I remember,

1405
01:37:39,360 --> 01:37:40,800
Speaker 2: just like I can see it right in front of me.

1406
01:37:41,439 --> 01:37:44,759
Speaker 2: I went into the trailer where everybody else was was sitting,

1407
01:37:46,200 --> 01:37:50,960
Speaker 2: told him what fit what Phil said. Mickey went fucking nuts,

1408
01:37:51,000 --> 01:37:58,360
Speaker 2: absolutely nuts. Hornsby just looked and said, not fair. That's

1409
01:37:58,400 --> 01:38:01,400
Speaker 2: not the deal I made, you know. And oh and

1410
01:38:01,400 --> 01:38:05,559
Speaker 2: then Mickey said, Cameron's house. There was a terrible storm,

1411
01:38:06,000 --> 01:38:08,679
Speaker 2: like a couple of weeks before the tour, and a big, huge,

1412
01:38:08,680 --> 01:38:11,800
Speaker 2: old tree fell down on Cameron's house, broke through the roof.

1413
01:38:12,640 --> 01:38:15,840
Speaker 2: So Mickey screaming, who the fuck did they think they are?

1414
01:38:16,240 --> 01:38:19,280
Speaker 2: Cameron's house just burnt down. His house didn't burn down.

1415
01:38:19,320 --> 01:38:22,240
Speaker 2: But that was the sentiment, and the sentiment was all

1416
01:38:22,320 --> 01:38:26,880
Speaker 2: of them except for Phil, really felt like they were

1417
01:38:26,880 --> 01:38:31,120
Speaker 2: a family. Right. I always describe it as Peter Pan

1418
01:38:31,200 --> 01:38:35,280
Speaker 2: and lost boys. Right, Peter Pan died, the Lost Boys

1419
01:38:35,280 --> 01:38:40,479
Speaker 2: were lost, you know, and by putting together further, it

1420
01:38:40,560 --> 01:38:44,280
Speaker 2: gave him an opportunity, you know, to be together and

1421
01:38:44,320 --> 01:38:50,040
Speaker 2: to work, you know, worked together. So at that point, Phil,

1422
01:38:50,280 --> 01:38:52,120
Speaker 2: that's when Phil started to go out on his own,

1423
01:38:53,160 --> 01:38:55,559
Speaker 2: despite the fact that he never wrote the Great American Symphony,

1424
01:38:55,920 --> 01:39:01,880
Speaker 2: and there were years and years of terrorable animosity, all right,

1425
01:39:02,360 --> 01:39:07,400
Speaker 2: and you know, he he he hired an agent, a

1426
01:39:07,439 --> 01:39:11,640
Speaker 2: guy named Jonathan Levine, who you know, did really sneaky

1427
01:39:11,720 --> 01:39:16,840
Speaker 2: things about, you know, around the further touring and and Bob,

1428
01:39:16,880 --> 01:39:21,120
Speaker 2: we're touring and uh, you know it was ugly. It

1429
01:39:21,160 --> 01:39:24,280
Speaker 2: was it was ugly and and and uh, I mean

1430
01:39:24,760 --> 01:39:28,880
Speaker 2: Phil empowered Jill. First time I've ever said this out loud.

1431
01:39:29,280 --> 01:39:35,800
Speaker 2: And Jill was nice enough. She wasn't, but it's just

1432
01:39:36,040 --> 01:39:40,720
Speaker 2: she wasn't an expert in the music business. And she

1433
01:39:40,840 --> 01:39:44,040
Speaker 2: got very vicious. They both got very vicious towards we

1434
01:39:44,160 --> 01:39:49,639
Speaker 2: Air and towards me. And I remember distinctly telling Bob

1435
01:39:49,720 --> 01:39:52,120
Speaker 2: what was going on, because Cameron and I were managing

1436
01:39:52,120 --> 01:39:55,840
Speaker 2: Bob at the time, and Bob, Bob looked at me

1437
01:39:55,920 --> 01:40:00,200
Speaker 2: one day and he said, she must be a to

1438
01:40:00,280 --> 01:40:02,799
Speaker 2: suck the paint off of a battleship that he's listening

1439
01:40:02,840 --> 01:40:12,000
Speaker 2: there that way. It's funny I've ever said that out loud.

