LOS ANGELES – Paul McCartney did not sing "When I'm 64" at his sold-out concert Nov. 30 at the Staples Center, where the former Beatle delivered three-dozen songs in a nearly three-hour concert that was a marvel of musical excellence and age-defying vigor.

Likewise, the Rolling Stones didn't do "The Last Time" when the fabled band performed at San Diego's Petco Park last month for an ecstatic, near-capacity audience of 41,881.

But McCartney will be 64 next year. And some music industry veterans believe that the Stones' ongoing tour, which concludes next August in Europe, will indeed be the last time the group mounts such an extensive concert trek.

It's possible, of course, that McCartney and the Stones could continue touring for a decade or more. By doing so, they would be following in the footsteps of B.B. King, James Moody and other blues and jazz greats who continue to deliver vital performances at the age of 80 and beyond.

But the big challenge for the concert industry is how to fill the void that McCartney, the Stones and other graying rock superstars (such as Bruce Springsteen) will leave when they do retire from life on the road.

"There's a huge crisis; a disaster is on the horizon," said Bob Lefsetz, a veteran music industry analyst based in Santa Monica. His online newsletter (www.lefsetz.com) has long been a must-read for rock stars and music industry bigwigs alike.

"I believe we've lived through the renaissance (for concerts)," he said, "and it will never come back."

The prognosis is not promising, especially since so few other artists of any age or musical style can command up to $300 or $400 a ticket and still fill large venues with tens of thousands of satisfied fans. (The two biggest U.S. rock concert tours mounted between 2001 and last year were by McCartney and the Stones, who each grossed more than $100 million. They look likely to top that feat this year, with U2 close behind. McCartney's entire 47-city tour sold out.)

"We should be concerned," said former San Diego concert promoter Bill Silva, who co-produced the Rolling Stones' two sold-out Hollywood Bowl shows last month.

"I don't know what the Social Security plan is for those of us in the concert industry who will be waiting for the Stones and McCartney to still be touring in 10 to 15 years. But we need to worry about how to fill those arena, amphitheater and stadium dates with an artist-driven or event-driven tour."

Jay Marciano, the president of Radio City Entertainment in New York, cites such factors as an increasingly fragmented music industry and audience, along with a marked decline in regional music, which in previous decades yielded the grunge scene in Seattle and the New Wave scene in New York.

"Statistics bear out that there are fewer events happening in the big venues across the country," said Marciano, who – as the head of Los Angeles-based Universal Concerts in the 1990s – was instrumental in building and opening Coors Amphitheatre in Chula Vista.

"The sad fact of the matter is there are very few artists who made it out of the '80s and are still meaningful today. Other than U2 and Sting, it's hard to find any artist (from then) who can still consistently command 15,000 people per market. And there's no question the big box venues are going to face some programming challenges. The artists who were with us in the late '60s and early '70s will become too old, and so will their audiences."

Marciano currently oversees bookings and operations for both the 18,000-capacity Madison Square Garden and the 5,900-capacity Radio City Music Hall in New York. He believes that major cities, such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, may be able to weather – if not buck – a decline better than other parts of the country.

"Despite having given you a fairly dour view, the Garden is coming off the best year in its history," Marciano said. "We've had 61 concerts so far this year, and 55 were sold out. U2 sold out eight shows, McCartney four, and Cream and Elton John each had three. We also had multiple-night sellouts by the Dave Matthews Band, Depeche Mode, Neil Diamond and the Rolling Stones."

Significantly, nearly all of the sold-out shows he cited are by veteran acts with rich musical histories (the youngest, the Dave Matthews Band, was formed in 1991). Marciano also points to Radiohead, Usher and Justin Timberlake as three younger artists who have potentially bright futures as major touring acts with the proven ability to fill arenas and amphitheaters.

Otherwise, there are very few fresh contenders in this post-MTV era, although Shania Twain, Kenny Chesney and several other country-pop acts have fared consistently well on their arena tours. Conversely, hip-hop's enormous popularity on albums and radio rarely translates to concerts, in large part because the genre is primarily a recording studio creation that fares poorly on stage.

Moreover, where in previous decades the top recording and touring artists were often one and the same, that is no longer the case.

The Stones and McCartney both released potent new albums this year, but have been soundly outsold by such artistic lightweights as Ciara and Rascal Flatts. More>>>

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posted by ADMIN @ Monday, December 12, 2005