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• 2019  ( 25 )
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• 2009 Reunion Tour  ( 1 )
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Bad Company

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“Peter Grant had tears in his eyes. He gave a little speech and then said, ‘Now get the f**k out of here and knock them dead’”: how Bad Company‘s classic debut album won over the US and turned them into the next Led Zeppelin

Spooky houses, supergroups and the patronage of Led Zeppelin – how Bad Company became one of Britain’s biggest musical exports in the 70s

Perhaps there was such a thing as magic after all: magic in the house, in the equipment, in the runes… 

Headley Grange, Hampshire, spring 1974. former Free dummer Simon Kirke walks into the run-down, three‑storey former poorhouse where Led Zeppelin had recorded parts of Led Zep III and  IV , where Robert Plant had sat and written the lyrics to Stairway To Heaven inside a single day, and the first thing he claps eyes on is Bonzo’s giant drum kit set up in the entrance hall, plastered in its runic symbols. “Fuck me,” he thinks. “This is great!”

Call it magic, call it luck, call it serendipity, call it what you like, but there was something going on; something smoothing their path, clearing the way. Look at how they got here, after all. Kirke and his pal Paul Rodgers , the ‘country boy’ (read: not from swinging London), half of the late and not-yet-as-lamented-as-they-would-be Free; Mick Ralphs from Mott The Hoople , a man writing songs too good for the singer of his band to sing; and ex-King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell, a fellow who took life as easy as his wide smile. They came together in the kind of semi‑planned, semi-fortuitous way that mitigated against the label of ‘supergroup’ (and its usual connotations of musicianly self-indulgence) that was quickly applied and still sticks. 

They were at the Grange because Led Zeppelin were supposed to be there – all of their gear was, and so was Ronnie Lane’s mobile recording truck – but John Paul Jones had come down with the flu and so there were 10 days of expensive studio time lying fallow while Jonesy sorted himself out. And as Bad Company shared a manager with Led Zeppelin, well…

And that was another story, another case of things sliding into place. Peter Grant, the heavyweight ex-wrestler, who was becoming the emblematic rock manager of the age. Part entrepreneur, part gangland overlord, he was the man the bullish Rodgers had been encouraged to phone by Free’s former tour manager, Clive Coulson. Grant had arranged to come and see the new band rehearse at a village hall in Surrey. They’d waited all afternoon for him to turn up, only to discover that Grant, wanting to catch an unmediated earful of what they did, had waited outside to listen to them rehearse. What he heard had convinced him to take them on. 

With their material written and ready to go, it wasn’t the big man’s most difficult decision to pick up the phone and offer them the Grange once Jones went down with that bug. 

Had Bad Company cut their first album anywhere else, it would still have had the songs and it would still have contained their essence, but the Grange offered something else: a strange sense of place that came in part from its history. It was the scene of a famous riot by its inmates in the 1830s, and something of their anger and despair must have seeped into the walls – and also from the bands that had brought their own peculiar energies to it. Many years later, in 2009, Jimmy Page revisited the Grange for the film It Might Get Loud and admitted to being overwhelmed by the memories and emotions that came rushing back to greet him. 

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Then there were the odd happenings that come with a building of that age and condition. Rodgers later recalled a picture on one of the staircases, a landscape painting of sheep that somehow transformed into wolves. There were the damp walls and the creaking floorboards and the things that went bump in the night. All of those indefinable elements are somewhere in the record, just as they are in the albums that Led Zeppelin made there, and in the subconscious dreamings of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway , the record that Genesis would write at Headley Grange just a few weeks after Bad Company had left. 

The band weren’t just digging the vibes of the Grange – they were becoming intoxicated by the new chemistry they were creating together. During the Free years, especially towards the end, Rogers and Kirke had been hostage to the addictions and insecurities that were to destroy and then end the life of their guitarist Paul Kossoff . His shimmering brilliance was symptomatically diminished to the point where, before one of their final shows, Kirke was on his knees in the dressing room trying to show Kossoff the chords to All Right Now , a song he had played hundreds, if not thousands of times. Rogers, who was equally as gifted as the guitarist – and arguably more so – now forged a new partnership with Mick Ralphs, an entirely different character to the tortured Koss.

As Simon Kirke told Classic Rock , “You couldn’t have been further away from Paul Kossoff than Mick Ralphs. I wasn’t interested in any more geniuses. Mick drank – of course he drank, he was from Hereford! – but he was great fun. And he brought Rodgers out of his shell. By the end of Free, Paul had his back to the audience; he didn’t want to know. Then Ralphs came along with his Max Wall impressions and the whole thing changed – and for the better. Paul really blossomed with Mick.”

