Jewel Signs on to Instant Live CD Program Sat Jun 26, 2004 05:54 PM ET
By Ray Waddell
NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Instant Live, Clear Channel Entertainment's live concert CD program, has signed its first major-label artist.
Billboard has learned that Atlantic Records artist Jewel will sell live CDs at select dates on her summer tour.
The company also has nailed down a series of dates to record and sell CDs on the summer tours of Kiss, Peter Frampton, the Allman Brothers Band and the Cowboy Junkies.
And on June 28 Instant Live will announce expanded retail availability of a series of concert CDs through an agreement with Newbury Comics' Toothface Distribution unit.
Participating retail chains include Virgin and FYE. Internet sales sites include newburycomics.com, amazon.com and cdbaby.com.
The company says it is close to announcing a new agreement with a leading online music distributor whereby Instant Live recordings will be available as MP3 files, with a share of the profits from digital downloads passed on to the artists.
"We're trying to create a new revenue stream for artists and a new way for them to connect with their fan base," Instant Live director Steve Simon says.
Instant Live creates master stereo recordings of concert performances, burns them at the venue and delivers them on-site minutes after the show ends.
Prices range from $10 for a recorded club performance to $20 to $25 for multi-CD Digipaks.
In basic terms, Instant Live is a new concept in concert merchandise that can add $6 to $8 per unit to an artist's revenue each night. "Some artists will only want to participate in that aspect of the program," Simon says.
"But others may want to take advantage of a fully fleshed-out menu that includes after-market retail, digital download and sponsorship opportunities," he continues. "This is a full-service proposition with a lot of add-ons, but at its core it's a new merchandise revenue stream."
Participation from a major-label act is a milestone for the program. Previous participants either run their own labels or are signed to small indies.
"For the labels, it's a way to create revenue, with no additional investment, from concert merchandise," Simon says.
So how is the pie sliced? "In a general sense, the artist and label combined will make more than we do, and that's fine," Simon says.
The Allman Brothers Band participated in a "handful" of shows last year, Simon says, and will increase that number in 2004. He adds that about 19% of ticket buyers purchased concert CDs.
Taking Allman Brother concert CDs to retail was a logical extension after seeing Allman Brothers Instant Live CDs on eBay, Simon says.
"Allmans fans know how to tape, burn and rip, yet these original-issue CD Live three-CD sets were going for $350 on eBay," he says. "That's when the light bulb goes off that there's an after-market for these things."
Artists participating in the program include moe., Michael Franti & Spearhead, George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, Dickey Betts & Great Southern, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, the Smithereens and many others.
DiscLive, the biggest competitor to Instant Live in the concert CD market, counts the Pixies, Billy Idol, Kim Deal, Newsboys and Doors of the 21st Century among its clients.
Other bands, including the Dead and the Who, have their own live concert CD programs. "All the more power to them," Simon says. "Their model is different; they deliver by mail order several weeks after the shows."
For Kiss, no stranger to creative merchandising, Instant Live is working well on the band's Rock the Nation tour.
"This is something that we've never done before, and we don't know if and when will be back," Kiss manager Doc McGhee tells Billboard.
McGhee says roughly 20% of Kiss fans are buying CDs at the concerts, but it's still too early to tell if showgoers are moving dollars from other purchases to buy the CDs. "The jury is still out as to whether it will impact other sales," he says.
Reuters/Billboard
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. About a year ago, Richmond singer-songwriter Susan
Greenbaum won a contest. Not a little contest, mind you. A rather big one.
After more than 100,000 votes were cast, Greenbaum emerged the national
winner in the band category of the Soul City Cafe Music Quest.
The idea for Soul City stemmed from Jewel, who wanted a place for talented
up-and-comers to be heard. The winner of the contest was slated to open for
her on her fall 2003 tour.
A couple of weeks before that tour, Jewel's bass player died. The tour was
off, though Jewel later went on the road alone.
With the cancellation, Greenbaum's hopes faded. No big tour for Jewel and
her band equated to no opening slot for Greenbaum and her band - bassist
Mike Drake, guitarist Ed Drake and drummer-new husband Chris Parker.
Months of phone calls between Greenbaum and Jewel's management followed,
and finally, earlier this spring, Greenbaum received the call she was
waiting for.
Ten Jewel concerts along the East Coast in May would feature Greenbaum as
an opening act. However, since Jewel was still performing without a band,
so would Greenbaum.
The rules of the road were straightforward: Greenbaum would receive a small
stipend for each show, but was responsible for her own transportation,
food, lodging, gas and other amenities.