1440
01:40:15,120 --> 01:40:18,360
Speaker 2: And it got uglier and uglier. There were a couple

1441
01:40:18,400 --> 01:40:23,160
Speaker 2: of moments that I met with them and and they

1442
01:40:23,320 --> 01:40:27,639
Speaker 2: sort of begrudgingly acknowledged that I was an important part

1443
01:40:27,720 --> 01:40:32,519
Speaker 2: of the history, but that never lasted more than a

1444
01:40:32,560 --> 01:40:38,200
Speaker 2: week or two, all right. And then Bobby, who has

1445
01:40:39,280 --> 01:40:42,040
Speaker 2: always had a bit of an addiction problem, all right,

1446
01:40:42,880 --> 01:40:46,599
Speaker 2: was straight. He was doing great, and he was playing great,

1447
01:40:46,640 --> 01:40:50,519
Speaker 2: and rat the band were playing great. And he calls

1448
01:40:50,560 --> 01:40:54,320
Speaker 2: me one day and he says, John, I got to

1449
01:40:54,320 --> 01:40:55,800
Speaker 2: tell you something that you're not gonna want to hear.

1450
01:40:56,800 --> 01:41:01,479
Speaker 2: I said, uh, what's that? And he said Phil called

1451
01:41:01,520 --> 01:41:05,120
Speaker 2: me and he asked me and my wife had to dinner.

1452
01:41:06,800 --> 01:41:11,679
Speaker 2: I said, okay, what did you say? And I said, uh,

1453
01:41:11,760 --> 01:41:15,439
Speaker 2: he said, well, yeah, we've got unfinished business together. I'm

1454
01:41:15,439 --> 01:41:23,720
Speaker 2: gonna go. And I said, Bobby. Now, for most of

1455
01:41:23,760 --> 01:41:30,639
Speaker 2: the post Jerry time, Bobby, when he had to play

1456
01:41:30,640 --> 01:41:37,479
Speaker 2: with Phil, got physically ill and got drunk all right,

1457
01:41:38,880 --> 01:41:42,559
Speaker 2: and you know, we sent him to rehab a couple

1458
01:41:42,600 --> 01:41:48,640
Speaker 2: of times. He always recovered. He also every year for

1459
01:41:48,720 --> 01:41:54,240
Speaker 2: the month of February he got completely sober. Why the

1460
01:41:54,280 --> 01:42:00,519
Speaker 2: month of February shortest month of the year. He admitted

1461
01:42:00,520 --> 01:42:04,560
Speaker 2: it all right. And when Bobby was just a casual

1462
01:42:05,439 --> 01:42:10,040
Speaker 2: drinker or plot or whatever, he was fine, you know,

1463
01:42:10,160 --> 01:42:16,000
Speaker 2: he was fine, but he spun out a couple of times.

1464
01:42:16,479 --> 01:42:20,080
Speaker 2: So I said, okay, go to philp just you know,

1465
01:42:20,200 --> 01:42:25,120
Speaker 2: be careful. So they go to dinner with their wives.

1466
01:42:25,960 --> 01:42:32,120
Speaker 2: And the next day Bobby calls me and says, John,

1467
01:42:32,640 --> 01:42:34,200
Speaker 2: I did something that you're going to be mad at me.

1468
01:42:36,040 --> 01:42:41,800
Speaker 2: I said, what's that, Bob? He said, I agreed to

1469
01:42:41,840 --> 01:42:49,479
Speaker 2: go out with Phil. And I said, Bobby, every time

1470
01:42:49,520 --> 01:42:52,200
Speaker 2: you've done that, we've had to send you to rehab,

1471
01:42:53,200 --> 01:42:59,400
Speaker 2: all right, So he says, well, they quandered me, and

1472
01:42:59,439 --> 01:43:02,559
Speaker 2: I didn't really have any way out. Bobby is not

1473
01:43:02,600 --> 01:43:05,880
Speaker 2: someone who does good confrontation. He's very smart, don't get

1474
01:43:05,880 --> 01:43:10,639
Speaker 2: me wrong. So I said, what happened? Now? If you remember,

1475
01:43:11,560 --> 01:43:16,439
Speaker 2: Phil had relatively recently gotten a new liver because he

1476
01:43:16,520 --> 01:43:19,640
Speaker 2: was a terrible alcohol I think, actually I don't know

1477
01:43:19,680 --> 01:43:22,160
Speaker 2: it's sure, but I think he might have gotten two livers.

