Last night I went to a gig and the opening act was bad. I don't mean terrible, completely unskilled, but if you asked someone to leave the house for this...they wouldn't. Oh, some people did. This was a club, holding a few hundred, and it was not full and this woman did her best to entrance the attendees, it's just that her material wasn't any good. She looked like a refugee from the seventies, bleached blonde hair and Ziggy Stardust silver suit, and she played angry, noisy music verging on punk, but unless you needed loud, angry noise... Oh, there were songs, but... I'm sitting there thinking about seeing Little Feat in the same venue. An underplay, not long after I'd moved to Los Angeles, it wasn't hard to get a ticket, I went with my new friend Danny from Star Sporting Goods. He was the hiking expert. Word was he lived alone in a single apartment, that he was the son of a single mother and... This wasn't who I'd been exposed to back on the east coast, but he was friendly and...I guess that's the difference between east and west. At least where I grew up. You were on the college track or you were headed for the dumps. Education was everything. Divorce was rare. I'm sitting in the balcony wondering what Danny is up to today and... One thing about getting older, you realize that you're never going to encounter these people again, they could even be dead. In addition, all the regrets you have, about misspeaking, behaving badly towards another, evaporate. I won't quite say you become comfortable in your own skin, but you realize there's a limited amount of time left and all the stuff you thought was going to happen never will. So I used to go to clubs on a regular basis. To see acts I was enamored of. To experience the latest hot thing once I moved to Los Angeles. You wanted to marinate in the sound, you wanted the visceral experience, and I'm sure there are still shows like that today, but the truth is unless an act is going to deliver a peak, ten on a ten scale or close, people just aren't going to come, with so many options at their fingertips at home. Now I ran into a few people I knew. And that was very satisfying. I guess I was convinced that my generation had moved on. It used to be a floating party. But everybody got older and the scene changed. The acts are on their umpteenth reunion tour if they're not retired or dead and pop and niche rock and hip-hop fill the rest of the dates. Especially at the summer venues, it's oldies on parade, and it's kind of creepy. But, going used to be everything. Now Will Page wrote a great article in the "Financial Times," unfortunately behind a paywall, but the headline tells you most of what you need to know: "The 'go big or stay home' economy reshaping live music - Consumers will spend multiples of an annual streaming subscription for three hours of music at a giant stadium": https://www.ft.com/content/3a2a3e6c-8fc9-47e7-bc88-3f3e64b65d21 This is not only in music, with the best accessed as easily as the mediocre, never mind the bad, people gravitate to the best. And they want it easy. Page makes the point that a stadium show is much more palatable than a festival. And there are a lot more stadium shows, but there are a lot more people. And the truth is you may not have even heard of many of these acts selling so many tickets. And speaking about articles behind paywalls, Ralph Simon sent me this, from the "Economist": "Forget the World Cup. Culture is becoming more fragmented - Farewell to the monoculture" https://www.economist.com/briefing/2026/06/11/forget-the-world-cup-culture-is-becoming-more-fragmented I was going to do a whole piece on this, might still do so, but the salient point is despite the world having access to everything, acts reaching every nook and cranny via streaming music, the market in each nation is dominated by local repertoire, more than ever before in the modern era. In the old days, there were universal stars, made by MTV and radio. You'd think that the best and the brightest would be able to get even bigger, because of world access, but the opposite has occurred. As streaming has grown, acts have had less success overseas. The days of U.S. and U.K. acts dominating worldwide are toast. And back on the nightlife tip, I read a review of the new book "Up All Night" in today's "Wall Street Journal": "'Up All Night' Review: The Life of the Party - Nightclubs have historically been places where different classes and communities mix it up on the dance floor": https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/up-all-night-review-the-life-of-the-party-acdcafb8 https://apple.news/A91uqG14NStOfp8D8AT6NwQ I'm gonna quote from the article: "'The once habitual "big night out" has become an increasingly fringe activity,' Imogen Willetts writes in 'Up All Night,' her lively history of nightclubs through the ages. People are staying home, she says, because of bleak economics, dating apps, streaming services and the fear of being caught behaving badly on camera phones—all leading to a sharp decline in nightlife. "In the United Kingdom, three nightclubs close every week, Ms. Willetts tells us, while the New York City mayor’s office reported in 2019 that 30% to 40% of all 'nightlife owners didn’t expect to be in business in three years’ time.'" But all we keep reading in the U.K. press and in the