Mick Jagger May Not Be Dancing In The Streets For The World’s Rich People Anymore
The Times Of London takes note of another potential casualty of the credit crunch: Super-exclusive rock shows for the world’s Richie Riches, which brought the bands that played them a nice piece of coin and which brought the world’s oligarchs and robber barons more ways for their workers to despise them. In the past, these shows would provide musicians with cash and gossip pages with at least one item’s worth of material; but now, as one pop manager complained to the paper, “an important income stream has basically dried up. Now that record companies can’t support artists on tour any more, this is very bad news for my acts.” (Given the number of times the words “the,” “Rolling,” and “Stones” were used in this lengthy look back, I wonder if we now know the real reason behind Keith Richards’ Louis Vuitton shilling?) What’s weird, though, is that for most of the piece, everything’s fine and dandy and gold-plated–the aforementioned quote from the disgruntled manager doesn’t turn up until the end of the piece, transforming a slightly stale “lol rich people” trend piece into a long, somewhat belated obituary for rock’s gilded age. Five notes on that nearly bygone era after the jump. 5. “In Manhattan, the boom in bank-funded gigs peaked in February 2007 with the 60th-birthday celebration of Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of the Blackstone private-equity group, which had just clinched a $39 billion commercial property deal. The comedian Martin Short, the singer Patti LaBelle, two Harlem choirs and a marching band were the support acts. Headlining was the dependably rentable Rod Stewart, whose hit ‘Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright)’ echoed around the vast hall of the Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue. Bopping politely along were Donald Trump and the heads of all the Wall Street investment banks. One commented presciently: ‘This is the kind of stuff that makes us think that we’re at the top of the cycle.’ In fact, it carried on for another 18 months before the banks’ entertainment budgets went the same way as everybody else’s.” And then the heads just had to go to bottle-service clubs like everyone else. Sadface. 4. “Peter Gabriel is said to be miffed that no corporate honchos or big-budget party-throwers have so far waved a fat cheque in his direction.” Speaking of sadface! Wow, way to make a bummer, Times. 3. “The last time the Stones were observed playing a party was for Deutsche Bank at the National Art Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona in July 2007. For this the band received a reported $5.4m, which Jagger reminded the 500-strong audience was ‘coming out of your bonuses!’ ” It’s even more bittersweet now. 2. “Bonderman’s Las Vegas bash outgunned the most rocking party thrown up until then by an American plutocrat — the 1999 wedding of the CEO of Sirius Telecom, Chris Edgecomb, whose $7m reception on his Californian estate starred Rod Stewart, David Crosby and Christopher Cross.” America: We’re always lowering the bar for our executives’ most dubious achievements. 1. “In 1998, PepsiCo threw a party in Hawaii at the end of an international conference. The Rolling Stones, then touring their aptly titled Bridges to Babylon show, performed for $2m. ‘We used to do coke,’ Jagger crowed to 5,000 tie-less execs perspiring in the tropical heat. ‘Now we do Pepsi!’ ”