She, Parker and two close friends rented a van to make the 3,000-mile round
trip, which began in Atlantic City, N.J., on May 7. They visited Lowell,
Mass., Albany, N.Y., and Wilkes-Barre, Pa., among other cities, before
ending May 16 in Mashantucket, Conn.
I spent the first day of the tour with her to witness the amount of glamour
that accompanies a budding star. As you'll see, it's rather minuscule.
3 p.m.
With six hours until showtime, Greenbaum sits in her hotel room at the Taj
Mahal, rehearsing songs and timing them with a watch. She is granted only
15 minutes onstage - a blink for a performer used to engaging in small talk
with her audience between tunes. There won't be much conversation from
Greenbaum, so she works to squeeze as much music as she can into those 900
seconds.
She'll start with the blues-tinged "Wake Up!", a showcase for her
multi-range voice. Then comes the finger-snapping "I Got Me Some Friends,"
the new ballad "This Life" and her most popular song, the poppy "Everything
but You."
They time out to 17 minutes.
Greenbaum figures she'll cut a verse from "Friends."
4:30 p.m.
Greenbaum and Parker head downstairs to the theater, assuming it will soon
be time for a sound check. No one from Jewel's camp has contacted Greenbaum
with a time for the pre-show ritual, so she takes her chances.
After wandering around the theater with no answers, Wilma, the box office
manager, steers Greenbaum to Jewel's sound man, who informs her that Jewel
doesn't do a sound check and if Greenbaum wants to test her sound levels,
this is her one chance. Lucky timing, apparently.
Greenbaum notices Jewel's merchandise table in the venue lobby, including a
Jewel-emblazoned thong.
"That's what I need to sell! Thongs!" she says with a wicked grin.
Greenbaum, Parker and their two friends wander around the hallways before
they happen to bump into Jewel's public relations guru. Greenbaum is
informed that she has a dressing room several halls away from Jewel's and
is advised to please stay away from Jewel's area at all times because "she
doesn't like people around before or after the show."
At this point, the chances of a handshake with Jewel before the concert are
slipping. She still hasn't landed in Philadelphia, about an hour's drive
from Atlantic City.
"I have no expectations of Jewel," Greenbaum says matter-of-factly.
"This is her job, just like it's my job. For her, it's just another gig,
and I understand she might not want to socialize."
6:30 p.m.
The friends who are accompanying Greenbaum and Parker on the tour to help
drive and sell merchandise discuss how much product to unload from the van.
It's the first night of the tour, so they aren't expecting Jewel's audience
to be clamoring for Greenbaum's CD and T-shirts. They thought wrong.
7:30 p.m.
Back in her hotel room, Greenbaum is totally relaxed. She stands in front
of an oval mirror, straightening her naturally wavy hair.
Parker scoots down in a nearby chair, telling his new wife more than once
how beautiful she looks. Greenbaum flashes an excited smile, then turns the
conversation to a recent Richmond Forum, where she sang the national anthem
and impressed speaker Thomas L. Friedman, the New York Times foreign
affairs columnist, so much, he mentioned her twice in his address.
The butterflies haven't arrived yet.
8:05 p.m.
Greenbaum wants to return to the venue early to readjust her microphone
stand. She fiddled with it at the sound check, but now she has heels on her
4-foot-10-inch frame, and wants to get the height perfect.
At the box office, some Jewel fans congregate and study their tickets.
"I'm so glad you got here early!" Greenbaum chirps to the unsuspecting
patrons, patting one on the back as she breezes through a backstage door.
The Jewel fans give her a confused look.
Backstage, Parker whips a tiny flashlight out of his jeans pocket and
illuminates the midnight path to the stage for Greenbaum to check her mic
stand.
"All these little things you have to think about," he says about preparing
for the tour.
The Taj Mahal stage manager, impressed with Greenbaum's voice at the sound
check, is also apparently enamored of her friendly demeanor and the fact
that she has already learned every crew member's name. He pulls her aside
to tell her the Taj might want her to come back to open for Don Rickles or
Steve and Edie Gorme sometime.
Greenbaum retorts, "Hey, I'm Jewish, so that could work!"
He then asks her to sign the "door of fame" leading to the backstage area.
"It's something we recently started," he said, handing Greenbaum a silver
marker.
It's her first brush with fame for the tour.
8:30 p.m.
The dressing room is actually the Chorus Room, but no worries. It's huge,
with a wall-length mirror outlined in round, white lights - like something
out of the backstage of a Bob Fosse musical.