halls of the music industry is that clubs are music's lifeblood and must be kept alive. But what if people don't want to go? In the old days, I'd see an act live and then have to tell everybody to go see them the next time around. As far as going to bars and hearing unsigned bands... I got over that not long after I was old enough to drink. The mediocrity and unfamiliarity made no sense to me, I'd rather sit at home and listen to records. As for hanging out and trying to meet people... Thank god for the internet, I wasted so much time looking for unfound action in venues in the old days. So if you're sitting at home, thinking of going out... You're not even going to check the listings, because you know if it was worth seeing, you'd have already heard about it. Things are different for name brand talent, but clubs are about up and coming talent. The headliner last night had fans, he had skill interacting with the audience honed from years on the road. But the interesting thing to me was the age of those in attendance. There might have been a few in their thirties, but most were older, older than the act itself! These were the people who grew up needing to go out, young people don't have that need. These were the people who know the heat of a live show. As far as younger generations... The truth is they've grown up in a pop culture, they view a concert ticket almost like a guarantee. If I pay this much you not only have to play the hits, you have to have production and... The music itself is not enough. So... I'd tell you I want to go out, but I'd like to tell you there are things I want to see. I want to hang with people. But it's not like I'm turning down invitations. Of course I get invited by PR people and managers and agents to go see their latest hype. But the odds of it being worth my while... I've got to get in my car, drive there, pay to park, wait for the act to come on when... I've already listened to the music online and it was far from overwhelming. As far as a show so dynamic that it must not be missed. I'd like to tell you that that's part of the hype, but really, it's all transparent... Please show up and help me make money, PLEASE! Forget that I'm reluctant to do this, the audience is even harder to motivate. For all the bluster about the success of the film business this summer, the bottom line is it's very few movies and all have gotten good reviews, there's a buzz. And then there are films like "Moana," dead on arrival. People will show up at the theatre the same way they'll show up at the stadium, for stars, but they won't show up for everybody. And both the movie and music businesses somehow believe they will. So if you want to charge people to see you... You must be so good that not only do attendees have a good time, but they need to tell everybody about your show. You can hone your chops, woodshed on YouTube, but not live. You're stepping right into the maelstrom, you've got to deliver. Now at least in the movie business, this summer's big successes are unforeseen Gen-Z hits. "Obsession" and "Backrooms" were new and different, never mind in the case of "Obsession" being really damn cheap, less than a million bucks to make. They weren't successful because of promotion, but word of mouth, there was a buzz. The music business used to specialize in this, and we did get Angine de Poitrine, and that's good, but not from the usual suspects, it was an indie project broken by noncom radio on YouTube. Furthermore, Angine de Poitrine is not Nirvana, it's truly niche, but where else are these acts that are different and generating so much buzz? It's not only the labels that are playing it safe, but the acts themselves. Last night's headliner, with good reviews but no help from a major label, never mind a manager, passionately spoke about the state of America, how we felt as individuals, it was alive and real in a way too much of the music world today is not. What do they say? Everything in politics is local? Well, the Democrats were so focused on Biden and then Harris that they missed the sentiment of the country, and these same people are now missing the Democratic Socialist uprising. And we've got a somnambulant, lemming Republican party paying fealty to Trump as he loses the hearts and minds of almost everyone in America. And the mainstream press is always behind the curve, the oldsters always find out last. In the old days, Bob Dylan sang: "Because something is happening here But you don't know what it is Do you, Mr. Jones?" Back then the street was important, but now the street lives online, on YouTube and social media, and traditional powers refuse to delve into this overwhelming world and try to figure out what is going on. Based on last night, based on statistics, I say good riddance to small clubs. First and foremost because the people don't want to go. Second, the talent purveyed isn't worth spending money for...but even worse, it's not worth spending time for. We are all limited, we have a million options, if it's not great, we are not interested. And this applies to everything. -- Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ -- Listen to the podcast: -iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj -Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp -- http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