It had been something of a coquettish courtship. Ralphs was still attached to Mott The Hoople when they met during a US tour, and Rodgers had his first post-Free band, Peace, although he was contemplating a solo record. All of that changed, though, once they had disentangled from their other partners. They were a perfect creative partnership, and one that fired right away: the first song that Ralphs showed Rodgers was Can’t Get Enough . The guitarist might have dismissed it, with some misplaced modesty, as “a three-chord bash”, but it was exactly the kind of song that Rodgers’ unsurpassable voice could fully inhabit. Kirke retained his effortless swing behind the kit and Boz Burrell proved that his playing was as easy-going as he was. 

Deep within its grooves was the essence of the band to come. While Mott went off on a journey into 70s glam , Ralphs had found his home. He played Rodgers Ready For Love , another of the tunes he’d written – and actually recorded in this case – with Mott The Hoople. Once again, when the other Bad Company ingredients were mixed in, it emerged as a solid-gold staple of the classic rock sound; one of the pillars on which the genre would be built. 

Rodgers had rediscovered the instincts that were beginning to desert him as Free fractured. “I found out they [Mott] had already recorded Ready For Love ,” he told Mick Wall, “and I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t care…’ It was such a good song and a good vehicle for my voice. A great composition. One of Mick’s finest, actually; possibly his best.”

In Rodgers’ effortless voice, Ralphs’ songs had their ideal interpreter. There’s a yearning in the way he sings them that carries across the decades, a sweet sadness that gives the songs the common touch. 

Can’t Get Enough was the first tune the band laid down, and it became a blueprint that would last throughout their career – at least the parts when Rodgers was fronting them. It’s hard to find any moment when he over-sings – his judgement and musicality are immaculate, and the band stay out of his way. The kind of showboating that blighted some of the bloated rock giants who would perish a few years later when punk arrived was entirely absent with Bad Company. What strikes the listener even now is how straightforward they are. It’s probably why the songs still sound so good on the radio stations of America that play them to this day. 

Any record with those two songs on would have launched a band, but Bad Company had begun recording at the optimum moment. They had more material ready to go, and they were tight, rehearsed, seasoned. They didn’t need a producer – they weren’t Pink Floyd , after all – and they were experienced enough to know which parts of the songs needed nailing to the floor and which could kick back and allow a little of the Grange in. 

Seagull , the simple and beautiful acoustic tune that would close the record, had come together when Rodgers’ lyric and melody were joined by Ralphs’ chorus arrangement. The song was completed with Rodgers sitting outside in part of the Headley Grange gardens at night, a vibe that chimed perfectly with the atmosphere of the tune. It was a trick the singer repeated on the album’s title song, the epic Bad Company , although he channelled other aspects of the night into that one. 

The themes of the band ran through the song too. They had battled to keep the name when various marketers had suggested it was too negative for so freewheeling a group, but Rodgers was set on the imagery. He’d picked it up from a recently released Robert Benton Western called Bad Company , in which Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown played a couple of draft dodgers from the American Civil War in an obvious allegory for Vietnam, which was the lightning-rod conflict of the era. The three chords that introduce the song are also in the movie’s soundtrack. Rodgers won the fight and the song opened side two of the record. It’s odd to think now that it might not have been there.

“Too much clutter makes a record sound small,” Mick Ralphs would say many years later, and the rest of Bad Company lives by that credo. Rock Steady , Movin’ On , Don’t Let Me Down – all songs that could be played by any covers band worth their salt, and yet what sets them apart is the chemistry of their originators. 

After 10 days of work at the Grange, they had a record. They also had a lot to live up to. Peter Grant had told them to worry about the music and he would take care of the rest. Eschewing the ‘no singles’ policy that was forging the Zeppelin legend, he led them out with Can’t Get Enough , a song that rocketed to the top of the US charts and made the album one of the most anticipated of 1974. 

When it came, it was dressed in an austere black-and-white sleeve, the band’s name (abbreviated to just Bad Co.) running from the bottom left-hand corner to the right-hand top. It contrasted with the excess of the decade that surrounded it, where everyone from Zeppelin and The Who to Pink Floyd, Genesis and Bowie were gelling music, image and artwork into an aesthetic whole. Instead, Bad Company made the simplest of statements, one that pointed the way for the likes of AC/DC’s Back In Black and Metallica’s Black Album (and, yes, Spinal Tap’s Smell The Glove , a joke that Bad Company in a way set up). 

As a suggestion of the band’s music, it was perfect, and when the record came out, an audience was waiting. It was Top Five in the UK right away, and within a couple of months it topped the US charts. Grant, with typical showmanship, kept the information from the band until they were just about to step on stage in Boston for the final show of their first American tour, when he led them into an anteroom and pulled back a sheet concealing four gold albums, one for each member of the band.

