Welcome one and all to episode 387 of Signals from Mars. I'm your host Victor. And for this episode we talk about the Las Vegas sphere. We talk about the magnitude of the actual structure building, however you want to call it. The possibility of hard rock or metal bands playing there, who we think can play there and who we'd love to see play there. So to give credit where credit is due, this topic actually came from one of my patrons, Mr. Ed Ferguson, who brought up an interesting question.
This is a few months back and this is kind of something we've had in the can since then. He talked about the fact that U2 was playing there and I guess Dead and Company have recently played there or playing there now. Sorry, I don't really follow the Grateful Dead or anything remotely connected to them to know exactly what's going on, nor do I follow the sphere closely enough.
But his question, because he's such a huge Slayer fan, was imagine seeing thrash bands that we love with all the imagery and stuff like that play the sphere. So first of all, as I mentioned, we tackle what bands we think would be feasible to see play there. And then we back it up with what bands we'd like to see there because it isn't always the same thing. Listen, in reality, there's stuff that's maybe my favorite from a band, my favorite song, my favorite album, so on and so forth.
But maybe in the grand scheme of things, it isn't the artist's favorite or isn't even the fan base's favorite. We've often talked about how the biggest selling album a lot of times is a band's favorite album. Of course, it's the album that helped them buy that Ferrari, helped them buy all those houses. For a lot of people, much like the Lips interview that I did that came out previous to this, for some people, it's just being able to live comfortably.
So there's a lot of different things there that come into play as to what's a favorite and what isn't a favorite. So yeah, what's a favorite of mine doesn't necessarily have to be yours. So again, a band that maybe I would love to see at the sphere maybe isn't one that you'd like to see there. So that's kind of all part of the discussion. This is all just kind of quote unquote food for thought.
Get you guys thinking about this topic and mentioning bands that you think that could possibly work there or you'd like to see play there. So anyway, I do want to send a quick shout out to my patrons. Thank you guys for all your support. If you aren't aware, Patreon is two bucks a month. You could also support the show by picking up merch or by going to PayPal or, excuse me, going to the support tab on the website, signalsfromr's.com, and go and make a PayPal donation.
So people have actually been doing that after a long time of not doing that. There are people that just aren't into the whole Patreon thing and prefer to support that way. Either way, I appreciate your support, whether it's financially or not. If you help by sharing the episode, by spreading the word with your friends, other music lovers that you think would nerd out to the topics that we talk about, please send them our way.
Signalsfromr's.com is where it's all at. Social media, places where you can subscribe to the show, where you can watch the video versions of these episodes, podcasting 2.0, all that great stuff. No one's holding a gun to your head, but if you're so inclined to check it out and help us out, man, I'd love you for it. And anyway, let's get on with the show. Welcome everyone to Signals from Mars.
We are pre-recording this episode, so I'm not throwing a date out there because I don't know exactly when this will air, but we're putting this one in the can for an updated or for a, I should say, an episode in the future. Not an updated episode, but an episode at some point down the road. Joining me today is Metal Dan. Hola. Dr. Poison Brad Doll, YargMetal.com. I'm also in the can. Better to be in the can than on it at the moment.
And finally, the reason that we're doing today's episode and the theme behind it in Kentucky, Mr. Ed Ferguson. How are you, Ed? Doing good. How are you guys? Great. Cool. So, we always have fun discussions off the air. Sometimes it makes me want to record some of these discussions thinking, wow, there's a lot of good material that we talk about. And Ed brought up the Las Vegas Sphere. And at the time, you two, I think, were still doing their residency there.
And so we have a few questions that I've kind of put together about the sphere. If you guys have any other questions that you guys want to throw out there, you're more than welcome to do so as well. And we're going to attack this topic a few different ways. Because I think that there's a lot of different interesting points that we can get out of this.
So, Ed, let's start with you. Realistically speaking, what hard rock or metal band, you think would be the first one to be able to do a residency at the sphere. So we're speaking in the real world, not what Ed wishes would happen. Yeah, that will be part two. Okay. So right off the bat, let's talk about which ones we think will likely become the fruition. The first thing that comes to my mind is Kiss. Okay.
You know, I know they're off doing something else. But, you know, if they did put their energies towards something like this, it would probably be pretty amazing. Especially with all the Kiss imagery, it would work great. Right. Yeah. And that's a band, you know, that people from different walks of the music world would enjoy. Yeah. Yeah. And I think what you just mentioned is an important point, the whole imagery part of it.
