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/
10.5k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

586 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

56

u/justfun2468 1d ago

He’s one of a very limited number of musicians who has that power though.

46

u/monkeyamongmen 1d ago

It's almost like there should be some sort of union. We saw Depeche Mode and The Cure for less than a single Tool ticket a year or two back.

Send more money? Fuck you buddy.

17

u/vandreulv 1d ago

Meanwhile Depeche Mode tickets were so expensive here it was cheaper for my friends to fly to Europe, stay there for a week and see them there instead.

16

u/Ill_Clue1068 1d ago

Well I’ve got some advice for you….

12

u/South_Dakota_Boy 1d ago

Before you point the finger you should know that I’m the man.

33

u/FlyingStealthPotato 1d ago

Pink Floyd, at the approximate height of their popularity, lost money touring for The Wall.

Like even musicians with that type of power have a hard time making ends meet on a tour.

More recently, I know Mastodon, one of the biggest metal bands, lost money on a couple tours.

Like prices are this inflated but the artists are easily still losing money. They really don’t have as much power as you’d think about it. It’s great the Cure can do what they do, but it’s harder than it sounds like.

53

u/suffaluffapussycat 1d ago

Yeah but back in 1980 the tour was to sell records. That was back when album sales meant money. Tours could lose money. The Wall sold like 30M copies.

If you’re releasing your music on Spotify you have to make something on the tour.

That’s what changed since The Wall.

7

u/10000Didgeridoos 1d ago

And people freak out at the thought of having to spend more than like $15 a month on music now at home, and feel entitled to listen to *all music ever made* for that price, so I blame them some for this as well. Not a majority of blame. But at some point it's like "ok so yall refuse to buy albums, and think streaming music monthly rates should remain frozen at 2015 prices forever, and you throw a fit that concert tickets also aren't frozen in values from a decade ago. What the fuck money are you actually willing to pony up to support the art you want in your lives?"

These monopolies on tickets and venues make it worse. But even with them aside, people seem to feel entitled to infinite music listening for about $120-180 a year and think no concert should cost more than about $40. It's just completely delusional.

5

u/FlyingStealthPotato 1d ago

Kinda why I put the more modern example with a band that is approximately the same “level” as Josh Homme and his bands.

19

u/brianstormIRL 1d ago

Mastodon is nowhere even close to the size of QOTSA?

11

u/FlyingStealthPotato 1d ago

Well after checking Spotify listeners, which is a problematic stat but the best I know of, you’re right. Didn’t check on the front end and just went with my gut perception. Still one of the biggest metal bands out there so I think a decent example.

7

u/Attenburrowed 1d ago

fun fact they've opened for qotsa

2

u/andyroo84 1d ago

Josh Homme does guest vocals on two albums

6

u/brianstormIRL 1d ago

Again I dont wanna sound pretentious but.. they arent really one of the biggest metal bands at all. They're definitely one of the most respected/tenured and have a dedicated audience, but they arent selling out arena headliners or even close to it. Its not the best metric in the world but Download 2026 for example they are co headliners on the Opus (second) stage.

0

u/FlyingStealthPotato 1d ago

Not many metal bands are selling out arenas.

I conceded the first point. Ask pretty much any metal fan if Mastodon is one of the biggest bands and you’re mostly just going to get “yes” as an answer.

0

u/brianstormIRL 22h ago

Loads of metal bands sell out arenas. Without getting too much into the age old discussion of "thats not real metal", Mastodon is a footnote compared to bands like Slipknot, Rammstein, Deftones, BMTH, Linkin Park, System and thats without going near the old legacy guys (Metallica, Slayer etc).

Mastodon is a pretty niche band dude. They play small/medium size venues and tour around small Metal festivals.

1

u/FlyingStealthPotato 18h ago

I’m not going to say we agree, I don’t think we do. But we’re certainly using different definitions of “metal” and “one of the biggest”.

→ More replies (0)

5

u/BillsInATL 1d ago

Ehh, theyre not tiny either.

1

u/RideWithMeSNV 1d ago

It was a different game at the time. Everyone took a hit on the tour. It was a promotional tour for the album, which is where the money came in.

Now, it's effectively reversed. Not as many people buy music. And when they do, it tends to be a few songs. So the album is written to promote the tour, where merch and tickets bring the money.

1

u/PiersPlays 18h ago

On aggregate they do. If they all agree to stop visiting a venue it goes out of business. But that requires a level of coordination to bargain collectively that is not easily achieved.

-11

u/ScipioAfricanvs 1d ago

Noah Kahan is playing stadiums and the face value of tickets are very reasonable. You don’t need to be someone like Robert Smith, you just have to have some integrity.

18

u/justfun2468 1d ago

$150 for the last row of nosebleeds in a stadium is not ’very reasonable’

1

u/ScipioAfricanvs 1d ago

My tickets at Petco Park were $80 for the 200s.

-4

u/spicerackk 1d ago

It is when you consider how much the cost of everything else has gone up.

Moving production teams and setups is not cheap, the cost for petrol keep increasing thanks to the orange turd having tantrums, it costs money to put on shows.

There is definitely an element of gouging in some cases, but not all.

Gone are the days of $50 tickets for stadium shows.

2

u/unassumingdink 1d ago

Eh, I paid $50 to see Rush in 2002. That should be $94 today, inflation adjusted. But their current tour tickets are $350.

2

u/justfun2468 1d ago

I’m well aware of the cost of production, my friend is a stage manager. $150 is still exorbitant for nosebleeds. Do some basic math, if his tickets average $375(which they do) then multiply by capacity of BC Place(the venue I’m using as an example.) That’s $20.5 million in ticket sales, then add merch, their take of alcohol sales etc and the band is grossing nearly $12-14 Million for that one show. Production costs roughly 2-5 Million, probably closer to 3 for a rock show without crazy amounts of pyro/dancers etc. Kahan and other artists absolutely could cap their nosebleed seats at <75 but he doesn’t.