1478
01:43:23,280 --> 01:43:27,280
Speaker 2: But he was clear, completely sober. So we thought, all right,

1479
01:43:27,920 --> 01:43:30,880
Speaker 2: and Bobby said, they went to this restaurant and Phil

1480
01:43:31,000 --> 01:43:35,760
Speaker 2: ordered a bottle of wine, ordered for everybody, said Phil drank?

1481
01:43:35,800 --> 01:43:41,639
Speaker 2: He said, absolutely, And four or five bottles later, we're

1482
01:43:41,680 --> 01:43:47,320
Speaker 2: all shit face drunk. He said. That's when I agreed

1483
01:43:48,000 --> 01:43:52,000
Speaker 2: i'd go out with I said, you're nuts. I want

1484
01:43:52,040 --> 01:43:54,600
Speaker 2: no part of this. So he said, well, one of

1485
01:43:54,640 --> 01:43:57,479
Speaker 2: the conditions is that you and Cameron aren't involved in

1486
01:43:57,520 --> 01:44:03,160
Speaker 2: the tour. I said, Bobby, you know you can meet

1487
01:44:03,200 --> 01:44:06,960
Speaker 2: that condition. You know I'm quitting all right. I'm not

1488
01:44:07,040 --> 01:44:10,640
Speaker 2: gonna see you go to your grave, all right for

1489
01:44:10,760 --> 01:44:15,360
Speaker 2: this motherfucker who you know? Bobby told me stories, you know,

1490
01:44:15,439 --> 01:44:17,880
Speaker 2: from when he first joined the band. Remember Bobby's like

1491
01:44:18,240 --> 01:44:21,040
Speaker 2: five years younger than everybody, so he was like seventeen

1492
01:44:21,120 --> 01:44:22,880
Speaker 2: or eighteen years and they were like, you know, in

1493
01:44:22,960 --> 01:44:25,280
Speaker 2: our early twenties. He said, Phil used to beat the

1494
01:44:25,320 --> 01:44:29,120
Speaker 2: shit out of him. You know. There were two incidents. Once,

1495
01:44:29,160 --> 01:44:31,879
Speaker 2: he said, Phil threw him down a set of stairs,

1496
01:44:32,120 --> 01:44:34,599
Speaker 2: could have broken every bone in his body, all right.

1497
01:44:35,160 --> 01:44:36,960
Speaker 2: And and once Phil was in the back seat of

1498
01:44:37,040 --> 01:44:39,640
Speaker 2: a car that he was in the front seat and

1499
01:44:39,640 --> 01:44:41,599
Speaker 2: Phil was smacking the shit out of him while they

1500
01:44:41,600 --> 01:44:44,799
Speaker 2: were while they were driving. I said, you remember telling

1501
01:44:44,840 --> 01:44:49,120
Speaker 2: me these things? He said, yeah, but I've got unfinished

1502
01:44:49,120 --> 01:44:51,439
Speaker 2: business with him. I said, well, you're going to have

1503
01:44:51,479 --> 01:44:54,200
Speaker 2: to do it without me, And then Cameron said, separately

1504
01:44:54,240 --> 01:45:00,000
Speaker 2: the same thing. And of course they put the show

1505
01:45:00,120 --> 01:45:06,040
Speaker 2: was on sale and it did great business, but Bobby

1506
01:45:06,080 --> 01:45:13,840
Speaker 2: got shitfaced at every single shot, all right. And there's

1507
01:45:13,880 --> 01:45:17,320
Speaker 2: one very famous show that was at the Capitol Theater

1508
01:45:17,439 --> 01:45:23,080
Speaker 2: in Portchester, all right, where the film Bob Show played,

1509
01:45:24,040 --> 01:45:29,920
Speaker 2: and Bob was so fucked up that on stage he

1510
01:45:30,040 --> 01:45:34,400
Speaker 2: fell down. And this is all on videotape. You can

1511
01:45:34,439 --> 01:45:38,960
Speaker 2: see this, all right. Bob falls down and Phil doesn't

1512
01:45:38,960 --> 01:45:41,000
Speaker 2: even look at him, doesn't even look at him. Just

1513
01:45:41,040 --> 01:45:45,160
Speaker 2: keeps playing. Roadies went on to the stage, pick up

1514
01:45:45,200 --> 01:45:51,240
Speaker 2: Bob put him in a chair. All right, Phil still

1515
01:45:51,240 --> 01:45:54,000
Speaker 2: hasn't looked at him, right, And the only reason I

1516
01:45:54,040 --> 01:45:56,080
Speaker 2: say that I wasn't there, but I've seen the video.

