Increasingly common cancellations of concert tour dates may be demonstrating that live music is in a funk and at least one promoter is wondering why the media is taking such pleasure in its downfall.
Folk rockers Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel endured sluggish sales for tour dates including a gig in Vancouver planned for GM Place earlier this year. The two 69-year-olds then cancelled their tour indefinitely citing Garfunkel’s vocal peresis as the reason.
Promoters of the 2010 Lilith Fair tour announced in July that 10 tour dates scheduled for later this year have been cancelled. Those concerts were set for Salt Lake City, Montreal, Raleigh, Charlotte, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Birmingham, Austin, Houston and Dallas.
Lilith Fair highlights female artists and has struggled to keep top talent onboard this time around. Stars such as Norah Jones and Kelly Clarkson backed out of some tour dates.
Nearly 10,000 people viewed Lilith Fair on Canada Day at Ambleside Park in West Vancouver.
Promoters such as co-founder and Nettwerk Music Group CEO Terry McBride had originally intended for the show to take place in a larger Pitt Meadows venue but sluggish ticket sales prompted the change.
“I have been amazed at the feeding frenzy of negativity by the media and bloggers around Lilith Fair,” McBride blogged June 29. “Such attacks are normally seen in the theatre of partisan politics that have poisoned western society.”
McBride then asked bloggers: “What drives the passion to write negative and speculative commentary on what is a socially positive and giving festival? Why this desire to hurt and demean the efforts of thousands of people whom [sic] simply want to give back and make our society a better place?”