I think that will be a theme with what we're going to be talking about here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. For this topic, these two are married. There's no way to separate them. You got to have the imagery, the artwork. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to pay all that money to see it, especially. Right. Dan, how about you? What band do you think would be the most likely the first band of this ilk to play the sphere?
That's a good question. And not just in metal, but in general, if a Welsh could is big enough other than that girl. But Metallica is, it has to be somebody big because you're asking a question that they sell tickets for a lot of money. You know, it's three hundred, probably at least to start. And you got to they're not going to just book it for a week. You know, so that's my answer.
Yeah, that's a very good one. That's one of the ones that I had in the back pocket, depending on what you guys mentioned. So, I mean, I could see them really, because if you think about videos that they've done, if you think about a lot of imagery that they've used over the years, whether it's album covers, whether it's on tour, just some of the special stuff that they've done on tours, I think that they'd be able to turn this.
Turn it up to a point where they'd be able to maximize it somehow. You know, and the cool thing with them is you'd you'd be able to see the show multiple times and get completely different songs every time you see them. It would cost a lot of money for them to do it that way. They could figure it out. It would work with the YouTube and the current Grateful Dead thing there. I think the show's the same every night, much like a maiden show, which I wouldn't want to see maiden at the sphere.
But if they could figure out how to do that, that would be my choice. Brad, what about you? What do you think? Well, I agree with Dan. And actually, Ed, I've heard rumblings that the whole Kiss avatar thing is actually there in strong talks with the sphere to do that there. So would I go? Probably not, because it'll be a whole lot of money to watch a movie.
Dan Dan gave the definitive answer. I think Metallica is the only realistic band that could pack that place and do it consistently for, you know, I don't know how long they want to do a run there. But I'll throw this one out there, too. Yeah. I had thought about them earlier today thinking about the answer to this question.
And I think that a band like ACDC with all that cool concert footage of them when they were younger with Angus just being on total fire to have all of that concert footage around you. I mean, it would be transporting you back to ACDC back in that, you know, let there be rock through back in black air or something like that. It take you back in time. That would be awesome. You need to get on the team there with the sphere and help them plot this stuff out. Oh, yes, I'd be a good employee.
That kind of pick out their set list. Yeah. And also to you all talking about Metallica, you know, it's kind of cool that we can say that a band like Metallica would be the best fit. Because, you know, think about when we were growing up in the 80s, bands like Metallica were so frowned upon the ones making all the money where the pop metal bands.
But when you think about it today, you know, if you put a pop metal band at the sphere, you know, their imagery would just be, you know, party and parties and girls. And like Metallica in there, every song is telling a different story. So you could develop video and imagery that goes with every story being told with each song. And, you know, you just you couldn't do that with some of the more mainstream bands that were most successful back when we were younger. I think that's cool.
Like, I mean, even any band in that Metallica range could tell a lot of good stories if they had the money to create something for the sphere. Yeah, I think that kind of comes back to the whole Def Leppard discussion that we've had multiple times where Joe Elliott has talked about the fact that, oh, well, heavy metal is a bad word. It's not going to be associated to that. Yeah, screw that. And it's funny because a band like Metallica, like Judas Priest have never frowned.
Iron Maiden have never frowned upon that term. And none of those three bands, I guess, priest in extent, but Maiden and Metallica don't need four opening bands to sell a tour. They have they have it because they want to give fans more bang for their buck.
But it just it just goes to show that bands that stuck to their laurels and what they wanted to do and didn't kind of try to fit into a niche, you know, have more staying power than than than a Def Leppard who, you know, doesn't want to be categorized or or whatnot. But now, once when I was thinking about if you did have like a hairband or pop band or whatever you want to call them. Right. What, you know, could you put there that could do something interesting.
And the only thought I could come up with is if there was some kind of conglomeration of musicians, you know, from that group those that L.A. group of bands, you know, Nikki six working with piercing and I know all those guys don't get along, but it sure would be cool if they could get together. And then they could all kind of package something in that like the ACDC thing would take you back in time to that moment. Put some imagery of L.A. and the clubs and all of that.
But it would be hard to see like any one band being able to do something that great. Yeah, I think I think the closest like like I'm saying, Motley Crue and Def Leppard have to tour with other bands to sell to sell amphitheaters. Nonetheless, the sphere, which talking about hundreds and thousands of dollars per ticket, that's not happening.
