Not Yet Post Democracy Joshua Vaughan: normalize seeing perfectly acceptable bands with 3-4 good albums at county fairs 15 years after their arena era again.

as someone who would fight tooth & nail to put attack & release / brothers era black keys very very high in the rock contribution pantheon in the last 25 years I think I can fairly suggest maybe it’s just that their recent output has been a huge overproduced bummer I have no interest in seeing live

I interviewed booking agents, tour managers, and other experts about the Black Keys debacle and why some high-profile arena tours are struggling to sell tickets right now. New piece for Stereogum:

The Curious Case Of The Underselling Arena Tourswww.stereogum.com It's not just the Black Keys. Why are so many big tours selling poorly?

I also like el Camino, but this latest is just so bland and bad and if I recall they were one of the groups that got very defensive about people who suggested "selling out" should maybe still be a thing after their music over-saturated the market

hell I could even get cautiously on board with turn blue, it was fine enough. I don’t expect nonstop plateau albums. but shit the downward slide is so hard to not hear when you have the whole picture in mind over ten years

Turn Blue really grew on me over time even if it was a step down, but they've just been kind of mediocre since.

"Rock Bands from my college years that haven't lost the juice" uh maybe QotSA? Vampire Weekend's recent had a solid start even if it never went anywhere.

the thing is that most of these bands are still pretty good, they’re just not, like, arena good anymore (and a lot of them never really were)

a black keys ballroom show would probably be fucking lit, but i’m not going to see them at moda

normalize seeing perfectly acceptable bands with 3-4 good albums at county fairs 15 years after their arena era again.

At my freshman orientation in college, there was a concert featuring Biz Markee and Duncan Sheik. Sheik was 27 years old at the time, only 2 years removed from his "big hit," and was already hitting the "free concerts in the middle of nowhere for teenagers" stage of his career.

Yeah, Duncan was always 'okay' but man, you got to see Biz!

Maybe the Goo Goo Dolls are a stretch at “perfectly acceptable” but they put on a fun show at the San Diego County Fair a couple years ago.

Goo Goo Dolls are a totally acceptable band afaik, and a good show is good show.

I paid 20 bucks to see ZZ Top at rinky dink small town heritage fest in the late aughts and it was one of the best shows I have absolutely ever seen