“He had tears in his eyes,” said Simon Kirke, “and so did we. He gave a lovely little speech and then he said, ‘Now get the fuck out of here and knock them dead…’” 

It was a deserved triumph for them all: the four members of the band had emerged from the shadows of their past, and Grant had proved that he was more than a one-act wonder. Eight songs, tight and chilled, and with some magic inside them somewhere, were enough to clear the decks and give them all a fresh start. 

Jon Hotten is an English author and journalist. He is best known for the books  Muscle: A Writer's Trip Through a Sport with No Boundaries  and  The Years of the Locust . In June 2015 he published a novel,  My Life And The Beautiful Music  (Cape), based on his time in LA in the late 80s reporting on the heavy metal scene. He was a contributor to Kerrang! magazine from 1987–92 and currently contributes to Classic Rock . Hotten is the author of the popular cricket blog, The Old Batsman , and since February 2013 is a frequent contributor to The Cordon cricket blog at Cricinfo. His most recent book, Bat, Ball & Field , was published in 2022. 

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Bad Company is an English rock supergroup founded in 1973, consisting of two former Free band members — singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke — as well as Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. Peter Grant, who, in years prior, was a key component of fellow British rock band Led Zeppelin's rise to fame, managed the band.

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Bad Company tour dates 2024

Bad Company is currently touring across 1 country and has 1 upcoming concert.

The final concert of the tour will be at ART Stalker in Berlin.

Currently touring across

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ART Stalker

Past concerts

Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena

T-Mobile Arena

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Recent tour reviews

I LOVE BAD COMPANY!!!!

I have seen A lot of concerts and this one was by far the best I had seen. Paul Rogers you are so multi talented and a voice of a King..

You as a band only get better and better. I seen them in Lincoln CA.

Thanks S.B.:)

Report as inappropriate

Show started on time and they came out hot and rocking. The show was up tempo and the band sounded great. Paul’s voice was strong and awesome, music was spot on And fans were kept standing all night. Bad Company still tops for pure rock and roll.

Well, I have seen BAD COMPANY last year @ the Fantasy Springs Resort and Casino and no doubt about it that Paul Rodgers is one amazing singer and his band is truly remarkable. This is perhaps the third time I have seen a concert in an open setting. The only problem is that you have to walk half a mile to get to the venue. I ended up listening to 5 songs and almost did not make it for the bus that was to take me there was about to leave. From where I was dropped, here comes the walking a half mile that felt like it was a never ending one and to top it all, I forgot to bring with my lighter and had to ask people a favor if they had one. The weather was great and I was able to find the right spot to watch this awesome band. The highlight of them all is that when Paul introduced his grandchildren to all of us jam packed crowd. With that being said it reminded me of my grandchildren too. A great concert and I will never stop watching BAD COMPANY every time they are here in the desert. The lesson of this message is that if you are watching a concert in an open area like PGA, make sure you make it on time and give yourself an extra hour for parking and walking. More power to your music Paul and BAD COMPANY. Hope to see you again next year. God bless BAD COMPANY.

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Bad Company To Tour U.S. With David Lee Roth

Bad Company and opening-act the David Lee Roth Band are preparing to embark on a tour of U.S. arenas and amphitheaters.

The 32-date trek begins Saturday (May 15) at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Tampa, Fla., according to Ana Adame, Bad Company's publicist. The tour, which includes a pay-per-view concert May 21 at Hard Rock Live in Orlando, Fla., ends Aug. 8 at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles.

Bad Company's original lineup hasn't toured since singer/songwriter Paul Rodgers left the band in 1982 to pursue a solo career. The Original Bad Company Anthology, a greatest-hits package of music written and released between 1974 and 1982, came out in March.

Rodgers, 49, called the album the "soundtrack of people's lives." "It's very gratifying," he said. "People come up to us all the time and say, 'Our first baby was conceived to "Feel Like Makin' Love" (RealAudio excerpt) in the back of a Chevy.' "

The Original Bad Company Anthology is a two-CD set stocked with 29

of the band's most popular album cuts and four new songs. The older titles

read like an afternoon drive down the avenues of classic-rock radio:

"Can't Get Enough," "Ready For Love," "Bad Company"

(RealAudio excerpt), "Seagull," "Good Lovin' Gone Bad," "Shooting Star,"

"Silver, Blue and Gold" and "Rock and Roll Fantasy."

Drummer Simon Kirke said the reunion grew out of a meeting he had with guitarist Mick Ralphs, bassist Boz Burrell and Rodgers last year to renew the band's catalog with Elektra, its label. Kirke described the mood as tense at first, but he said eventually it led to plans for an album and tour.