And even this summer, they're playing stadiums with Journey and Sticks. They're not playing on their own. Motley Crue can't sell all those tickets on their own because if they could, they would. They wouldn't be taking into opening acts out with them. Could Bon Jovi do something like that. I mean, I'm not saying that I'm a huge fan of theirs, but not with his voice these days. If you watch that documentary on Hulu, it John's a little bit in at the end of his career.
Well, that's the thing. I mean, does bringing Richie Sambora back to the fold for the sphere, does that sell tickets? Does not anymore. Does Aerosmiths last hurrah? Does that do it? Not for that money. You think they want a lot of money for a stadium? How much will they charge for the sphere then? Well, I think that's the thing. I think for the U2 tickets, I don't think that there were cheaper. There were tickets less than a thousand bucks.
They were less than the internet. It said the I don't know who this is. I had friends that went to the U2 thing and she's cheap and she didn't pay a thousand dollars. Okay. The fellow that told me that he went that had me think about this. I think he said he paid 400 a ticket. Yeah. But still a huge chunk of money. Yeah. Yeah. What I'm saying here is that the tickets for U2 range from 365 to 551. Okay. And the weekday, Wednesday and Thursday were less expensive than Friday and Saturday.
Some say they found tickets as low as 298. And then we sell site. And then Brad commented. Meanwhile, I got to say, Deddon company are going 145 to 194. Well, yeah, big difference there. Wow. Well, Brad commented about kissing a movie. Well, the current movie there is starting at 100, which is, you know, 94 euro. You know, one for a movie. I think it's 45 minutes to an hour. Yeah. Which, you know, you can spend that much money on gambling, too.
But it's a lot to consider. Yeah. Start the movie starts at 103 per ticket. You get to watch the movie. So. Yeah. So. So, okay. So. My let's see. I didn't answer yet. My first choice would have been Metallica. Second choice. And see, you guys have already talked about Metallica. Then you said you don't want to see them. But my second choice would be Iron Maiden. Just because of all of the imagery that could go along with me playing there.
I think that they could do a decent run there. I don't know for how long, but. I'd probably pay 300 bucks to go see Maiden there. Well, let me let me ask this. Would you pay to see Maiden there together? Yes. Yeah. And I have to say, even though I just bought priest tickets today. Here in Idaho, Judas Priest playing in Idaho, crazy playing in two places in Idaho, actually. Even though I just bought tickets for them, I don't think they bring that will put that many butts in the seats.
I think Maiden would be fine without priest. I don't think that would. Right. I think I think for the most part, for a lot of fans that have wanted to see that combination, that would be the allure to that. Yeah. Only only only other artists that I could think of because they're stepping outside of the bounds, boundaries of just hard rock and metal because they've become kind of cartoonish and, you know, done other things is Ozzy. You tell me that Ozzy is going to do his last.
You know, he's going to do a month of shows there twice a week, three times a week. He doesn't have to move all that much. I think you could you could get a decent amount of people to see him. You add the the added caveat that the encore is Black Sabbath with Bill Ward that comes out and does four songs each night. Yeah. And and I think that you're going to get. If you're going to make a dream thing, then you might as well put in Rush, because that would be the one that was your.
That's question two, then let's let's not get there yet. You're making a fictitious thing. You're saying Bill Ward who doesn't play anymore. Ozzy's who's retiring, I think this year he's done. So now you're just making shit up. But he's saying that he's willing to do a last show with Bill Ward. He's willing to do a final Black Sabbath show so long as Bill Ward plays. And so far, Tony Iommi has said that he will do that. That sounds like one show at the place the Beatles play that, you know.
OK. All I'm saying is that if if they do, if they're offered, put it away, put it put put that away, Brad. You have enough to share with the entire class. Put it away. You're going to lose it. All I'm saying is if if they offer Ozzy and Sabbath a shitload of money to do two shows a week for one month, we're talking about eight to 10 shows total. OK, they're giving them. A hundred million dollars. To do to do 10 shows.
They're going to say no. I know they're not going to say no, but Sharon's going to take that money. I just don't think the guys are doing it. She's going to make it because I would pay to see that too. Well, I'll push the price up. OK, so so because we've we've we've kind of already tiptoed over number the number two scenario here, Dan, I'll let you go first. Since I was stepping on your toes already.
Fantasy. If if there was a scenario that we could put any band in there, we can resurrect the dead. We could do whatever we want with any band in that situation. Who would you go with? Yeah, I didn't know the Black Sabbath was on the table. I thought that thing is done. So to answer your question, I thought about this and as I would say for presentation, rush man of war. And now I lost my other one that I had.
