To pay or not to pay...

Seeing your favorite band in concert. It is special. Times have changed though. Concert tickets are outrageous. Quality acts are fewer. Quality venues are harder to find. How do you decide to spend your hard earned dollars? Then there is the issue of bands/artists touring with missing members. Or whole missing bands except for one person. For example I admit I am a Jethro Tull fan. Long time fan late to seeing them in concert. Ian Anderson is Tull. Always has been. He is the only original member of the group. Which brings up my problem. Tull is currently touring. But Mr. Anderson for reasons of his own has jettisoned the rest of the band except for Martin Barre. And he even played some dates without Martin. So are fans seeing Tull? Ian had toured without the rest of Tull for some time now. At least he went just by his name on the bill. But now he feels he needs to put the Jethro Tull name on the tickets and yet he has decided the rest of the band is unnecessary now. As a long time fan this is highly disturbing. Tull, Ian Anderson, has refused to come out with new music for years now. But he continues to tour in one capacity or another. The only reason I can see is to milk the fans out of their money. And now to play shows as Tull without any members of the band--he has crossed the line. I will never give him one cent of my money again. It is obvious he is only doing this for the cash and to increase his profit margins he has fired the rest of the band. The sad thing is he does not realize that most of Tull's fans have long ago stopped caring about him. The last several shows I was at I spent the whole time watching the other members of the band. As most of the other people I talked to did as well. Way to go Ian alienating the few remaining fans you had. And it is not like anyone new goes to one of your shows.

As a side note what about other bands? I was a Guns and Roses fan. Do I see GnR in concert now? It is only Axel Rose with no names now. Or do I go see Velvet Revolver which is the rest of the band along with Scott Weiland? Rock and Roll bands have always been fluid with members coming and going. As ticket prices rise when do we say enough is enough? If we are expected to pay top dollar to see a group shouldn't we demand that the group perform? Not have backups or roadies or whomever sub for the members of the group. It is insulting for some bands/artists to think that one name or names is enough to justify paying top dollar to see a concert. And with concerts being the main source of income in the new world order of the music industry maybe it is time that the fans let the artists know what we expect. And if we don't get what we expect they might as well pack up their instruments and go home...