Features
Tours de Farce: The Blame Game
Evidently plenty judging from your emails and faxes. Heck, hardly a day goes by when someone doesn’t write to us complaining that they couldn’t get front row seats for Eric Clapton, or that Prince isn’t coming to their town. We hear complaints about parking problems at John Mayer shows as well as Linkin Park and Wayne Newton playing so loud that people can’t even hear their own cell phones ringing. Yes, everybody has a gripe when it comes to concerts. So after months of investigating the matter we found that every single controversial incident that has happened within the concert industry can be attributed to one person, and one person only.
In other words, the cause of all the problems within the concert business can be placed firmly on the shoulders of our former president, William Jefferson Clinton.
But that shouldn’t come as a surprise to experienced concert watchers, for it was Clinton’s lack of involvement that failed to prevent the rise in ticket prices for the Eagles in 1994, as well as the disastrous Supremes reunion attempt of 2000. Needless to say, when the voices of the populace rose in protest over the 1996 appointment of Gary Cherone to the position of lead singer for Van Halen, Clinton remained silent.
Of course, Clinton’s supporters have begged to differ, pointing out that both Fleetwood Mac and KISS reunited during his first term in office. Furthermore, those same supporters point to the success of such artists as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera as proof-positive that Clinton’s focus on enabling nubile singer/dancers to rise to the top of the charts, was, in their own words, “second to none.”
But that doesn’t excuse the fact that artists such as MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice, as well as bands such as New Kids On The Block, fell of the entertainment radar in the early 1990s, nor does it dismiss the burgeoning Bobby Brown problem that was left on the doorstep of the Bush administration. In fact, when it comes to the concert industry, problem after problem and crisis after crisis, can be attributed to the 42nd President of The United States, otherwise known as William Jefferson Clinton, aka Slick Willie.
So the next time a traffic jam outside the parking lot at the sports arena makes you late for Shania Twain; the next time you have to settle for nosebleed seats for Metallica; the next time venue security ejects you from a Jimmy Buffett show for being drunk and disorderly, remember, if it wasn’t for Bill Clinton, we wouldn’t be in the mess we find ourselves in today.
Coming up later this week: How Bill Clinton is responsible for all that spam in your email as well as every computer virus since 1992. Won’t you join us?
Paid for the by the Anything But Clinton Organization. We’re building a better history, one day at a time.