1517
01:45:56,560 --> 01:46:04,280
Speaker 2: It exists a little while longer, maybe half a song later.

1518
01:46:05,120 --> 01:46:09,599
Speaker 2: Bobby falls off the chair, right, So this is really

1519
01:46:09,600 --> 01:46:14,200
Speaker 2: fucking sad. Phil never looked at him when the roadies

1520
01:46:14,240 --> 01:46:16,280
Speaker 2: came out to take them off the stage, help them

1521
01:46:16,320 --> 01:46:20,720
Speaker 2: off the stage, Phil never looked at him, all right,

1522
01:46:21,200 --> 01:46:26,879
Speaker 2: So deep down inside you gotta believe that he really

1523
01:46:26,960 --> 01:46:31,720
Speaker 2: really resented the shit out of Bobby. Why. I don't know.

1524
01:46:32,080 --> 01:46:35,160
Speaker 2: Bobby was better looking at him. He went out with

1525
01:46:35,200 --> 01:46:39,320
Speaker 2: prettier girls than he did. He wrote hit songs, which

1526
01:46:39,320 --> 01:46:43,240
Speaker 2: Phil never did. He sang lead on half the songs,

1527
01:46:44,000 --> 01:46:46,920
Speaker 2: you know, But those were all facts. And when Jerry

1528
01:46:47,040 --> 01:46:50,000
Speaker 2: was alive, you know, you couldn't tell that there was

1529
01:46:50,040 --> 01:46:52,519
Speaker 2: a problem, all right. The first I knew that Bobby

1530
01:46:52,560 --> 01:46:55,080
Speaker 2: had a problem with Phil was over the years he

1531
01:46:55,160 --> 01:46:58,400
Speaker 2: told me about these couple of incidents. When the band

1532
01:46:58,439 --> 01:47:03,320
Speaker 2: first formed, Oh Bobby did that, and then one more

1533
01:47:03,400 --> 01:47:07,559
Speaker 2: time they played together. I think on this fairly well

1534
01:47:08,760 --> 01:47:12,120
Speaker 2: show that was up in Wisconsin, and to the best

1535
01:47:12,120 --> 01:47:15,320
Speaker 2: of my knowledge, they've never played together again. But you

1536
01:47:15,360 --> 01:47:18,760
Speaker 2: know what, I wouldn't surprise if they did. Bobby is

1537
01:47:18,800 --> 01:47:22,840
Speaker 2: the most non confrontational person I've ever met. I love

1538
01:47:22,920 --> 01:47:27,280
Speaker 2: him to death, and it's just sad. It's just sad.

1539
01:47:27,640 --> 01:47:30,240
Speaker 2: You know, he's never gotten over Jerry's death. Look at

1540
01:47:30,240 --> 01:47:33,519
Speaker 2: the beard. Bobby never had a beard. He grew the

1541
01:47:33,520 --> 01:47:36,400
Speaker 2: beard after Jerry died. You know, he wanted to look

1542
01:47:36,439 --> 01:47:42,240
Speaker 2: like Jerry. You know. So he's a brilliant guy. He's

1543
01:47:42,320 --> 01:47:47,880
Speaker 2: a sweetheart, but he's non confrontational and he's you know,

1544
01:47:47,960 --> 01:47:52,720
Speaker 2: let people take advantage of specifically, Phil, Do.

1545
01:47:52,840 --> 01:47:55,960
Speaker 1: These guys have any money and do they have money

1546
01:47:56,640 --> 01:48:01,080
Speaker 1: during the time that you worked with him, Yeah, they

1547
01:48:01,080 --> 01:48:06,720
Speaker 1: had money. They didn't nearly have what they could have

1548
01:48:06,800 --> 01:48:09,759
Speaker 1: had because they had like fifty people on the payroll

1549
01:48:10,200 --> 01:48:13,479
Speaker 1: at real salaries, at the equivalent of you know, six

1550
01:48:13,520 --> 01:48:16,960
Speaker 1: figure salaries, all right, So in that way it was

1551
01:48:17,000 --> 01:48:23,639
Speaker 1: almost a commune, all right. But they made a lot

1552
01:48:23,680 --> 01:48:27,400
Speaker 1: of money. Like I said, the Warner Brothers deal deal

1553
01:48:27,520 --> 01:48:31,559
Speaker 1: at the end was multi multi million dollars. And I