"The meeting turned out to be so friendly that we decided to honor the record company," he said. "It was kind of like a little piece of bait dangled in front of us."

The band is touring as the "Original" Bad Company because of an ongoing legal fight with Brian Howe, who served as the group's lead singer from 1986 to 1994 (after it re-formed following Rodgers' departure).

Kirke and the band's lawyers maintain that Howe bills himself as Bad Company, violating a written agreement with the band not to do so.

Howe's manager, Vincent Wolanin, said in April that Howe has never willingly violated the agreement, blaming any confusion on individual promoters. He also accused Kirke and Ralphs of professional jealously in pursuing trademark infringement lawsuits against Howe.

Rodgers held the original copyright to the band's name, leaving its use to the discretion of Warner Bros. (Elektra's parent company) when he left the group.

"I left to live a normal life for a change. It didn't last long," Rodgers said. He formed the Firm with Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page in 1984 and recorded two albums. He has performed as a solo act since the late '80s.

Anthology 's four new songs were written last year by the reunited band. The titles fit in perfectly with those from the band's 1970s catalog: "Hammer of Love," "Ain't it Good," "Tracking Down a Runaway" and "Hey, Hey."

Roth formed his new band last year, scoring a minor radio success with the song "Slam Dunk." Kirke said he is looking forward to working with him.

"I heard he's a lot of fun, that he's a total nutcase," the drummer said. "I am a fan of his whole persona."

Bad Company Tour Dates:

May 15-16; Tampa, Fla.; Ruth Eckerd Hall

May 19; Pompano Beach, Fla.; Pompano Amphitheater

May 21; Orlando, Fla.; Hard Rock Live

June 23; Winston-Salem, N.C.; Lawrence Joel Complex

June 24; Washington, D.C.; MCI Center

June 26; State College, Pa.; Bryce Jordan Center, University Park

June 27; Atlantic City, N.J.; Trump Marina

June 30; Mansfield, Mass.; Tweeter Center for the Performing Arts

July 1; Bethlehem, Pa.; Stabler Arena

July 3; Philadelphia, Pa.; Mann Music Center

July 4; Darien, N.Y.; Darien Lake Arena

July 6; Scranton, Pa.; Montage Mountain Amphitheater

July 8; Tinley Park, Ill.; New World Music Theater

July 9; Detroit, Mich.; Joe Louis Arena

July 10; East Troy, Wis.; Alpine Valley Music Theatre

July 13; St. Louis, Mo.; Kiel Center

July 14; Indianapolis, Ind.; Market Square Arena

July 15; Greenville, S.C.; Bi-Lo Center

July 17; Dallas, Texas; Reunion Arena

July 20; Englewood, Colo.; Fiddler's Green

July 24; Spokane, Wash.; Spokane Area

July 25; Boise, Idaho; BSU Pavilion

July 28; Portland, Ore.; Rose Garden Arena

July 30; Reno, Nev.; Lawlor Events Center

July 31; Las Vegas, Nev.; Hard Rock Hotel -- The Joint

Aug. 3; San Jose, Calif.; San Jose Arena

Aug. 4; Sacramento, Calif.; Arco Arena

Aug. 6; Salt Lake City, Utah; Delta Center

Aug. 7; Phoenix, Ariz.; Desert Sky Amphitheater

Aug. 8; Los Angeles, Calif.; Greek Theater

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Arsenal Women set to embark on first-ever United States tour for pre-season preparation

Women's soccer, arsenal women's team is gearing up for their inaugural united states tour, marking a pivotal step in their pre-season preparations with friendly matches against prominent rivals.

Arsenal's Beth Mead

Arsenal Women's team is poised to venture on its maiden tour in the United States this summer, marking a significant milestone in its pre-season preparations.

Scheduled from August 15 to 26, the team will establish its base in Washington D.C. for a series of friendly matches against prominent opponents.

Arsenal Women announced their pre-season tour will take place in Washington D.C. from August 15-26

Among these matchups, encounters are slated against the National Women’s Soccer League outfit, Washington Spirit, and fellow Barclays Women’s Super League contender, Chelsea.

The fixtures are set to unfold at Audi Field on Sunday, August 18, and Sunday, August 25, respectively, while a comprehensive training camp will be hosted at George Mason University throughout the duration of the visit.

This tour follows the footsteps of Arsenal Men’s US Tour, which spanned across Los Angeles and Philadelphia from July 21 to 31. Notably, tickets for marquee clashes against Manchester United and Liverpool are still available for purchase.

Manager Jonas Eidevall and his squad's transatlantic journey for pre-season activities ensues a triumphant expedition to Australia, which culminated the 2023/24 season.

