Frat boys unite! You have nothing to lose but your sobriety; and maybe your pants.
When Jimmy Buffett elected to play a couple concerts at Wrigley Field a couple years ago, I thought “wow, makes perfect sense from a marketing standpoint- a musician who has won zero awards, but still sells A TON of records on the concept of a “Margaritaville” state of mind, teaming up with the Chicago Cubs who make a boatload of money, but have won nothing the past 65 years.
Perfect! And the Cubs also sell the idea of “Margaritaville,” to the idiots willing to pay $70 a pop for bleacher tickets- the passes with the worst views in the whole stadium and no seat back. What a perfect marriage.
Then this was announced today:
In the midst of an extensive summer tour with sold-out dates across the country, Dave Matthews Band announced two very special concerts will be added to the 2010 tour schedule– Friday, September 17th and Saturday, September 18th at Wrigley Field.
By Paul M. Banks
Tickets for the Dave Matthews Band Wrigley Field concerts will go on sale on Saturday, July 17th @ 10am. Tickets are priced at $85.00, $75.00 $65.00 and $49.50. Of course, additional fees will apply.
“Wrigley Field and the Cubs have long been known for their passionate fans. This September the Friendly Confines will be filled with passionate fans of a different sort; fans of one of this generation’s most enduring, most popular and most hard working musical groups, Dave Matthews Band” said Cubs President Crane Kenney, “We are thrilled to be able to offer the band and its fans a truly unique concert experience here at historic Wrigley Field.”
Yep, Buffett at Wrigley probably created the perfect unholy union of Caucasian middle-aged stockbroker dbags who love over-paying for mediocre, but EXTREMELY well-branded entertainment. DMB and the Cubs working together synergizes large demographics of boys and girls stuck in their fraternity/sorority phase for half their adult existence.
It’s also the perfect way to bring together people for which alcohol and drugs are not a side dish for enhancing their entertainment experience; it’s the actual main course allowing them to stomach their entertainment product.
Yes, as you can probably guess, I hate Cub fans and DMB fans. I actually sort of like Dave’s music, and own a few albums. I have nothing against the Cubs, but I just hate both fan bases.
Dave Matthews Band will join a short list of elite musical acts that have performed at the historic ballpark, including Buffett, The Police, Billy Joel & Elton John and Rascal Flatts. In the past decade, Dave Matthews Band was the biggest ticket seller worldwide, selling upwards of 11 million tickets to 547 shows from 2000-2009, according to Billboard Boxscore. In fact, it was the only group to exceed 10 million in attendance for the period. The band has sold over 17 million tickets since its inception.
The announcement of the two Wrigley Field concerts comes just weeks after Dave Matthews Band told fans via its website that, after two decades of near-constant touring, the group will be taking a year off in 2011. “We feel lucky that our tours are a part of so many people’s lives,” Dave Matthews Band said in a statement posted on its website earlier this month.
“We’re excited to make this summer one of our best tours yet, and look forward to returning to the road in 2012.”
Dave Matthews Band – comprising Carter Beauford (drums), Stefan Lessard (bass), Dave Matthews (vocals, guitar) and Boyd Tinsley (violin) – has sold 37 million CDs and DVDs combined. The group’s latest album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King (RCA), was hailed as “their most electric album yet” (Rolling Stone) and “spiritual and spirited” (People, “Critic’s Choice”). With Big Whiskey’s debut at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 in June of 2009, Dave Matthews Band became one of only two groups in chart history to have five consecutive studio albums enter atop the chart. The Platinum-certified, GRAMMY®-nominated collection features some of the last studio recordings of founding
member/saxophonist LeRoi Moore, who passed away in August of 2008.
Special guest Jason Mraz will join Dave Matthews Band as support for the September concerts at Wrigley Field. “It’s always an honor to share a stage with DMB, and it’s even more of an honor when that stage is the legendary Wrigley Field,” Mraz said of the ballpark concerts.
Mraz’s latest studio album, We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. earned two Grammy awards in 2010 for Best Male Pop Vocal (“Make It Mine”) and Best Pop Collaboration (“Lucky”), as well as three other nominations in 2009. Mraz’s most recent hit song, “I’m Yours”, was on the Billboard Hot 100 chart longer than any other song in history and was named ASCAP’s “Song Of The Year” in 2010.