Buyer’s Market Lack Of Superstar Acts On Tour This Year Will Help Rock Fans Get More Concert Bang For The Buck

The big reunion of the year might be the one people care least about.

If the Sex Pistols regroup to tour the United States - and, against all odds, it looks like they might - it will be the most written-about reunion since the Eagles and the least-attended since Loverboy.

For anyone looking for big surprises and announcements for the ‘96 concert season, that’s it.

Those big tours everyone’s waiting for - Bruce Springsteen with the E Street Band, Journey, U2 - aren’t happening until ‘97. Meanwhile, other reunions that people would go crazy over aren’t even in the concept stages and may never be: the surviving Beatles; Simon & Garfunkel; the Traveling Wilburys.

U2 was going to be the big tour of ‘96, but the new album hasn’t come together as quickly as the band had planned, what with side projects such as the Passengers CD that the band recorded with Brian Eno.

So, it’s going to be an average year for concerts, but that’s good news for fans and promoters. No superstar acts are out there, but that means tickets for the rest of the shows are plentiful.

And fans won’t have to weigh buying one $115 Eagles ticket against buying tickets for four other shows.

“We’re not aware of any major stadium tours at this point,” said Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, a concert-industry magazine. “This is an average year for the concert season.

“It’s possible that something big could shake itself out of the woodwork. Rock ‘n’ roll musicians tend not to think more than 90 or 120 days in advance.”

For promoters, “average” means a good year. Those stadium shows generate a lot of attention, but a huge portion of the money goes to the bands. Under the standard arena-rock show contracts, the promoter gets a bigger slice of the pie.

And for the fans, average doesn’t mean bad. Hot artists such as Alanis Morissette, Smashing Pumpkins, and Hootie & the Blowfish - all of whom played sold-out small venues in the past few months - will be back around in the amphitheaters.

One of the surprise comeback tours of the year is Bob Seger, a tour that gets even stronger when John Hiatt is added as an opening act.

“That tour has been doing very good business,” Bongiovanni said. “I was actually kind of surprised, considering the album didn’t do very well.”

The usual suspects are coming around again. Get ready for warm summer evenings with the Moody Blues, James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett and Steve Miller.

Increasingly this year, amphitheaters will host multiact bills as musicians have found strength in numbers. Bush is hot but is touring with Goo Goo Dolls and No Doubt just to make sure. Watch for the Gin Blossoms to be on a tour with Foo Fighters.

The older folks, of course, discovered this a while ago.

“The REO Speedwagon/Fleetwood Mac/Pat Benatar package was one of the bright spots of last year’s season,” Bongiovanni said. “You had several acts that had classic-rock appeal, which I guess spells value to people.”

Now that rock fans of the ‘60s and ‘70s have grown older, it’s tougher to get them to come out for shows.

Those same people might be just as pleased with this year’s big package - Styx, Kansas and Lynyrd Skynyrd, with a fourth act to be named.

Steve Miller is taking out an insurance policy named Pat Benatar.

“The days of the two-act show with the headliner and a relatively unknown act have faded away,” Bongiovanni said. “There’s been much more emphasis on packaging, especially in the alternative rock arena.

“There are very, very few two-act shows left. Most are three and even four acts now.”

So who can stand on their own?

“I think Smashing Pumpkins is capable of doing arenas. Whether they choose to do it or not is another question,” Bongiovanni said.

Alanis Morissette should be the hot ticket of the summer, boosted by the continuing sales of “Jagged Little Pill” and her Grammy Awards.

“Her career has really skyrocketed. I don’t know if she can do standing-room-only business in amphitheaters, but it should be respectable,” Bongiovanni said.

Despite his best-received album in years and a string of concerts in Honolulu, the artist formerly known as Prince has no tour planned - again.

“Prince has been threatening to tour for years now. We’ll see it when the tickets go on sale,” Bongiovanni said.

“Sting should do real well,” Bongiovanni said.

The former Police leader is starting his tour overseas before moving to the United States; the smart money is on Natalie Merchant as his opening act, making for an adult-alternative evening of smooth pop and rock.

The Cranberries had one of the big tours last year and may be back on the road this summer doing arenas and amphitheaters. The same goes for Live and Dave Matthews.

“They were very successful last year and proved they could stand up to headlining a major facility,” Bongiovanni said.

Hootie & the Blowfish will have its new album in stores in April but won’t be hitting the road until the dust clears in the fall.

Similarly, Counting Crows plans to have an album in stores in August and tour in the fall.

“Ozzy (Osbourne)’s out touring and generally doing very good business,” Bongiovanni said. “It was a good move on his part to go out and work in the winter.”

Some promoters are holding dates for Steely Dan, which started touring again in ‘93 for the first time in nearly 20 years.

The last ticket will be the so-called “Deadapalooza.” The lawyers for Lollapalooza likely will shut down that name in no time, but the festival will feature the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, including Bob Weir and Phil Lesh.

As the shows will be the first major move by the band since it broke up in the wake of Jerry Garcia’s death, attendance will be high.

Said Bongiovanni: “It’ll be a chance for the gathering of the tribe again. For the Grateful Dead, the scene was almost as much an attraction as the band’s music was.”

MEMO: You can telephone Mark Brown at (714) 953-2248 or e-mail him at brownreg@aol.com.