Parker sits in a nearby chair while Greenbaum gazes into the mirror. She
has suddenly turned quiet, and her expression is one of deep contemplation.
"Man, I gotta tell you. I'm getting a little nervous," she says, patting
her stomach.
Parker looks over at several small bottles of - what else? - Trump Ice
standing on a nearby table and asks Greenbaum if she wants to take one onstage.
"I only have 15 minutes up there. I won't have time to drink it," she says.
9 p.m.
Greenbaum paces the backstage area in the dark, her acoustic guitar hanging
from a small shoulder. She frets for a moment over whether she should cover
her sleeveless blouse with a tight, black hooded zipper sweat shirt. The
sweat shirt gives her a younger appearance, but Parker weighs in.
"Sleeveless. It's sexier."
Sexier wins.
9:05 p.m.
The house lights dim. About three-quarters of the audience of 1,500 has
arrived and responds with cheers, believing the person they came to see is
now coming onstage.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Susan Greenbaum!" intones the stage
manager. He forgets the detail that Greenbaum is the Soul City Cafe winner,
but Greenbaum realizes it so she can mention it during her time onstage.
Tepid applause greets her and the disappointed vibe that she isn't Jewel
sweeps toward the stage.
But Greenbaum isn't cowed.
She rolls into "Wake Up!" and, about halfway through, that is precisely
what the crowd does. It's almost as if someone flicked a switch marked: Pay
Attention, Opening Act Is Actually Good.
Before she finishes the tune, whoops and whistles can be heard. Greenbaum
excitedly bounces and grins, launching into the a cappella "I Got Me Some
Friends."
The crowd begins clapping along to the singsong rhythm Greenbaum is tapping
on the body of her guitar.
So far, so good.
Then it happens. The moment when an opener pulls out something so amazing,
she suddenly seems familiar to those who have never heard her before.
It is her new song, "This Life," written as a letter to her deceased
brother, Ronnie. It's thoughtful and pensive, sweet and uplifting - and it
doesn't leave a dry eye in the house.
It is the song that audience members will quote back to her when they come
to the merchandise table, asking where they can get a copy (it isn't
recorded yet).
It might even have eclipsed the insightful and insanely melodic "Everything
but You," a song Greenbaum unleashes with touches of her soaring falsetto,
as the favorite for the night.
Parker leans over and whispers, "She really looks happy up there, doesn't she?"
It's a generous statement from a partner who has to stand on the sidelines
for this odyssey, but he's right. Greenbaum is glowing.
9:24 p.m.
Greenbaum giddily thanks the crowd, who now cheers and claps for her. But
her spirits nose-dive the moment she steps backstage.
Jewel's tour manager - whom she hasn't met until now - pulls Greenbaum
aside and asks if she took the stage five minutes late.
Yes, it probably was about 9:05 when she was introduced, Greenbaum says. Why?
"You played 18= minutes. You have 15. That's too long. You need to cut it
back. It's in the itinerary," she is told.
"Will I be getting an itinerary?" Greenbaum responds.
In fact, she does finally receive an outline for the next 10 days, though
it might have been helpful to have had it before she played her first show.
10 p.m.
Jewel still isn't onstage (a second opener, newcomer Ryan Cabrera,
performed for 20 minutes after Greenbaum), so several impressed audience
members head to the lobby to Greenbaum's merchandise table.
They compliment her voice, share stories of deceased loved ones and ask
which CD contains certain songs.
This first night, Greenbaum sells about 55 CDs - a healthy amount for an
unknown opening act in an unfamiliar town who performed only four songs.
And after tonight - and being chastised for playing three minutes too long
- she cuts it back to three songs per show.
By the end of the tour, after running out and recruiting a friend to ship
more, she will move about 750 discs.
Midnight
After spending several hours chatting with new fans and signing autographs
for teens and senior citizens alike - a trend that will repeat itself every
night of the tour - Greenbaum heads upstairs with her gang for a few hours
of sleep before leaving in the a.m. for another six-hour drive.
Day 10, the final tour day
Jewel has yet to surface in Greenbaum's presence - not to say hello,
congratulations or boo. The only time Greenbaum sees her is onstage every
night.
Finally, after Greenbaum's last performance, she is granted a five-minute
audience. Jewel, Greenbaum says, "couldn't have been nicer."
They hugged, took pictures with Jewel and her little dog, George, and then
it was off to the stage for the richer of the two.
Jewel's parting statement to Greenbaum?
"Let's keep in touch."
Contact Melissa Ruggieri at (804) 649-6120 or mruggieri@timesdispatch.com
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