Rock Star Etiquette?
Monday, December 30, 2013 at 12:01AM
A few months ago, I attended a show on the Tom Keifer/John Corabi tour. The show was amazing and both guys really 'brought it' that night.
Now, I have seen Keifer several times (all previously with Cinderella), but this time was something different, as Keifer had a renewed energy playing his solo material. I had seen Corabi once before, but he was solid as well, and quite simply has an amazing and powerful voice.
My issue was with the merch table. Now we all know many of these bands largely support themselves on tour by the money they make off of the merch table. Specifically, John Corabi was selling his acoustic CD for $15 at the table. I pulled out my iPhone and logged onto iTunes and saw that I could purchase the same album for $9.99. However, I was impressed with his performance and thought to myself, "I'll pick one up when he comes out and get it signed." I kept an eye on the table throughout Keifer's set, and even hung around for a while after the show was over, but John never appeared at the merch table, or anywhere else. As such, I left without purchasing the CD, and in all honesty, I never got around to purchasing it otherwise.
What offended me was how the CD was MORE expensive when buying it at the show as opposed to ordering it, when there was no added value in doing so. It seemed like a way an artist was attempting to take advantage of fans in attendance. If you want to sell your product to your fans at a premium, I think there should be some added value to the purchase. Come out with a sharpie, shake some hands and meet the fans. I wouldn't have taken that long (as there were maybe 300 total in attendance and about 200 or so of those left immediately after Keifer's set). But instead, he stayed in the backstage area and offered for sale a product that was available for $5 cheaper with no incentive to spend the extra money. I would have been happy to have purchased if he was out there greeting fans (like L.A. Guns does after every show), but there was nothing.
Again, I'm wondering if I was simply being over sensitive, or was John wrong? Should he have lowered the price of the CD to match the cost elsewhere, or should he have come out and helped 'sell' the more expensive CDs?
