April 1, 1972: Too many concerts

 

    April 1972 had an incredible lineup of must-see events. Our concert-going cup ranneth over. And that was the problem … 

April 1, 1972

Is Concert Overload a Symptom

Of Uncertainty in Pop Music? 

“A COUPLE years ago,” Paul Rosen was saying, “if there was a concert coming, I’d be psyched up for a week. I’d go and watch it with my mouth hanging open down to here and after it was over, I’d be smiling for a week. That doesn’t happen any more.”

        There’s scarcely been an open week for smiling between rock concerts in Buffalo this season. In April alone, pop music lovers are faced with more possibilities than a Roman at an orgy.

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NEXT WEDNESDAY there’s Elvis at Memorial Auditorium, Friday the Aud has The Osmond Brothers, while Smokey Robinson comes to Kleinhans Music Hall on his farewell tour with The Miracles. Next Saturday, Emerson, Lake & Palmer are at the Aud.

        Next there’s a country-rock bill at UB’s Clark Gym April 12 – The New Riders of the Purple Sage with Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen. Ten Years After and Procol Harum are at the Aud April 16, followed by Savoy Brown, Malo and Long John Baldry on April 18 and Alice Cooper April 21.

        A three-day UB folk festival begins April 12 with at least two dozen artists. Johnny Cash is at the Aud April 22, Nancy Wilson at Kleinhans April 23, Three Dog Night in the Aud April 28 and Lighthouse with the Mahavishnu Orchestra in Kleinhans April 30.

        It wasn’t like that when Paul Rosen got into rock deeply the year he came up from Franklin Square, L.I., to be a freshman at UB. Back then you could count on half a dozen major concerts a year.

        Now in the fall and spring concert rushes, there’s more than half a dozen a month. And Paul, who’s sacrificed being a senior (he’ll finish next year) to immerse himself in the one-year chairmanship of UB’s UUAB Music Committee, thinks Buffalo’s concert overload is a symptom of the underlying weakness and uncertainty in pop music these days.

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“EVERYBODY’S trying to get as much now as they can get,” he says, pulling at his Commander Cody-New Riders T-shirt. “If a group gets hot, they shoot the price up a couple of thousand dollars. Nobody gets to develop or mature.”

        And for Paul, the second-busiest wintertime concert promoter in the city after Buffalo Festival’s Jerry Nathan, this makes it harder to get the lesser-known acts that colleges have traditionally have nurtured until they make it big. And it gets harder to get kids out for them.

        “Most of the kids will take a look at what’s coming for the next month and pick out one show and spend their money for that,” he says. “They’ll spend $6 to go to Kleinhans and then complain about $3 tickets for something here.”

        The Music Committee sets ticket prices to break even, but when only a handful turned up at 50 cents a head for an excellent but newly-started artist like Billy Joel a couple weeks back, Paul was disappointed.

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AND WHEN he lost $2,000 on a great show by jazz giant Leon Thomas and had hassles about junkies besides, well, that was enough to make him wonder whether his work was worth it.

        “I personally think that college concerts should do two things,” he says. “One, to present good groups at lower ticket prices and two, to expose students to music they wouldn’t see at Kleinhans.”

        Back before the riots, the Music Committee had a fat student activity fee grant from Sub-Board I, UUAB’s money people. They could bring in people like Janis Joplin or John Mayall without worrying about the cash they’d lose.

        This year groups cost more and Paul has $15,000 to work with (“And Sub-Board I wouldn’t mind if I gave it all back at the end of the year,” he says.) A third of it goes for phones and other expenses.

        In comparison, Buffalo State is asking student government for $30,000 for music next year and Stony Brook appropriates $50,000.

        Unless the Music Committee is better funded, Paul foresees the school staging a couple sure-fire money-making concerts each year so there’s money for smaller attractions. Or only doing one or two big shows annually.

* * *

JUST TO SEE what students wanted, the Music Committee passed out 23,000 questionnaires last fall. Only 236 came back. Jefferson Airplane got the most votes. Steve Stills and The Band were tied for second.

        A month of negotiations with The Band for a February date fell flat when the group decided not to tour. And a proposal to bring Steve Stills to the Aud failed because the Student Association refused to loan money for it. They thought $15,000 was too much for him.

        After the colleges and Buffalo Festival, there isn’t much left for anyone else who wants to promote a concert here. Lew Fisher of Theatre Series sticks generally to a few proven successes and is less inclined to bring rock to Melody Fair because of crowd problems.