1554
01:48:31,600 --> 01:48:35,200
Speaker 1: think they were you know, at that point, I think

1555
01:48:35,280 --> 01:48:40,360
Speaker 1: they were wealthy, not crazy wealth, all right, but they

1556
01:48:40,360 --> 01:48:45,600
Speaker 1: owned all their own publishing, and you know, Jerry's is

1557
01:48:45,640 --> 01:48:48,320
Speaker 1: obviously worth a fortune, and Bob's is worth a fortune,

1558
01:48:48,720 --> 01:48:51,920
Speaker 1: all right. So you know, I always drove into Bob's

1559
01:48:51,960 --> 01:48:55,840
Speaker 1: head that, you know, you know, that's your retirement, you know,

1560
01:48:56,240 --> 01:48:59,040
Speaker 1: don't fuck around with it, and he never did.

1561
01:48:59,600 --> 01:49:03,959
Speaker 2: He never did. And actually Robert Hunter ran a publishing company. Now.

1562
01:49:04,880 --> 01:49:09,280
Speaker 2: I think they're all much wealthier because I think that

1563
01:49:09,960 --> 01:49:12,880
Speaker 2: Phil did very good business when he went out with

1564
01:49:12,920 --> 01:49:17,200
Speaker 2: his Phil and friends for a number of years, and

1565
01:49:17,960 --> 01:49:23,040
Speaker 2: Dead and Company the huge business. So you know, Dead

1566
01:49:23,080 --> 01:49:26,479
Speaker 2: and Company, Bobby and Mickey and for a while Billy,

1567
01:49:26,800 --> 01:49:30,280
Speaker 2: although Billy left at some point, had to be making

1568
01:49:30,320 --> 01:49:33,519
Speaker 2: a lot a lot of money, you know. So yeah,

1569
01:49:33,520 --> 01:49:35,080
Speaker 2: I think they were all fine financially.

1570
01:49:36,560 --> 01:49:38,599
Speaker 1: What's the best Grateful Dead show you ever saw?

1571
01:49:40,400 --> 01:49:42,800
Speaker 2: Very hard, you know, very hard. I mean I've seen

1572
01:49:43,240 --> 01:49:47,880
Speaker 2: so many, so many. I think Roosevelt Stadium when they

1573
01:49:47,880 --> 01:49:51,719
Speaker 2: played with the band a couple of days before Watkins Glenn.

1574
01:49:53,880 --> 01:49:56,800
Speaker 2: I think the second night they played the Capitol and

1575
01:49:56,840 --> 01:50:03,080
Speaker 2: that original run one the Bedheads very often sighted is

1576
01:50:03,080 --> 01:50:08,600
Speaker 2: the greatest show was at Cornell. I was there. I

1577
01:50:08,640 --> 01:50:10,639
Speaker 2: didn't spend a lot of time watching the show because

1578
01:50:10,640 --> 01:50:13,760
Speaker 2: you've a been up to Thika. I have, Yeah, so

1579
01:50:13,840 --> 01:50:19,240
Speaker 2: you know, there's all these deep ravines and stuff. So

1580
01:50:19,920 --> 01:50:21,840
Speaker 2: you know, the kids were all fucking stoned out of

1581
01:50:21,840 --> 01:50:25,680
Speaker 2: their minds. So you know, I spent much of that

1582
01:50:25,720 --> 01:50:29,639
Speaker 2: show outside trying to keep kids from jumping into the ravines.

1583
01:50:31,680 --> 01:50:35,559
Speaker 2: So uh, hey, you know it's funny, but it's true.

1584
01:50:36,120 --> 01:50:39,599
Speaker 2: And and you know I've heard the show over and over,

1585
01:50:39,680 --> 01:50:42,559
Speaker 2: so it was it was a great show, you know,

1586
01:50:42,640 --> 01:50:45,920
Speaker 2: and and and it's interesting. You know, every show they've

1587
01:50:46,160 --> 01:50:49,160
Speaker 2: virtually ever played is you know, is on tape, and

1588
01:50:49,640 --> 01:50:55,200
Speaker 2: you know, uh yeah, everybody can hear it. I would

1589
01:50:55,200 --> 01:51:02,360
Speaker 2: say that maybe two out of every ten were stinkers,

1590
01:51:02,880 --> 01:51:06,120
Speaker 2: all right. You could tell when they were stinkers more

1591
01:51:06,160 --> 01:51:08,320
Speaker 2: than you could tell whether they great or were they

1592
01:51:08,520 --> 01:51:12,680
Speaker 2: very great? Right, because like any band, although you know,

1593
01:51:12,720 --> 01:51:14,800
Speaker 2: they never really had any hit singles, they had one

1594
01:51:14,880 --> 01:51:20,599
Speaker 2: hit single, Touch of Gray, which you know, almost killed everybody.