But because, you know, they want to go bigger and it wouldn't be Romstein because I need them to be outside with the flame and the fire and all that stuff. So probably those two. OK. But then I I don't think it's going to happen, but I want the the rush thing to come back for a residency. And I don't see the problem putting in a drummer to fill in and giving acknowledgement of what happened. These guys are too young to quit.
Yeah, I think with the whole rush thing, you definitely have to bring in. Brad, you just showed the magazine for those listening to the podcast version. He just pulled out a rock candy magazine and it has Mike Portnoy in it. I think you'd have to bring a Portnoy or a Danny Carey or a very big name drummer. To do that, that's going to make it worth people's while to pay a shitload of money to see them back and know that it's going to be done right. It may have to be multiple drummers.
It may not just be, you know, one guy. Maybe it ends up being, oh, if you come to this date, it's going to be Portnoy. If you come to this other show, it's going to be so and so, you know, where it's going to be Dave Grohl, Dave Grohl or whatever. You know, it's so so you'll actually make it. You'll force and go to the Portnoy show to go multiple nights, you know, because oh, shit, they're playing with Charlie Bonante tonight. All right. I want to see it with Charlie.
But I also want to see Dave Lombardo play with Rush, you know, something like that, something that see Ed. OK, that's already Ed's got a smile. Is that I was I was wanting to say Dave Lombardo, but I didn't want to offend anybody. So I can say that I'd like to see Dave playing with Rush. That'd be cool. I I purposely peppered that in there knowing that I would get some sort of a. And and it's funny, because, again, for those in the podcasting world, only listening to the audio.
And smile was growing little by little. He looked like a five year old again as the words Dave Lombardo came out. That's right. Brad, how about you? What what fantasy scenario would you like to see there? Well, it's a it's a fantasy scenario that's realistic for packing that place. I mean, of course, the bands I like, nobody, none of them are going to pack it. But this one. Van Halen. Oh, that good idea there.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you could get that guy to be that guy, then then you'd really have something. Not not the current creepy Uncle Dave thing that he's turned into. My yes. Yeah. But they have and Halen, that would be a huge spectacle. I mean, it could be just awesome if if Eddie was still alive. Yeah, Dave was Dave was not creepy. OK. And you, you you've had to think about this. Yeah, I didn't have to think long. Slayer comes to mind first, of course.
To see, you know, yeah, that's right with Dave that would gosh, man. Yeah, they could really take my money if they got together with Dave and Tom and went to the sphere. I'd pay a lot to see that probably. They could actually make it rain and blood. Exactly. I mean, there's so much so many cool things they could do with all the themes of their songs. He's scared. And then a lot of the stuff that we already said, like my second thought was ACDC.
Well, like I said earlier, just taking me back in time to a show, you know, you mentioning Sabbath with Bill. Gosh, that would be awesome. You know, I might that I might pay the money to go see Pantera if they could do something, you know, with the, you know, some old footage of Dimebag and Vinny. I don't know how it would have to be someone kind of clever to make that interesting enough for too long. But still, I guess what I'm thinking is.
Ideas that would take you back in time to either a certain time when his genre was popular, you know, like the time when Nirvana was hitting the scene and that whole grunge scene was growing. Right. Or the same thing back with, you know, all the L.A. bands. You know, if you could do something that just takes you back to those scenes, that would be cool, too. There's different creative things I think people can do outside of just having a band play. Yeah, I agree with you.
And I think that kind of comes back to something that we've talked about a lot. We've talked about the Kiss avatars initially when we started up. You brought that up, Ed. We've talked about the Dio hologram in the past and stuff like that and how we think that the concert going experience will vary in the future. We'll we'll touch upon this a little bit more in a second. For me, and this is going to be kind of outside of the box for for a lot of the music that we talk about here.
I've seen Nine Inch Nails a bunch of times. They are a very theatrical band. They would be awesome to see there, I think. And I have to say this one, and it may be popular or may not be popular, given the political climate out there now. But going back to 70 something and Pink Floyd doing the wall in there. I was going to say Pink Floyd, I forgot. Yes. Yeah, that's one of my favorites.
That could be something where, you know, it could take that whole wall show to another level because, you know, all the imagery that went along with it with the movie and with all the shirts we've seen over the years, all the graphics. You know, let's let's face it out of a classic rock band. Pink Floyd is probably the one that's done the most amount of merch out of anyone.
