Rock Is Back! (Pollstar Live! Panel Recap)

“Rock is back” was the slightly controversial title of a panel during the first day of Pollstar Live! 2025. Controversial, because anybody working in rock music didn’t feel like it had ever left.

The session was moderated by Allison Hagendorf of A-Game Productions, and host of The Allison Hagendorf Show. It also featured Keith Cunningham (Master of Mayhem, KLOS-FM/Los Angeles/Meruelo Media), Mark DiDia (Redlight Management), Ken Fermaglich (UTA), Ryan Harlacher (CAA), and Amanda Phelan (Insomniac).

The panel agreed that, while rock had never really left, this was a particularly great time for the genre. It felt like it was “2001 all over again,” said Hagendorf, not least because the Warped Tour will make its highly anticipated return this year.

She also noted the many women-led rock acts having success today, lik Paramore, Halestorm, Spiritbox, The Warning and others. And she later added that women didn’t just have a bigger presence within rock bands, but also within their teams and the touring crews.

Phelan, who teaches at Berklee College of Music, said the number female students wanting to study production, or learn a certain instruments was very noticeable.

Rock music from the late 1990s and 2000s experienced a resurgence during the pandemic, when a lot of music from that era got rediscovered. “You could see streaming numbers going back up,” Fermaglich said, which was one of the reasons his team decided to go on the road with Creed.

Creed is but one of many examples for so-called nostalgia acts doing really well on the road these days. Which didn’t mean the audience was just old, nostalgic people. Didia said, “the audience at rock shows has definitely gotten younger,” adding that he saw fans at some of these concerts singing along to songs recorded when they hadn’t even been born yet.

Harlacher, who represents artists including Korn and Slipknot, said the current resurgence wasn’t led by the legacy acts, but new artists like Sleep Token, Bring Me The Horizon, Spiritbox, etc. This in turn also helped the legacy acts. He described rock as “the most consistent genre of music that sells, no matter the what.” Cunningham confirmed, that it was the second-most popular genre on streaming, and also second or third most popular genre in terms of physical sales.

Hagendorf said, that kids were discovering rock music for the first time, and how a lot of this was driven by social media, like kids sharing their guitar skills on TikTok and getting discovered. She said rock music was still considered an underground culture and a form of rebellion.

Phelan added, this was the reason the genre particularly resonated right now, because young people were against a lot of what they saw unfolding in the world.

The whole panel agreed that social media was driving a lot of the resurgence. Phelan cited Spiritbox as one great example for a band using social media in an impactful way. Not all bands are like that, however, on the contrary: Hagendorf, who does a lot of artist development, said many artists hated using social media. But, Fermaglich added, they liked being able to reach their fans directly without gatekeepers, which is where social media came in handy. It was one way of cutting through the noise.

Another was to have a “prolific output,” to “keep churning out music constantly. The body of work needs to be thought about, it needs to be a lot of music.” Once you had that body of work in place, Phelan continued, it was important to put the band in front of as many people as possible.

“There is no off season for a band,” Didia summed it up.

To ensure this resurgence wasn’t just a short-term fad, Fermaglich said it would be important that young people continued to pick up the craft. Encouraging in that regard: guitar sales have gone through the roof since COVID. Phelan thought the development of the sound was what would ensure that rock music was here to stay, its proclivity to crossover with other genres, etc.

Didia pointed to the fact that rock music and country seem to be working well together. “The country audience loves rock,” he said, which opened up a whole new lane for the genre. He said he was even in talks about a co-headline tour with a rock and country artist that he couldn’t reveal more of.

Hagendorf said, people didn’t care about genres anymore, as everybody had access to everything. And she cautioned everyone not to underestimate the popularity of legacy artists, whose stories and songs were timeless and stayed “with us forever.”

Cunningham concluded that rock music’s “never been gone,” but that this just was “the perfect time for it to celebrate a resurgence.” It’s always been rebellious, angst-driven, so it fit perfectly into today’s age. Seeing first-hand how rock radio stations are still a lead driver in every market for selling concert tickets, he noticed how passionate and loyal rock fans are. And he added, “rock is authentic, recorded with real instruments. All of it creates a perfect storm.”

Fermaglich pointed to the high-quality songwriting behind lots of rock songs. “Whether it’s a new or a legacy act,” he said, “it’s got to be about the music.” Which chimed with Harlacher, who said, “it is about the songs. Buy your kids guitars. It’s good for our business.”

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