1595
01:51:20,640 --> 01:51:23,400
Speaker 1: But what do you mean it almost killed everybody?

1596
01:51:23,400 --> 01:51:26,400
Speaker 2: Well, what happened was they were huge at that point.

1597
01:51:27,000 --> 01:51:30,840
Speaker 2: Jerry comes out of out of this coma all right, right,

1598
01:51:31,000 --> 01:51:35,040
Speaker 2: touch of Gray. It's like a top five, top forty

1599
01:51:35,120 --> 01:51:40,879
Speaker 2: hit right, so they were huge underground fm ys whatever.

1600
01:51:41,520 --> 01:51:48,000
Speaker 2: But then it goes mainstream and so the shows get

1601
01:51:48,040 --> 01:51:52,799
Speaker 2: overwhelmed with people trying to break in. I remember standing

1602
01:51:52,800 --> 01:51:54,920
Speaker 2: out in the hill at sarah Tooga Performing Arts Center,

1603
01:51:55,160 --> 01:51:59,519
Speaker 2: completely sold out and there there were like ten thousand

1604
01:51:59,640 --> 01:52:03,120
Speaker 2: kids outside the fence, and finally they broke the fence

1605
01:52:03,160 --> 01:52:04,920
Speaker 2: down and they came over. They came over the fence

1606
01:52:04,960 --> 01:52:08,960
Speaker 2: like lemmings, you know. So you know, it became it

1607
01:52:09,000 --> 01:52:12,839
Speaker 2: became clear to everybody we couldn't play amphitheaters anymore. And

1608
01:52:12,840 --> 01:52:15,800
Speaker 2: and they never wanted to play stadiums. They had turned

1609
01:52:15,840 --> 01:52:18,240
Speaker 2: me down like two years in a row to play

1610
01:52:18,240 --> 01:52:20,920
Speaker 2: stadiums are big stadiums. They played like Roosevelt Stadium. But

1611
01:52:21,320 --> 01:52:26,720
Speaker 2: you know, that was thirty thousand and finally, when the

1612
01:52:26,800 --> 01:52:30,120
Speaker 2: last year that we did amphitheaters, it was so much

1613
01:52:30,640 --> 01:52:33,439
Speaker 2: and and you know, some of the ampethsaders said, you

1614
01:52:33,520 --> 01:52:37,000
Speaker 2: just can't come back. I took another shot at doing

1615
01:52:38,040 --> 01:52:41,040
Speaker 2: stadiums with them, and they said, no, it's a rip

1616
01:52:41,080 --> 01:52:45,840
Speaker 2: off to the fence. I said, how about this, What

1617
01:52:45,960 --> 01:52:49,240
Speaker 2: if I got a support act that was big enough

1618
01:52:49,280 --> 01:52:52,400
Speaker 2: in each of those cities to be a sellout one

1619
01:52:52,479 --> 01:52:56,400
Speaker 2: night arena act and they opened for you. And all

1620
01:52:56,400 --> 01:52:57,960
Speaker 2: we had to do was up to take a price

1621
01:52:58,000 --> 01:53:00,840
Speaker 2: by five dollars because they were very every sensitive about

1622
01:53:00,840 --> 01:53:04,360
Speaker 2: ticket prices too, all right, they said, can you do that?

1623
01:53:05,560 --> 01:53:07,800
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, I can do it. You know, I'm

1624
01:53:07,800 --> 01:53:10,080
Speaker 2: gonna have to pay the acts, you know, six figures,

1625
01:53:10,080 --> 01:53:12,080
Speaker 2: but yeah, I can do it. But you'll make as

1626
01:53:12,160 --> 01:53:18,200
Speaker 2: much or more money, more money actually. So one year

1627
01:53:18,520 --> 01:53:23,080
Speaker 2: it was Steve Winwood, one year was Cosby Sills and Nash.

1628
01:53:24,240 --> 01:53:28,160
Speaker 2: One year it was Bob Dylan and Tom Petty together.