I mean, growing up as a kid in school at the mall everywhere, you'd see people with Pink Floyd shirts, regardless of what formation of the band, whether Roger Waters within the band was out of the band. You'd see it everywhere. So I think that Pink Floyd would be another one that could work there.
Now, based on what I just mentioned a second ago, it was my next point where I think because unfortunately bands aren't being built up the way that they have been in the past, because nostalgia is king for a lot of people in North America specifically. That whole ACDC concept, that whole going back to different eras of, as you've mentioned, Ed, I just think that our whole concert going experience is going to change in the next 10 to 20 years as more of these bands disappear and retire.
More people end up dead. So, so they're not going to be playing. So I think the sphere is going to help kind of push our concert going experience to to another level. Do you guys think that that's a fair assessment, Brad? What do you think? Yeah, I agree. I think tapping into, you know, what people, you know, the past and, you know, I think that's, that's a great thing. And that's why a lot of people go to these shows.
You know, the bands that we generally like, they want to hear the old songs, they want to hear the songs that, you know, they were hearing when they were teenagers and young people. Nobody wants to hear the new songs, which is too bad. But yeah, yeah, I think I think they could do some really cool things based on that kind of theory, you know, because the older people got the money.
So, well, the thing that keeps coming to mind with to me with some of the images that I've seen and Ed kind of mentioned with Pantera or even with the Van Halen stuff, just having that whole dome. Yeah, an image of somebody being hundreds of feet high and being like we imagined them like we were when we were kids, like they were larger than life, literally larger than life.
Superstars in front of us where, oh shit, that's Eddie Van Halen and with his, you know, bib on or whatever his overalls are. And he's 300 feet tall. You know, he's that character that I imagined. That's what I was thinking about. And but just I didn't know quite how to explain it. I'm glad you did there. That's kind of what I'm thinking when I say, take me back to seeing Dimebag, you know. Yeah.
You know what else would be cool. This will never happen. Maybe. Well, maybe in 50 years, but you could have a black metal band. If they had the resources to take you to all those places that you see on their album covers, right. While they're playing their music, you know, that would be cool. Because there's a lot of really, really cool imagery and artwork and black metal, even though I don't like as you know, I can handle black metal in small doses, but right.
Not a huge fan, but I love a lot of their artwork. You know, they just they're taking you all of these lands on the other side of the world. And, you know, death metal bands could do something cool, too. With. Yeah, they just yeah, but who's going to ever have the money to do that for bands like that for underground bands like that. But I mean, we're talking, for example, Kiss has come up a few times with you mentioning that.
Just imagine the album cover of Destroyer. Yeah, coming to life in front of that as their back as their backdrop. You know, that would be really cool. Race Rayleigh taking us through space, through outer space. Unfortunately, we'd get stuck with ACES Apple, Apple 2E graphics, which which someone needs to tell them. Or like 30 years too late. Dan, what do you think you think that the sphere is kind of bringing us to to a new level of a concert experience?
Is it tomorrow's concerts today? Sure. Yeah, it can be duplicated and there should be more of this. I don't know the expense of the whole thing, but you know, I'm somebody that loves an IMAX movie and this is IMAX even greater. I will seek out, you know, an IMAX movie that's 45 minutes long and go and go see it in the big screen just to take in that. I love that stuff that comes back from the old days. The Disneyland surround theater from back in the day.
It's just a matter of time before I experienced that I put down the hundred dollars to 150 a ticket and go do this experience, because I think the this sphere is amazing. I've only seen it from the outside a few times and I can imagine inside I'm going to be blown away. It's going to be amazing. So it's just a matter of time. But at the same time, I can't ever let go of as long as my back and take it of going to the Glass House or whatever to see power trip.
It's just I'm no longer into the circle pit. I know those guys think it's fun on the stage to call it out. But I do enjoy the hot in the intimate in your face show. I still dig that. And I can walk out of those shows and be like smile and have, you know, I lived through it. It was fun. And then I but I can be bored in a massive show. So it's just it's a little both. OK. My next question here.
Do you think that we'll see more of these pop up around the world? Is there is there enough money in it that maybe we see, you know, a sphere pop up in the UK or in Germany or it's going to happen in Dubai? I have a feeling because they take everything. Yeah, I could see China just for just because so they could say what other countries. I don't know. Dubai makes a whole lot of sense because there's a ton of money there. That would that would definitely drive it.
