Up The Creek Without A Paddle

Was just on Ticketmaster deciding if I wanted to pay $265 for a halfway back seat in the arena bowl for an upcoming Eagles concert. That was better than a $600-something seat closer on the floor. Or $130 up in the nosebleed where you get twice the concert (hear it once, then with echo hear it again).

I declined the opportunity. Love some of the music, but not $600, or $200 times two plus parking/gas, maybe a chicken finger and Coke. Is this really where we are?

Garth Brooks is playing the new Bass Pro Thunder Ridge Nature Arena near Branson, MI on October 1st. Ticketmaster is charging $98.95, all-inclusive. I would pay that, and might.

I don’t have a dog in the hunt. They can charge what they like. Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel have a higher average than the Eagles. I have voted no to crazy prices, sadly.

It’s way out of control. It’s like watching PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow,” and people paying $3,000 for an ugly old copper pot owned by a land baron. I don’t get it. Should music just be a rich, elite thing?

Has anyone really looked at the ratings for network TV? The audience has left the building this summer. Sunday night used to be huge. The 18-49 demo rating was less than a one share the other night for each of the networks. A major national network with under a million in the audience in prime time. Wow! If something now gets 5/4 million, celebrations erupt. It’s like the lack of waiter staff at restaurants, the ones that worked there pre-Covid split. The audience in Covid went to the streaming services and never came back.

The network TV audience cut the cord due to 200 bucks a month cable and went to streaming. Free TV is a thing of the past. Who saw that coming 20 maybe even 10 years ago?

Does anyone have a way to get free TV at home? Have an antenna up? I bet the answer is very few. Thinking back to the days of free TV, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The change happened fast.

How about a portable radio? I might be able to find one, maybe. Radio listening is done in the vehicle or on the app. We have an old radio console in the den, and it gets a talk station on FM. The radio gets used a few times a week in midday.

The point of all this is we went to bed one night and radio got rid of its live announcers and entertainers. Country music became Pop music, AM and FM just went automated. But, with 20 minutes plus of commercials every hour, streaming services with no commercials are simply less hassle.

All that can be done now is adapt. Is podcasting a fad like crypto currency? Maybe it’s filling a void radio is not filling.

I listen to radio on apps, and in the SUV. I have not used the AM band since the death of Rush Limbaugh. Apple Music has convinced me to stop buying digital singles. I think of a song, old or new, and it plays. You get all the music all the time for 10 bucks a month.

Free radio was great too. We are paying a lot of money now to have no commercials and get a wider variety of choices and programs.

As Country music decides what it is, the social media space and the technology evolve. Are award shows in or out of style?

Is Morgan Wallen still fighting the Country music gatekeepers? Are women singers in or out of style right now? My favorite new Country act is Lainey Wilson. Is “Monarch,” the new FOX Country show, going to be real, or “Yellowstone” with guitars?

Phone’s ringing, asking me to meet someone at the TRAIN station. If you watch “Yellowstone,” you will get that reference.