Arsenal Women's inaugural match in Australia witnessed an impressive turnout, with 42,120 spectators witnessing a victory against A-League All Stars Women at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne. A

dditionally, over 5,000 supporters graced an open training session at AAMI Park in Melbourne during the team's visit.

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The Government Takes On Ticketmaster

Explaining a case that could reshape the multibillion-dollar live entertainment industry..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

Hi, everybody, it’s Sabrina. Before we start today, we wanted to invite you to something special. The Tribeca Festival is starting a brand new annual gala to celebrate excellence in audio. For this, the inaugural year, they’ve chosen to celebrate “The Daily.” We know you, our incredible audience, live all over the world, but we’d like to invite you to join us.

The gala is in New York, on June 9, at 5:00 pm. You can get all the details and buy tickets at tribecafil.com/thedaily. That’s tribecafilm.com/thedaily. I’ll be there, Michael too, along with a bunch of us from the show. Mo Rocca is going to host it. So if you’re in the area or you’re visiting, we’d love to see you there. OK, on with today’s show. From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is “The Daily.”

I have got a bone to pick, as usual, with Ticketmaster.

The biggest problem that I have right now is not getting tickets to the Era Tour.

Loading, loading, loading. Want them so bad. Want them so bad. Want them so bad. Nope.

I looked at my account and the tickets are gone.

Over the past few years, few companies have provoked as much anger —

I cannot afford $1,500 tickets.

— among music fans.

Oh, my god.

— as Ticketmaster.

I literally hate Ticketmaster. Like, there is no company I think I hate more than Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror and say, I’m the problem. It’s me.

Last week, the Department of Justice announced it was taking the company to court. Today, my colleague David McCabe, on how the government’s case could reshape America’s multi-billion dollar live music industry.

It’s Thursday, May 30.

So, David, good to have you back. You have become a beloved guest at “The Daily,” because the government keeps bringing these huge antitrust cases and we keep turning to you to explain them.

Well, it’s a pleasure to be back. And today I have a question for you, which is, what was the first concert you ever went to?

Oh, my gosh. The first concert I ever went to? Oh, my god, I think it was Van Halen in the 1980s, which maybe is before you were born.

You know, no comment, but that’s a pretty good first concert.

And the case that we’re here to talk about today is actually all about shows like a Van Halen concert in 1980.

OK, I’m ready. So let’s get into it. This case, as you and I both know, is about Ticketmaster. So tell us about this case.

So anyone who attends concerts regularly or even irregularly probably knows about Ticketmaster. It’s kind of the ubiquitous digital box office. And those people are probably also familiar with the ubiquitous fan complaints about Ticketmaster — that the company puts high fees that they don’t entirely explain onto tickets, that tickets will sell out really fast during these sort of frantic pre-sales for tours, and that the website doesn’t always work very well.

And probably the most infamous Ticketmaster incident in recent memory was a couple of years ago when the pre-sale began for Taylor Swift’s massive Eras Tour. And fans got locked out, couldn’t get tickets and were absolutely furious. And it really put in the spotlight the power of this company over the ability to buy a ticket to a live music event.

So the DOJ is pointing the finger at this company for all this consumer angst at Ticketmaster.

Well, and when you say this company, it’s not just Ticketmaster. It’s the company that owns Ticketmaster, a company called Live Nation Entertainment. We’ll say Live Nation for short. And it’s a giant company. And to think about just how gigantic and how expansive Live Nation is, I think it’s helpful to think about the fan experience of going to a concert.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It starts with buying a ticket. And maybe you buy a group of tickets for you and your friends. And then one of your friends can’t make it. They’ve got other plans. You resell their tickets so you can make your money back. And then the day of the show you go, it’s this big production. It’s at a venue. Someone has booked the artist to appear. You go, you buy a beer, you have a good time.

Live Nation is involved in many parts of that process, and that starts with being a major concert promoter. They’re the one putting it on, arranging the event. They’re also selling the tickets through Ticketmaster. Sometimes they’re also involved in reselling the tickets when your friend can’t make it.

And not only that, they actually sometimes manage the artists. And they own or operate the venues where the show is happening. So even down to that beer you’re drinking to enjoy with the show, they might be involved in picking the person who sells that beer to you.

So, basically, they’re everywhere.

They’re everywhere. And the Justice Department says that’s a big part of the problem, that its power is bad for fans.

Good morning. Earlier today, the Department of Justice —

And we really heard that come through at the press conference last week that the Justice Department held to announce this case —

People always remember the first time that they were transformed by live music.

— where Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, really personalized this issue.