But it won't be in the middle America of Kansas of Kansas who's going to be playing this fear. Would you pay to see Kansas in the sphere? In 1978. Yes. When they were on, but not now. OK. So so you guys all think that we'll see more spheres pop up at some point in time in the future. That's a great question. I mean, I think costs. I don't know how much money it was huge, expensive.
I'm sure anybody unless Madison Square Garden takes it on or just somebody with more money than they know what to do with. I don't know. That's a great question. I mean, I wonder how close they are to paying for that with what they've done so far with that venue. They're at their advertising on NBA jerseys for it. So there's a lot of money surrounding this whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. They got to sell a lot of work, a lot more tickets, I think.
The initial review I've heard is they're doing OK. Surprisingly, it's working. All right. It's good to hear. That's the headline. But OK. We've talked about the pricing a little. Does does that justify, you know, does the whole experience justify the prices for the shows? Obviously, if it was cheaper, we'd probably get more people to go. But as Brad said, you got to pay for the place. Yeah. So that's a great question.
I don't I'd like to talk to somebody who actually went to a show there and get their opinion about the whole thing. I've heard different people on the Internet talking about it. It's been a mixed, mixed reviews as far as what they paid and what they saw. So, yeah, that's a that's a great question. My brother went and just saw the movie and he didn't think he said he thought the outside was more impressive than the inside. But there again, that's my brother. So well, there's you.
CEO Dave isn't isn't surprised by just anything. No doubt. No doubt. He's yeah. He. Yeah. Let's not forget. That's just one big ball for him. He's used to little tiny ones. There you go. Yeah. Metal, Dan, what do you think? Does the price justify the shows? It could. It depends on the band. I mean, if you this this dead company, it's I'm never going to see them in a small club. So it depends on what I'm going to get out of it. ACDC.
I it's probably I don't know. I'm having a hard time spending a lot of money right now. But that's just because I've got mortgage and bills. But yeah, if the experience is there, the bands there, you know, something like ACDC or something. Yeah. Rush. I don't know how much money we're talking. I won't pay the Aerosmith money. It's it's it's a difficult question of where I put my money. How much would you pay to see Armored Saint there?
I don't think they deserve to be there. I want to be in the front row where I just was many times or am many times. I don't need a big experience with them. That's again. Sometimes a small club gets my just, you know, as excited as a big. I agree. OK. And how about you? What what prices you know, what price point would justify you going there? I think all those prices sting. Yeah. But of course, you're going to Vegas and it's vacation and you use all those excuses to justify spending more.
So you can have the experience anyway. You know, like if some of those scenarios happen and I went to Vegas to do that, I would probably spend the three, four hundred. If I had it to spend to see that stuff, but I can't say it wouldn't hurt. But I mean, what I mean, what what out there is not going to cost that kind of money, right? I've never been, but I'm sure everything is going to be extra expensive, isn't it? Yeah. And interesting to see like they're going to have a baseball team.
How much more tickets will be there for that? It just depends. You know, you can go to the WNBA, the women's basketball. It might be cheaper seats, but you know, the hockey gets kind of expensive there and everything else. I don't know where I'm going with that. Yeah, no, no, that that makes sense. I mean, for me, pricing out different things that you may be seeing this summer. I've done exactly what you just said, Dan.
I've priced out WNBA games, concerts, baseball games, just to see what makes sense for us to go see. I go to the club vamped over there in Vegas. I've been a few times. I love it. It's twenty dollars, twenty five dollars US to get in the door. The hotel's two hundred or three hundred to whatever. You know, so I'm paying more in gas and to get into vamped. I'm not telling them to raise their prices or anything, but it just depends on what you want to do.
Yeah. Yeah. And to your point, look, I'm wearing a Markie Ramone t shirt today. I mean, I I spent thirty five euros, so basically forty bucks for the show. It was in a how much for the shirt was the same amount as the ticket. Thirty five. OK, that's not bad. Yeah. When we when we were at Saxon a couple of weeks ago and I bought this shirt, bought one for Nathan and it was forty five dollars a shirt. I was like, man, forty five dollars a shirt.
And he said, Dad, the shows I go to, they're like like one hundred, two hundred dollars for a shirt. Wow. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. I feel I feel sorry for these kids these days. Well, that's that's funny because that was a discussion that I had yesterday and it kind of came up with the whole of this last point that I brought up was how kids are getting priced out of music and they want kids to be more involved. But what Dan just mentioned about Vamps doesn't happen all the time.
