It’s been a while since the last Australian AC/DC tour, and you can tell, with all tickets selling out in record time, with the first Sydney show going in around 12 minutes on Monday morning. Demand is high for what will surely be their last tour with scalpers on eBay asking for up to AUS $800 for two tickets, more than double the asking price of $150 per ticket. It’s not uncommon for this to happen, with most concerts featuring their fair share of tickets scalped via eBay, and unfortunately for the public, there isn’t much anyone can do about it.
I myself considered making the trip down under, possibly to Perth, to see one of the shows but didn’t get my shit together in time. It’s a little disappointing having seen Guns N Roses, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest over the last couple of years, ACDC, I guess is the only band missing from my Metal Hall Of Fame.
It does bring up the notion of relevance, Priest, Maiden and Gunners have all had new albums out, ACDC now as well so you could answer that with a simple yes. However there are a lot of other artists out there still touring the same old crap every few years, one just had to watch the terrible American Idol finale this year, in which Lionel Ritchie, Santana & Cindy Lauper all performed hits from the late 80’s and early 90’s. Are they still relevant? I would have to argue that they aren’t, or at least if they are, it’s definitely only because they made it big, once, and there is a bit of a musical revival around the 80/90’s in the pop music scene at the moment, at least Prince is constantly reinventing himself and his music. The nail in the coffin really, is the news that John Farnham is going out on yet another tour, at least 5 years after his ‘last ever tour’.
I wonder if it’s all really necessary, surely they have enough money, and surely their music is still selling well in discount bins all around the world, but really, does the world really need another John Farnham tour? Or Santana doing the 1,287,670th live version of Black Magic Woman? I hardly think so, but hey, I’m no longer in the music business, and I often think that’s for the best…
On a side note, I am really looking forward to seeing the Nine Inch Nails show in Singapore in August, a band that is still changing, molding and some might say leading though these uncertain times in the music industry. It might be their last tour which is sad, but after missing their shows earlier in the year in Sydney, I wish August 10 would roll around soon.
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