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Toronto Star
The stadium rock show: An endangered spectacle
Not many bands can draw them like the Stones will next week
By Vit Wagner
Can it be long before the full-blown, stadium rock show goes the way of the airborne pig?
In a recent interview, Pink Floyd frontman David Gilmour said a reunion is unlikely for any number of reasons, not the least being that it simply isn't worth the bother. He estimated it would take two years to get his prog-rock outfit roadworthy again, dismissing the prospect as an "awful lot of time and effort."
When the venerated prog-rockers last stalked the continent in 1994, they drew more than three million fans, in the process grossing $104 million (U.S.). The tour, which featured the customary squadron of inflatable porkers, yielded the third biggest haul in history, right behind similarly extravagant outings by the Rolling Stones and U2.
The Rolling Stones are back at it. But the band's appearance next Friday at the SkyDome � two days after a comparatively intimate gig at the Air Canada Centre � is testament to that increasingly rare spectacle: The stadium rock show.
In the late '70s, concerts presented to football-sized audiences of 40,000 and up were a rock industry mainstay. Today's big shows, by comparison, are usually daylong events, such as the annual Edgefest at Molson Park, featuring several stages and multiple headliners.
Of the dwindling number of acts who might now fill a stadium � or even an NHL-sized hockey arena � many are nearing the end of their careers. There are exceptions, of course. Just as there are genuine anomalies, such as homegrown fan favourites the Tragically Hip, a group that can sell out the ACC several nights running but has difficulty packing a club outside Canada.
Billboard recently published a list of the top 10 grossing concerts in North America this year. All involved artists over the age of 50. Topping the list were Elton John and Billy Joel, who raked in more than $2 million U.S. for a joint, Sept. 17 appearance in Atlanta. Also included were: Neil Diamond, Bruce Springsteen, Cher, the Who and Aerosmith. The Stones, not quite rolling yet when the list was compiled, are expected to produce the year's biggest haul when receipts are tabulated.
Keep in mind, too, that older acts not only continue to draw big crowds, but are also capable of commanding top dollar � as much as $300 for a Stones seat at the SkyDome � which exponentially amplifies their revenue-generating potential.
These bankable warhorses won't be around forever.
And, with musical taste becoming increasingly fractured, the odds are not good that the field is about to be replenished by artists capable of sustaining large fan bases over a long periods of time.
"We're running out of the kinds of bands that can do 50,000 people, the way they did in the late '70s," says veteran Toronto concert promoter Elliott Lefko, now director of booking at House of Blues. "And some of the acts who can do 50,000 don't want to."
Lefko cites the Dave Matthews Band, which in 1998 sold out all 78,000 seats in Giants Stadium in New Jersey, as an under-40 band with a demonstrated ability to fill a football field.
But it's not an experience Matthews and his cohorts have made a habit of repeating.
Even U2, one of the few post-'70s bands consistently capable of pulling stadium-sized audiences, chose to scale things back on its recent Elevation tour, which aimed to create a more intimate vibe than the Zoo TV extravaganza of a decade ago.
Stadium spectacles need large crowds to pay the bills. And it isn't just mega-stars such as Gilmour who are losing their appetite for such events. It's the audiences as well.
"Most people don't want to be the 40,000th person at a show any more," says Lefko.
"If they are so far back that they have to watch the show on a video screen, they'd rather not go."
That doesn't mean arenas won't continue to serve as concert venues.
The ACC's 6,000-seat "theatre" configuration, which uses a curtain to sever the arena in half, has recently played host to Coldplay and the Strokes, two, hot, 20-something bands who have outgrown the club circuit but aren't yet � and might never be � big enough to pack the whole place.
The shrunken version of the ACC, says Lefko, offers the "perfect marriage of arena rock and a theatre show."
And, as Radiohead demonstrated a couple of years ago, it can sound as good as many concert halls as well. But it'll never be a natural habitat for that endangered species, the soaring swine
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