This theater that we saw, Marky Ramone, again, thirty five bucks, thirty five between thirty five to Gunn just played there and they were forty five. I didn't go see that because I said I know two of their songs. I know people say that they're great, but I'm not going to pay forty five bucks to see a band that I may or may not like. I'd prefer to pay a little less for a thirty five for a band that I know I'm going to enjoy.
They're pricing kids out of shows where when we were kids, you know, you had five five dollar ticket notes. You had nine dollars. You had twenty dollars. You know, where where kids could say, fuck it, if the band sucks, I only spent five bucks on the ticket. So it doesn't matter. I'm still hanging out with my friends. We're going to make fun of the band instead of go home and want to buy their albums. You have the classic guitar companies which are selling a bunch of times.
Adam Jones from Tools, Les Paul's signature model for thirty four thousand euros. No kids buying that. Anyone that's buying that isn't even going to fucking play it because it's too damn expensive. So when you have when you have to spend over three thousand dollars for a decent Les Paul, kids are not going to be interested because kids can't afford it.
If it's going to come between a three thousand dollar guitar and a five hundred dollar top end video game console, a top end laptop or computer, which is about a thousand for them for from a gaming side of things. They're not going for the they're not going to pick up the musical instrument. They're not going to go to the show. I just I just saw a clips of Coachella.
I saw clips of no doubt playing Coachella and I couldn't help but think of seeing the front row and thinking none of these people are into the fucking band. They're just there to be seen. Yeah. And that's sad that somebody who would really want to be there can't afford to be there. And those that are those that are spending, you know, two thousand dollars to sit in the front row and to be doing this. Yeah. Yeah. In front of the in front of the stage.
Yeah. Don't give a fuck about the band. You know, and again, I know that the band is not something that we talk about here. But I want to see the footage. You know, there are songs by them that I do enjoy. And it was cool to see them playing live and just seeing a kind of dead crowd in the front few rows. Just kind of killed the mood to an extent. So. And unfortunately, a lot of and I get it, older people have the money, can afford to go to this stuff.
But if you don't get the kids involved, it will eventually all die. That's right. We're we're not talking about any do what band playing the sphere. We're not talking about the. Who the the. Man, I just forgot the name, not the Anders sisters. What was the name of the the sisters that were popular during World War Two? The Andrews Andrews sisters, Andrews. Yeah, we're not talking about the Andrews sisters at the sphere. We're not talking about Guy Lombardo.
I had to throw another Lombardo in there to get as we're not talking about the Buddy Rich show. We're not talking about the BB King review. We're not, you know, Elvis. Although Elvis could be something that's plausible, but he'd be the one probably that you could do that with. That that's the thing. I mean, you. So so much so many of these things are just falling by the wayside because they're just. Pushing the kids aside through pricing, through various different things.
When you think about it, I built a whole music collection and went to, you know, enough shows that I can't even remember them all on a on three dollars and 15 cents an hour at Kentucky Fried Chicken and mowing some a couple of lawns here and there. Right. Can't do that now. Absolutely. No. And and we've talked about this before. Live Nation made this announcement that they're going to be offering twenty five dollar tickets to all of these summer shows.
And I remember reading it and I'm thinking there's no way this is going beyond lawn tickets at amphitheaters. No, it's it is all on tickets and that's exactly what it is. Yeah, they're all lawn tickets. I'm thinking, well, this is what they offer every summer. Where's where's the big deal in this? You know, I'm still paying. I still paid two hundred and. Forty something dollars after handling fees and taxes and all this stuff.
To take my my younger son to go see Limp Bizkit as part of the Loserville tour. So, you know, and that's that's without them including the good old sixty dollar parking in there. Yeah. So that's a whole nother topic we haven't thrown in there. The parking. Yeah, those prices are gone way up to. You need a beverage while you're there. Yeah. You hungry? No. Yeah, I have it on my list of things to do.
Maidens playing the forum in L.A. and I know that the parking is probably at least a hundred and I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I mean, I know that I paid back in the day 40 to 50 and that was so I don't know what I'm going to do. And it's not the greatest location that they're trying. But yeah, I imagine it's going to be a way over 100 for maiden parking. That is I'd get an Uber. Crazy. That's the scooter. I started looking up pricing for parking before pulling the trigger on this.