I still remember, as a senior in college, going to a Bonnie Raitt concert and seeing a —

He told this story about going to a Bonnie Raitt concert in college.

Merrick Garland did?

Yeah, Merrick Garland did.

I don’t think of Merrick Garland and Bonnie Raitt together in the same sentence.

Well, apparently, in college he attended a Bonnie Raitt show. And the thing he highlighted was that the opener was a young Bruce Springsteen.

We all knew that we had just seen the future of rock and roll.

And in that story, the attorney general seems to be getting at two important threads of this case. The first is that concerts are formative for the people who attend them. And the second is that concerts are an important way that artists reach their fans. That young Bruce Springsteen went on to now be one of the biggest touring artists in the world.

The Justice Department filed this lawsuit on behalf of fans who should be able to go to concerts without a monopoly standing in their way. We have filed this lawsuit on behalf of artists who should be able —

And so the Justice Department is responding here to a feeling that Live Nation, this giant company, has become a gatekeeper for both artists and fans. And that has allowed it to pay artists less sometimes, but also charge fans those fees that they’re so mad about.

It is time for fans and artists to stop paying the price for Live Nation’s monopoly. Thank you.

So help us understand how things have gotten to this point, where Live Nation is so powerful that the DOJ feels the need to sue them.

Well, this company has a long history of tangling with the Justice Department. And that really starts in 2009, when Live Nation and Ticketmaster announced that they were going to merge. And this merger, this big corporate deal, will marry Live Nation’s concert promotion business, the business of putting on shows, with Ticketmaster’s experience as an online ticketing platform.

And the Justice Department — a big part of its job is looking at corporate mergers to figure out if they will substantially lessen competition in the economy. So the Justice Department reviews this merger, and in 2010 decides we will let this merger go through. But we do have some concerns that it might reduce competition in the industry of ticketing. And so we’re going to reach a legal settlement with Live Nation and Ticketmaster that puts conditions on the deal, that requires the company to sell some assets to kind of lessen its footprint. And so the merger goes through. And that creates the sort of modern day Live Nation, Ticketmaster combination.

So the government ultimately actually just lets it happen.

That’s right. They put conditions on the merger, but ultimately they let it go through. And the company continues to tangle with the Justice Department over the next 15 or so years. But mostly they keep getting bigger. They keep growing their footprint across this ecosystem that creates some of the biggest concert tours in the country.

So just how big has the company actually become? Give me some numbers.

Well, let’s start here. Every year, they sell about 600 million tickets.

600 million tickets? That’s more than the number of people in the United States of America.

Yeah. And that is a global number, but it’s a lot of tickets. Right? The Department of Justice estimates that in the United states, Live Nation controls about percent of ticketing to major venue concerts.

So that’s a big percentage. They also own or control, like, in excess of 250 venues, including a big percentage, the Justice Department says, of major amphitheaters, the kind of big outdoor concert venues that are ultimately kind of in between a nightclub and the size of a big football stadium. And they manage hundreds of artists. They have this direct relationship with artists. And so this company is wide and it is deep into this industry.

So ultimately, the Justice Department says that — and I’m going to quote here — it’s the, quote, “gatekeeper for delivery of nearly all live music in America today.”

OK, it’s big. But as we know from other DOJ cases — and this is something that you have taught me, David — the cases against Apple and Google, just being big is not in and of itself a problem.

That’s right. Where companies run afoul of the law is when they use their power as a monopoly against their competitors in order to stay powerful or get more powerful.

And the Justice Department says that Live Nation has built a complex machine to do just that.

We’ll be right back.

So what does the DOJ say that Live Nation is able to do because it is so big? How does it use its bigness?

So the most prominent allegation is that Live Nation uses its power as a concert promoter to entrench its power in ticketing. As a reminder, when you put together a concert, a promoter works with an artist to book the show. They book the show at a venue. And that venue, for all of its shows, has to choose a ticketing provider, a digital box office where people can buy their way into the shows.

And what the Justice Department is arguing here is that Live Nation is able to wield its big artists, the tours that it promotes, as a cudgel to force venues to use Ticketmaster, its ticketing service. So the Justice Department says that in an instance in which a venue switched away from using Ticketmaster, that Live Nation routed tours around that venue, which of course means less money for that venue and a problem for their business.

Interesting. So basically, Live Nation is saying, look, if you want Taylor Swift in your little amphitheater over there, you’re going to have to use Ticketmaster. It’s Ticketmaster or no Taylor Swift.

That is effectively the behavior the Justice Department is arguing has happened here. They’re saying that Live Nation does this in veiled ways and that, more importantly, it’s really understood by venues throughout the industry that if you don’t use Ticketmaster, that you really risk out on losing important Live Nation managed tours. And then once these venues do choose Ticketmaster, Live Nation locks them into these long, exclusive ticketing contracts, which can last for as long as 14 years.

