In light of the recent snafus regarding ticket sales for both the Cure and Bruce Springsteen — in addition to exorbitant fees for even the worst seats in the house — Neil Young posted a message to fans on his Neil Young Archive page explaining his thoughts on a broken concert ticketing system.
Young wrote: “TICKETMASTER FEES at 30%. It’s over. The old days are gone. I get letters blaming me for $3,000.00 tickets for a benefit I am doing. That money does not go to me or the benefit. Artists have to worry about ripped off fans blaming them for Ticketmaster add-ons and scalpers.”
During a chat with the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum, Neil Young spoke about a longing for music to take a more organic path going forward: “I really pray for a renaissance of real homemade music, where people actually play together and play off each other. That, to me, is what music's all about. And as we move more and more into the digital age of Pro Tools and putting things on a grid and organizing things and sampling and everything. . . I'm not puttin' it down, but I am sayin' that when they actually play together, that's a whole time that has to be preserved.”
