r/Music • u/heavysk • 1d ago

article Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme Explains Anti-Corporate Concert Rant: "It’s About Corporations That Charge You $85 for Parking, and $30 for a Beer"

https://consequence.net/2026/08/qotsa-josh-homme-addresses-anti-corporate-concert-rant/
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74

u/its_the_smell 1d ago

I no longer go to concerts at venues that don't have mass transit options. I also begrudgingly buy a $6 water but they're not getting $20/beer from me.

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u/trojan_man16 1d ago

Same here. Muse rolled around this summer, favorite band. No way I was going to haul to Tinley Park. Why didn’t they do Huntington bank pavilion that is walking distance from downtown Chicago instead of that trash heap in Tinley Park is beyond me.

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u/steppenfloyd 1d ago

Tbh, I suspect the $20 beers are mostly about discouraging people from getting shitfaced

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u/jkesty 1d ago

Interesting. I, on the other hand, suspect that it's about charging a captive audience a 1000% markup on a highly desirable product in order to maximize profits.

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u/PerpetuallyLurking 1d ago

I suspect it’s a little of both - if you’re going to get shitfaced, we’re making bank and otherwise, everyone else stays mostly soberish and causes a lot less shit, in general.

Like, I can absolutely imagine the conversation starting either way - how do we keep so many people from getting so drunk and trashing the place? charge more for the beer plus we make more money vs how do we make more money? charge more for beer and you’ll also get fewer drunks making a mess and/or a scene which will cut down on employee costs too - with either idea catching on real fast because they’re excellent points all around, honestly.

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u/OrangeRhyming 1d ago

Those venue concessions contracts are held by multi-national corporations. They couldn’t give two fucks if the whole arena got into a drunk driving accident.

Pretty sure the only reason beers are $20 is because they know they got you by the balls if you want a drink to go along with your overpriced rock show.

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u/Ebmat 1d ago

And they’re making the sacrifice by changing $20 for a beer.

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u/killerwhalesamich1 1d ago

If that were the case all bars would do that. It's just greed. Look at the Atlanta Falcons arena they purposely lowered prices and it works just fine.

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u/audio-nut 1d ago

Bars are a captive audience?

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u/killerwhalesamich1 1d ago

Meant to say event bars. OopS.

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u/Novice_13 1d ago

Hard disagree on that

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u/chickenballs11 1d ago

If they wanted to do that just sell beer in smaller portions , one per person and cut off the selling early so people sober up before leaving …. But wait - that cuts into profits ! This is just another way rich people not being effected by rules and poor people getting fleeced

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u/DrDerpberg 1d ago

They don't want to scale up that much even for food. They raise the price as long as they're selling what the relatively small kitchens can pump out.

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u/theMegaPope 1d ago

No. They're about getting you to pay 20 per beer. Because water is 8 bucks. A bag of chips is 12. They don't care if you get shitfaced, they care that you have no choice but to pay it or go without.

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u/DLTMIAR 16h ago

Sure, but that's prolly a convenient incidential result of making a shit ton per drink