14 years? That’s pretty long. What else is DOJ alleging that Live Nation has done?

Another thing the Justice Department says that Live Nation does is use its power as an owner of venues to get away with paying artists less money for their tours.

So how does that work?

Basically, the argument is that because Live Nation controls so many of certain types of venues, that there are instances in which an artist’s tour might largely be dominated by Live Nation owned venues. And the Justice Department is saying that Live Nation knows that artists don’t have a lot of other options for where to play their concerts and, as a result, is able to pay those artists less. Because there’s not competitive pressure when they’re booking those tours.

That seems pretty unfair to artists who would really benefit from other venues owned by other people competing for them.

And that’s exactly what the Justice Department is saying, that artists lose out, not just fans. And there’s a striking story in the complaint that I think crystallizes how the Justice Department sees these streams of power coming together.

And it concerns a concert, which the lawsuit doesn’t name, in 2021. My colleague Ben Sisario has reported that it was a Kanye West concert featuring Drake. It was a benefit show, and it was taking place at the LA Coliseum in Los Angeles.

One of the companies involved in putting on this show was a firm called TEG. They do promotion and ticketing of the kind that Live Nation does. And the government says that Live Nation saw this as a threat, that they saw this company TEG involved in this show, and they were worried about what it would mean for them, and that they then undertook steps to put pressure on TEG and make their life difficult in a couple of ways.

The first was that TEG had reached a deal to sell some tickets, according to the complaint, through StubHub. StubHub is a secondary resale market. You can buy tickets to shows when people aren’t going to use them.

Right, and competitor to Ticketmaster, right?

And competitor to Ticketmaster. And the Justice Department says that Live Nation found out about that and said, well, we have the exclusive ticketing contract for this venue. And so we will make sure that if you bought your ticket on StubHub, you won’t be allowed to come in to this show.

Really? Like, they couldn’t come into the concert?

Well, and ultimately, the complaint says that StubHub had to work with Ticketmaster to fulfill the tickets that had already been sold, that they stopped selling new tickets, and that hundreds of people who bought their tickets on StubHub didn’t get into the show.

That seems very unfair. Like, they bought a ticket.

Well, and according to the Justice Department, it didn’t stop there, that Live Nation used its industry connections to pressure an investor in TEG, this company that it viewed as a threat, and that it pushed that investor to pull back from its relationship with TEG, which obviously would have weakened this potential competitor.

So these are very strong armed tactics. What is the DOJ saying is the result of all of this? What does all of this amount to?

It says that all of this adds up to higher fees for consumers and a worse product, a worse quality ticketing experience when fans go to buy. Because Live Nation doesn’t have to compete with anyone. It doesn’t have to innovate in response to competitors. So, among other things, the Justice Department wants to break this company up, at the very least by separating Ticketmaster, the ticketing unit, the box office unit, from the rest of Live Nation that does all these other things — promotes concerts, owns venues, et cetera.

So in other words, go back to the way it was in the beginning.

Yeah, or as much as you can.

And why does that fix the problem?

Well, the Justice Department doesn’t say a lot on this point. But it’s clear that what they want to do with this lawsuit is disrupt this cycle where Live Nation’s power reinforces itself again, and again, and again.

And what does Live Nation say in response? I imagine they disagree with all of this.

They do. They’ve said a lot. And they start out by saying something that will be familiar to you, because other companies that have been accused of antitrust violations say it as well, which is that they don’t fit the profile of a monopoly, that their overall profit margins are lower than those of companies like Meta, or Apple, or Google, and that even if you look at Ticketmaster specifically, they take a smaller percentage of every sale than a lot of other digital platforms. So they say basically the numbers show that we don’t have the kind of power you would normally associate with a monopoly.

And then they say, listen, we know that there are things that fans don’t like about the ticketing experience. There may be fixes to those. But largely, it’s not Live Nation’s fault, they say. They say that artists generally set the prices they want people to pay for tickets.

Really? So artists themselves do it.

Right, that artists sign off on how much a ticket will cost to their shows.

And they also say that demand sometimes drives ticket prices up. If there are more people who want to see a show than there are seats or standing room to see that show, the prices will be higher. And finally, they say that there’s this kind of pernicious outside force of scalpers, people who resell tickets, that use bots to hoover up way more tickets than they could possibly use and then resell them at a higher price. And so they say that all of these things may contribute to a fan experience that people don’t like, but that it’s not necessarily Live Nation’s fault.

