Runaway Future

It’s just been announced that Ozzy Osbourne is doing another show in Halifax on January 28th. This is after his January 26th show sold out in less then an hour.

When you boil it down, Ozzy has done an amazing job marketing himself. Obviously, he’s got the hardcore fans from his days with Black Sabbath and his solo work. But at the same time, he’s been humanized by the reality show “The Osbournes”. The show would hit a completely different audience from the usual metal fans and no doubt, fans of the show would be tempted to check out his music and go see him live. The success of the show has no doubt enabled him to be a bigger star to a wider group of people then the merit of his music would alone.

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Keeping on the musical note, the Celine Dion fiasco is something that’s been extensively talked about and that I neglected to comment on at the time. There’s not much more left to say except for this:

• Celine is booked to play an outdoor concert in Quebec the day before she was booked for Halifax. Apparently she signed on for the Quebec show after the Halifax show was announced. There is only one other time on her schedule she plays a show in two different locations over the course of two nights is September 12th and 13th. On the 12th, she’s in Newark, New Jersey and on the 13th, she’s in Uniondale, New York. Now I’m no geographer, but those places at a helluva lot closer together then Quebec and Halifax. Of course her grandfather father husband says they’re professionals, but it makes you wonder.
• Usually, Events Halifax/Halifax Regional Municipality will do market research about bands and acts, such as consulting local people “in the scene” and so on. According to Stephen Cooke, the entertainment reporter of the Chronicle Herald, he wasn’t consulted. Apparently someone with EH/HRM thought that Celine was such a hit and would go over so well, they didn’t even need to check to make sure everyone else thought so.

And yet, still in the end, it’s somehow the fault of the citizens of Halifax. Somehow we’re the ones holding the city back because we’re not balls crazy that Celine has decided to visit our one-horse town.

She was here not too long ago and played the Metro Centre. Somehow that means she can be the headliner for a venue quite a bit larger then the Metro Centre? I mean, I respect her as an artist and all. She obviously has her fanbase and a rather enviable number of album sales. But after being teased with names like the Eagles and U2, the populace is supposed to be excited about Celine? Gimme a break.

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Speaking of immaturity amongst artists and so-called professionals, there seems to be an equal amount of crap being spewed about the show announced after Celine’s kerfluffle.

Harold MacKay, the promoter behind the Keith Urban show has raised a bit of hell after the Chronicle Herald published an editorial cartoon depicting a DJ raffling off tickets to a ‘good concert’ (in another town, mind you!) for anyone who could name one of Keith Urban’s songs.

Anyway, MacKay went as far as threatening to not purchase anymore advertising in the Herald to promote the event (a move that I would assume would hurt MacKay’s efforts as much as it would be money out of the Herald’s pockets).

To their credit, the Herald hasn’t completely stood behind the cartoon, stating that it was the opinion of the artist and not the official view of the paper. It’s a fine line of freedom (I believe that’s what their disclaimer on the opinion page also states), but it no doubt allows for more freedom in publishing then the suits would normally allow.

But seriously, that’s insane. If the paper can’t publish an opinion for fear of backlash, either to their bottom line or the city as a whole, then what’s the good?