I’ve been a fan of Tom Petty for a long time, both because of his music and because of his image as a rebel willing to flaunt the current rock conventions.
So, when the announcement came out the other day that Petty would be playing the Rock and Madison Square Garden, I was intrigued.
But the announcement came with something a bit surprising. Petty would be selling $40 memberships to his fan club that would allow members access to a presale.
This isn’t an unusual strategy – U2 did the same thing on the Vertigo tour – but it struck me as a bit hypocritical of Petty because he’d written a pretty pointed lyrics on The Last DJ that left me believing that Petty was different than the other big bands out there. The song, “Money Becomes King,” tells the story of a rocker (Johnny) who is distanced from his audience through the corporate marketing machine, a story of an industry that had lost its soul. It is both a romantic and angry song, one that mourns for a lost time of innocence, “a time when everything / Wasn’t up for sale.”
Johnny was a pure rocker, in Petty’s telling, who excited the passions of his young fans, who always could scrape the necessary cash together for some tickets.
But then money became king and “everything got bigger” and “they’d double the price of tickets.” Johnny now “lip-synched / His new lite-beer commercial” to a new corporate crowd.
They sat in golden circles
And waiters served them wine
And talked through all the music
And to John paid little mind
Petty was singing of the evils of corporate sponsorship and the new paradigm that created a special class of ticket buyers. Petty was a man who was a friend of the kids in the “nosebleeds,” who identified with them.
Five years ago, you could still get Petty tickets for a modest $50. Two years later, his tickets in Atlantic City were going for more than $150. Now he wants us to buy $40 so we can get a shot at decent seats. Why doesn’t that sit well with me?
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Hank Kalet 