I mean, to me, this makes certain sense. I guess if you think of a Taylor Swift show and lots of people trying to buy tickets, one reason why those tickets are expensive is not necessarily because there’s something nefarious going on, but because lots of people want to buy tickets. And there’s a market, and supply and demand has a role here.

Well, and a clear question here that I have, that other people have asked, is how much does the Justice Department think ticket prices have gone up because of this alleged Live Nation monopoly? And the Justice Department hasn’t answered that question.

They haven’t disentangled it with all of the other stuff that’s around — market forces, everything?

That’s right. And there’s another element of Live Nation’s response that we should mention, which is that the company basically says this lawsuit is politically motivated, that this administration, the Biden administration, is bringing lawsuits that don’t hold a lot of water but are anti-business. That’s what Live Nation is saying.

I mean, it does sort of ring true in some sense. Right? This has been the tilt of this administration toward cracking down on big companies. The DOJ has changed in this respect. They’re filing a lawsuit to break up a merger that a previous DOJ had actually approved.

Well, you’re right. This Department of Justice, this administration more broadly, has a different view about antitrust. They think that antitrust law can be a more expansive tool to address problems in the economy. And they’ve put that into practice. They’ve sued Google for violating anti-monopoly laws. They’ve sued Apple for violating anti-monopoly laws.

But I think ultimately what they believe is that they’re responding to a change in the economy, that these companies have gotten much bigger, that they have gotten more powerful. And they are responding to the way the companies broke the law on their way to becoming that big.

So, David, when you and I talked about Google and Apple — you referenced them here — you know, we talked about how there were broad repercussions for the future on American society. What would you say the implications are in this case?

This case ultimately, for the Justice Department, is about the market for culture and creativity. You know, a few years ago, the Justice Department successfully blocked Penguin Random House, a big publisher, from buying Simon and Schuster, another publisher. And they said that one problem with this merger was that it would reduce how much authors got paid, and that it would create a market where fewer books and fewer types of stories broke through.

This Justice Department is embracing an idea that the more concentrated the economy gets, the more it stifles creative expression, the ability of artists to make art and get it to the public and the ability of the public to consume it. And that, they say, is a central question of democracy. Because things like music are how we talk about big social issues or big political issues. So that is, they say, what’s at the heart of this case, that it is not just about the fees, it’s not just about how much an artist gets paid. But it’s about whether or not there is a fair marketplace for ideas, and whether or not consumers are able to access it.

David, thank you.

Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Here’s what else you should know today. On Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito declined to recuse himself from two cases arising from the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol after “The Times” reported that flags displayed outside his houses appeared to support the Stop the Steal movement. In letters to Democratic members of Congress who had demanded his recusal, Justice Alito said that the flags, at his home in Virginia and a beach house in New Jersey, were flown by his wife, Martha Ann, and that he had had nothing to do with it.

And a group of 12 New York jurors deliberated for more than four hours in the final stretch of the criminal trial of Donald Trump, in which the former president is accused of falsifying business records. The jurors asked for portions of the testimony from two witnesses to be read back to them, as well as the judge’s instructions. They were then dismissed for the day and will resume deliberations today.

Today’s episode was produced by Will Reid, Rob Szypko and Rachelle Bonja. It was edited by Michael Benoit and Brendan Klinkenberg, contains original music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, and Will Reid, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.

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• June 7, 2024   •   30:00 Real Teenagers, Fake Nudes: The Rise of Deepfakes in American Schools
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• June 4, 2024   •   29:17 A Conversation With President Zelensky
• June 3, 2024   •   32:07 How Trump’s Conviction Could Reshape the Election
• May 31, 2024   •   31:29 Guilty
• May 30, 2024   •   25:21 The Government Takes On Ticketmaster
• May 29, 2024   •   29:46 The Closing Arguments in the Trump Trial
• May 28, 2024   •   25:56 The Alitos and Their Flags
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Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Featuring David McCabe

Produced by Will Reid ,  Rob Szypko and Rachelle Bonja

Edited by Brendan Klinkenberg and Michael Benoist

Original music by Marion Lozano ,  Dan Powell and Will Reid

Engineered by Alyssa Moxley

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Over recent years, few companies have provoked more anger among music fans than Ticketmaster. Last week, the Department of Justice announced it was taking the business to court.

David McCabe, who covers technology policy for The Times, explains how the case could reshape America’s multibillion-dollar live music industry.

On today’s episode

David McCabe , a technology policy correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading

The government is accusing Ticketmaster’s corporate parent, Live Nation Entertainment, of violating antitrust laws .

Here’s a guide to the emails at the heart of the government’s case .

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson, Nina Lassam and Nick Pitman.

David McCabe covers tech policy. He joined The Times from Axios in 2019. More about David McCabe

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