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STEVE GOLDSTEIN, whose Ironspur Music brought The Doors, The Faces and Buddy Miles to town last year, has temporarily bowed out of promoting. A partner now in the new Hike & Bike Shop, he figures he may ultimately do three or four shows a year. Maybe even one this summer.

        Occasionally some UB music people will put together an independent production like the upcoming Savoy Brown-Malo show, but they don’t find it easy.

        The big talent agencies won’t deal with them. And neither will Kleinhans. And everybody wants their money in advance.

        “The people who aren’t in the business don’t see all the problems,” Jerry Nathan says. “It’s like a gambler at the track. You hear when he hits the daily double, but you don’t hear about the losses.”

        Jerry, who got into promoting jazz concerts 12 years ago because he loved jazz, now puts rock shows into Rochester, Syracuse, Toronto, several colleges (by invitation) and even Philadelphia with the help of his left-hand man George Greenfield, who chose concert promotion for his ad hoc major at UB.

* * *

BUFFALO is a relatively hip music town, Jerry says, thanks to the colleges, especially UB, progressive radio and a heavy concentration of local bands.

        That, plus reasonable concert hall rentals, makes it possible to bring shows to Buffalo that would lose money in Toronto (high hall fees) or fail to draw in Syracuse or Rochester.

        Jerry feels he overbooked Buffalo this spring, however. The idea was to cover all the options so that some other promoter with no concern for the city wouldn’t come in with a “rock crusher.”

        It happened anyway with the Moody Blues, who have one promoter for their whole tour. (Other big acts, like Elvis and the Osmonds, do the same.)

        Another factor in the present concert glut is that British acts like to hit the U.S. in the spring and fall when the colleges are in session. Same with American groups. Bad weather, holidays and vacations make other months less appealing.

        This and high guarantee prices for groups have made economics a big Buffalo Festival concern this year.

* * *

JERRY tries to hold top ticket prices to $6 (and preferably $5.50) to minimize what he calls “the rip-off factor.” He persuaded the Moody Blues promoter to keep prices at $6, lost a fight with Terry Knight last fall over $6.50 seats for Grand Funk Railroad.

        Aside from the group’s fee, it costs Buffalo Festival $3,500 to $4,000 to throw a Kleinhans concert, a bit more at the Aud because there’s also a sales percentage involved. Uniformed security, mandated by Kleinhans and the Aud, is a big expense.

        There’s $750 for a sound system, $400 for stagehands (union rules), ushers, tickets, insurance, contract requirements for organs and freshly-tuned pianos, up to $3,500 for advertising.

        Plus overtime fees if a concert goes late and incidents like the $85 worth of backstage beer The Kinks, Fairport Convention and Lindisfarne used one night.

        “Groups are pricing themselves out of Kleinhans,” Jerry says. “You used to be able to sell three-quarters of the seats and still have a successful concert financially. Now you can’t begin to break even with that.”

        Three years ago a noteworthy group would want a $5,000 guarantee against a standard 60 percent. Now few will travel for less than $7,500 guaranteed and prices of $12,500 and $15,000 aren’t uncommon.

* * *

“PROMOTERS all over the country aren’t doing well this year,” Jerry says. “And that’s going to make it harder for agencies to sell tours. There’s only a few acts that are properly priced. I hope this will bring their prices down.”

* * * * *

THE PHOTOS: Top right, Buffalo Festival’s Jerry Nathan, left, and his left-hand man George Greenfield. Top center, UB’s Paul Rosen. Bottom, ticket-buyers line up outside Buffalo Festival’s box office in the Statler.

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FOOTNOTE: Little did we suspect that there would be a new player in the concert promotion business coming along shortly, the notorious Harvey Weinstein, who we first encountered a week earlier as manager of the band Flesh & Blood. Harvey and partner Corky Burger bought their own venue, the derelict Century Theater on Main Street in downtown Buffalo, and became formidable competitors to Festival East’s Jerry Nathan.

        Jerry’s left-hand man, George Greenfield, can be found these days in Montclair, N.J., where he owns and operates a little company called CreativeWell Inc., described on its website as “literary, lecture and creative management.” One of his clients is the Cambodian-American author and activist Loung Ung, whose book “First They Killed My Father” has been made into a feature film by Angelina Jolie. He also represents best-selling autistic author Temple Grandin.