And apparently, if you go with standard parking, it's six dollars per person. But obviously, it's first come first serve. Sixty bucks is VIP parking. Everybody in the trunk. It's from 60 to 125. And now that you mention that, my son said, can I just go in the trunk? And then you pay for one of those. That's a good sign. And that's what we used to do at the drive in movies when I was exactly what I brought up. I said, you know, we used to do that with the drive in theater.
So we were we were at one where the guy's car was a hatchback. We're like, crap, what are we going to do? Said, well, we're going to climb over the wall. You know, you drive in and then we'll climb over the wall and you come pick us up. Yeah, I can't be too cheap. I thought to ask my wife to walk two miles because I would do it. She's going to get pissed at me, you know, so it's not going to work. That's worth a hundred dollars right there. Oh, boy. Who is Maiden playing with?
The the hon, the hon, the horn. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's some they don't matter. They have what one song. I don't know why they're there. Is it the hon? The Chinese man? Yeah, I think they're Chinese. It's a Chinese metal thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's the who? H.U. the who? Yeah, that. OK. Who? Yeah, I don't. Let's put a video up, if you know what, on the Patreon. Yeah, do it. Do it, Victor.
I think I have in the past, they just released a new album and I haven't posted anything because I didn't think we were going to get any favorable reactions. But now that you bring it up, Dan, I will. I want to see it. They had a song like five years ago, I want to say, that was catchy. Yeah, that's all a thing I know. I got to look into this.
Yeah. But this is a good point to point to mention that if you join the signals from Mars Patreon, you get to see the latest, greatest music that's coming out even before it comes out. And you also get to hang with us. There you go. And you get to propose topics like Ed did, which is why we are here. Yeah, and read all my insightful comments. I'd say it's worth at least ten dollars a month just to hang out with Dan and Ed. Okay, I want that there. Is that a new issue?
That's the last issue of the guitar roll with Kerry King. The newest one just came out today and guess who's back? Creed. Oh boy. Oh boy, I'm not thrilled with that at all. Yeah, who's going to pony up the dough for that? I guess a lot of people. Scott Strapp coming to the Vegas. They're selling tickets, believe it or not. I believe it. They were big in the day. A lot of people hated them, but a lot of people love them as well. They moved a lot of albums. All of these bands.
They're kind of Nickelback light. Well, that's that's the thing. Nickelback, them, Nirvana, pick a band that people hated. Limp Bizkit I just mentioned a little while ago. They're still all moving tickets. There's still enough people that enjoy them that they're still selling stuff out. My in-laws proudly go see Nickelback and they're the greatest. I think that's actually really cool, though.
I'm all for anybody who goes to see live music, even if it's something that I don't care for, because as Victor stated, if we don't support this stuff, it's just going to go away. Well, I think what Brad was talking about before the show started about following a band on multiple cities is a neat thing to do when you got vacation time. That's that's a cool concept. That's like going to multiple baseball or basketball games. Oh, yeah. It was really cool. I mean, we saw Saxon four times in Texas.
I think the most I paid for a ticket was fifty dollars. And all of them were general admission except for one of them. San Antonio, which was just weird having seats for a Saxon show. But it was fantastic. And every night was you started thinking, oh, guy, you know, you're going to go see him again. And the best the best show we went to was the last one. So I was like, boy, I'm glad we didn't cut this whole adventure off a day early or something.
Yeah, it was it was a blast. So get out there, go see music and go see it in the clubs. I'm with Dan on this, man. There's nothing better than getting right up there to the stage and just feeling the energy and the heat and the sweat. And as long as you don't have bozos punching you in the back of the head, that's yeah, I don't go for that. You know, you want to you want to do that stuff. You'll find a spot on the floor where nobody is and run around and punch each other.
That's my public service announcement. Brad Hall is against donkey punches at shows. That's another topic that I have a few things for later. Well, there you go. We're we're we're going to be pre recording some more episodes coming up and I got felt up at about 18 years old. Not cool. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was weird. Not cool, dude. I guess I was cute. Wow. Oh, wow. Well, we'll dig into that topic in the future on that topic. Crazy things that have happened to shows.
Here you go. Oh, I got a few that you do. Well, on that note, folks, I do want to thank metal, Dan, want to thank Brad, and I do want to thank Ed for joining me tonight. I hope you guys enjoy this episode. Subscribe and share the episode with your friends and let us know what you think. And on that note, we will see you next time right here on signals from Mars. See you, folks.
Thank you for listening to the signals from Mars podcast. You can subscribe to the show on all your favorite podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon and more. Go to signals from Mars dot com for more information. Thank you for the show.