Pollstar Live! 2025 Panel Preview: Rock Is Back!

Moderator
Allison Hagendorf Jaffe | TV Host – Media Personality – Host of The Allison Hagendorf Show, A-Game Productions

Speakers
Amanda Phelan | Talent Buyer / Festival Promoter, Talent Buyer / Festival Promoter
Ken Fermaglich | Partner / Music Agent, UTA
Keith Cunningham | Master of Mayhem, KLOS-FM/Los Angeles/Meruelo Media
Mark DiDia | Manager, RedLight Management
Ryan Harlacher | Music Touring Agent, Creative Artists Agency

The declaration that “rock ’n’ roll is dead” is nearly as old as the genre itself. Only slightly younger than both is the related declaration that “rock is back.”

As Phoebe Bridgers told Pollstar in a 2023 cover story about her band boygenius (the trio was declared by many observers to be “saving rock ’n’ roll” that summer; from what rock needed to be saved was, as usual, never made clear): “I think rock ’n’ roll is gonna be fine.”

Whether rock is or was dead and is or was in need of salvation is, perhaps, missing the point, and Bridgers may have had the right idea. Rock ’n’ roll is gonna be fine.

And right now, it’s more than fine. 

Guitar-based bands doing the four-beats-to-the-bar thing are touring juggernauts with plenty of young up-and-comers busting out of the garage and into the clubs and on to festival stages to become the next arena and stadium acts.

Meanwhile, ’90s and aughties rock staples are back doing big business — witness the success of Green Day’s “Saviors” tour and the more than 700,000 tickets Creed moved on its surprise comeback tour that started as a single music cruise experiment.

Stalwart favorites like Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam basically never stop touring, it seems, and other ’90s alum like Weezer, Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, Live and others — have all done arena or amp runs in recent years. And, of course, the venerable Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses of the world show little sign of slowing down. Up and comers like Turnstile, Sleep Token and Fontaines D.C. shot from early spots on festival bills to support to headline in meteoric fashion.

Oh. And Oasis is back (in case you missed it).

Maybe rock never left and things move in cycles and in flux and right now just feels like a high time, but, rock’s death (and inevitable return) could be proclaimed by some clickbait-chasing pundit anytime.

A panel of rock industry luminaries will examine the genre’s current moment, its status in the culture and its prospects for the future at Pollstar Live!’s “Rock Is Back” panel. 

The panel will feature talent buyer and festival promoter Amanda Phelan; journalist, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominating committee member and former Global Head of Rock for Spotify Allison Hagendorf Jaffe;
and Master of Mayhem at LA’s rock leader KLOS Keith Cunningham in a conversation with rock power agents Ken Fermaglich of UTA (GNR, Paramore, Muse and more) and CAA’s Ryan Harlacher (Against Me!, Breaking Benjamin, Avenged Sevenfold) plus manager Mark DiDia of Red Light Management (The Black Crowes, Counting Crows, 3 Doors Down).

They’ll discuss what it takes to break through, separate from the pack and find sustained success as bands look to parlay streams in album buys and ticket sales. 

Reports of rock’s death, as ever, were greatly exaggerated but its current success is without hyperbole.

Rock is more diverse than ever, more lucrative than ever … and more crowded than ever. Breaking through to a sustainable career takes the kind of expertise only those who’ve navigated the ebbs and swells before.

Yes, Phoebe, rock ’n’ roll is gonna be fine. But how do we meet the moment?