Live & Kicking the Bucket

by Will 'The Cranky Music Man' Golightly

There's nothing like live music: the sights, the sounds, the smells. And what about the smoke machines? The cavernous acoustics, crappy t-shirts, lack of parking? It's where music truly comes alive. Even if it's just a backing tape for stars to lip-sync and dance along to. It's summertime, when the movie studios pull out their blockbusters and record labels send their moneymakers on the road. And few have made so much money as Diana Ross and the Supremes.

Unfortunately, the band on the road this summer is the Supremes in name only. The two other women singing with Ross both joined the group after she left at the beginning of the seventies. In fact, they were never even in the Supremes at the same time; they are three virtual strangers travelling across the country. The phrase that springs to mind is "sold out", but I'm not talking about tickets.

The tour is routinely playing to half-full arenas. Outside Detroit, Motown's home, barely half the seats were filled. In Fort Lauderdale, only 6,000 tickets were sold for an 18,000 capacity building. The fans are sending a message that many oldies acts had better pay attention to. Not to mention that the cheapest seat in the house costs $40. The most expensive? Over $250.

Speaking of Diana Ross, Michael Jackson found himself in court recently for doing what Ms. Ross is surely thinking right now: canceling concerts. Last New Year's Eve, Jackson planned to play at midnight in Sydney, Australia; he would then jet over to Honolulu, where he would usher in a second New Year on the other side of the International Date Line. Clever, isn't it? Except that he bailed at the last moment, claiming to have work to do in the studio.

Three years ago was the last time Jackson released a single, and it barely cracked the Billboard Hot 100. Instead of trying to build a giant amusement park in Warsaw devoted to himself (no, really), perhaps he should have prepared for these two shows. Marcel Avram has been Jackson's concert promoter since the seventies, but that didn't keep him from suing his star client for $21.2 million over the breach of contract. Jackson seems not to have understood that the $1million advance Avram paid him implied that the shows would go on.

Two people who couldn't be less similar are also having cancellation problems. The improbably named Leann Rhimes has a strained vocal cord, and her doctor has told her to rest her voice for a few months. That puts the kibosh on her 30-date tour, originally planned for July through August. And Ol' Dirty Bastard can't be a part of the Wu-Tang Clan's tour, suspiciously scheduled for July-August also (they must not share an audience with Rhimes). You may have been living under a rock for the last few years, but ODB has had some legal troubles. Arrested or tried for wearing body armor (yes, that is an offence), making terrorist threats (at the House of Blues-honestly!), possession of crack, being drunk (thus violating parole), shoplifting a pair of sneakers, and missing court dates. In his defense, that's an awful lot of court appearances to keep straight. Maybe he should have shoplifted a Palm Pilot.

And finally, Limp Bizkit's free tour has hit some snags. It was planned to start on July 4, but that has been bumped to July 11. And the other dates and locations they announced months ago? They are all tentative, we are told. I suppose one way to keep the costs of a non-profit tour down is to avoid actually booking any dates in advance. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the sponsor of this free tour is none other than Napster, Inc., a company clearly disgusted at the thought of making money.