Showtime: Rock legends to cross limits with mega-concert

NEW YORK: Since the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll, promoters have strived to create the ultimate festival, delivering the perfect lineup and atmosphere that will live on in fan lore. This weekend will mark what will likely become the highest-grossing music festival of all time, as six acts who form rock’s canon, namely The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Roger Waters, The Who, Bob Dylan and Neil Young will play in the desert of southern California.

Called Desert Trip, the three-day concert starts on Friday  to be repeated with an identical schedule the following weekend. It is driven by an unstated question: When will fans have the chance to see the acts again? While the rock greats at Desert Trip are active and appear in good health, all of them are septuagenarians with the sole exception of Stones’ guitarist Ronnie Wood, who is a youthful 69. The concert is set to draw 150,000 people over the two weekends.

The Who in 1965 spoke for baby boomers with the anthem My Generation and may be the first to bow out as the group has said its ongoing tour will be the last. For wonkish music fans, Desert Trip will be a deep historic experience, bringing together both The Rolling Stones and McCartney of The Beatles – the two British mega-bands that defined rock in the 1960s with their rival visions.

Desert Trip will also mark the first time that McCartney and Dylan have shared a bill after years of off-stage encounters, most famously in 1964 at a New York hotel, where the folk icon was said to have introduced The Fab Four to marijuana, the effects of which were musically evident.

While young revellers have driven a boom in festivals, Desert Trip has tapped into a more senior audience, so much that online detractors have dubbed it ‘Oldchella.’ The event sold tickets for up to $1,599 for three-day reserved seats with access to a premium lounge. It is also offering special dining packages with food and drink from leading California restaurants and bars. “It’s kind of setting a new boundary for how much an audience will absorb in terms of the ticket price and what people are willing to pay for the finer things in life,” said Gary Bongiovanni, President and Editor in Chief of the live-music industry site Pollstar.

Few would contest that Desert Trip’s six acts are among the most influential in rock. Together, they have grossed more than $3.1 billion in ticket sales since 2000, according to Pollstar’s data. The Rolling Stones, McCartney and Waters lead the pack and will be Desert Trip’s late-evening performers, putting the other three in the rare position of opening acts.

But Desert Trip has raised inevitable questions of who from the rock pantheon is missing. One absence is hard-rock pioneers Led Zeppelin, whose key members Robert Plant and Jimmy Page have not played together since a 2007 benefit in London that set a record for ticket demand.

“It’s amazing that the rock ‘n’ rollers who are playing youth music – that’s how it started out, youth music – are septuagenarians who are playing to gigantic crowds of people over the age of 40. It isn’t what anyone expected to happen,” added Bongiovanni.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 7^th, 2016.

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