1629
01:53:28,960 --> 01:53:31,320
Speaker 2: One year it was just Dylan in a bit and

1630
01:53:31,600 --> 01:53:37,600
Speaker 2: Grateful Dead backed up Dylan. So it was spectacular success,

1631
01:53:38,080 --> 01:53:40,840
Speaker 2: spectacular success. Their ticket prices were still less than almost

1632
01:53:40,880 --> 01:53:46,800
Speaker 2: everybody's and and uh, you know, the audience, the audience got,

1633
01:53:46,840 --> 01:53:51,240
Speaker 2: you know, a huge headliner. Even with those huge headliners.

1634
01:53:52,560 --> 01:53:56,240
Speaker 2: In the beginning of the show, stadiums were maybe a

1635
01:53:56,280 --> 01:54:00,720
Speaker 2: third field. By three quarters of through the show, they

1636
01:54:00,760 --> 01:54:04,559
Speaker 2: were packed. And they were smart enough. You know. I said,

1637
01:54:04,560 --> 01:54:07,080
Speaker 2: they didn't have any hit singles, but they had their

1638
01:54:07,080 --> 01:54:11,400
Speaker 2: equivalent of hit singles. Uncle John's band, Casey Jones, you know,

1639
01:54:11,520 --> 01:54:15,599
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera playing in the band, so they

1640
01:54:15,640 --> 01:54:20,840
Speaker 2: sort of recognized that and tended, more than in other situations,

1641
01:54:21,160 --> 01:54:23,320
Speaker 2: play a bunch of those songs towards the end, and

1642
01:54:23,439 --> 01:54:28,280
Speaker 2: so the audience went completely fucking nuts. So, you know,

1643
01:54:28,360 --> 01:54:32,000
Speaker 2: in their own way, they were great showmen. You know,

1644
01:54:32,120 --> 01:54:34,600
Speaker 2: they weren't you know, they weren't slick, they weren't they

1645
01:54:34,600 --> 01:54:38,600
Speaker 2: didn't use a lot of tricks, but they were great showmen.

1646
01:54:39,880 --> 01:54:43,320
Speaker 2: And you know, to this day, listen, I think I

1647
01:54:43,360 --> 01:54:45,680
Speaker 2: could be wrong, no way to know. I think the

1648
01:54:45,760 --> 01:54:49,320
Speaker 2: Grateful that are bigger now than they ever were. I

1649
01:54:49,320 --> 01:54:52,840
Speaker 2: think that the entity the Grateful dead from a merchandising

1650
01:54:52,920 --> 01:54:56,760
Speaker 2: point of view, From a music point of view, I

1651
01:54:56,800 --> 01:55:00,440
Speaker 2: think they're bigger than they ever were. I think other

1652
01:55:00,480 --> 01:55:03,720
Speaker 2: than the Beatles, not only the most sociological important act,

1653
01:55:04,040 --> 01:55:05,920
Speaker 2: I think other than the Beatles are the biggest act

1654
01:55:05,920 --> 01:55:09,160
Speaker 2: in the world. Well, I can't count Taylor Swift and

1655
01:55:09,280 --> 01:55:14,839
Speaker 2: the biggest rock act in the world, and we'll continue

1656
01:55:14,840 --> 01:55:17,600
Speaker 2: to be. You know, you talk to kids who weren't

1657
01:55:17,640 --> 01:55:22,040
Speaker 2: alive when Jerry, when Jerry was in the band, and

1658
01:55:22,080 --> 01:55:27,160
Speaker 2: they're absolute dead heads. So you know, it's you know,

1659
01:55:27,640 --> 01:55:28,640
Speaker 2: it's a great salute to.

1660
01:55:28,600 --> 01:55:34,040
Speaker 1: Them, absolutely the debtor forever. We can't go on forever.

1661
01:55:34,560 --> 01:55:36,280
Speaker 1: Then we'll have to do this again. John. There's so

1662
01:55:36,360 --> 01:55:39,680
Speaker 1: much we couldn't even get into never mind we're dead stories.

1663
01:55:39,960 --> 01:55:41,960
Speaker 1: But I want to thank you so much for talking

1664
01:55:41,960 --> 01:55:45,400
Speaker 1: to my audience. No thanks, I'm happy to do it again.

1665
01:55:46,040 --> 01:55:46,360
Speaker 2: You bet.

1666
01:55:46,440 --> 01:55:49,080
Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob left six

1667
01:56:10,800 --> 01:56:10,840
Speaker 2: S