The Biggest Challenge For Live's Future Success Is... Options

[FishOutaWater]

In my opinion, the biggest challenge to Live's future success is the fact that sadly, for some reason that I don't understand, Rock seems to be almost dead. A rock band cannot get any traction anymore, unless it has a 30 year following like Van Halen, Springstein, U2, Metallica, etc. Apart from the Foo Fighters, Rock n' Roll has been gradually relegated to a specialty genre like jazz and blues. R & B and auto-tune vocalists who are not artists have completely taken over the charts and the record industry is a complete disaster. To me it is really sad because modern music has no heart and soul anymore. And to me, this is the biggest challenge to Live becoming successful again. I would like to see Live be a part of a movement to make rock relevant again.

[+Ed+]

That may be true where you live Ed, but in America it's the kids with their ipods and mum 'n dads credit cards buying up everything.

Physical CDs? Sure it's the older folks, but that is kind of beside the point.

I thought we were talking about the phusical copies, mate. Itunes is light years ahead of Russia

[FishOutaWater]

OK - I have given it some thought and I have come up with a marketing strategy for Live. I hope they read this.

In this day and age, you need a gimick. An angle. A vehicle. Jack White has his gimick. The Voice and American Idol and Glee have their vehicle. Metallica and Ozzy have had fesitval tours. Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp have tapped into a cause with festivals and it has kept them relevant and on top. Live needs an angle and a vehicle as a focal point for attention to their tour. It would be helpful if there was some aspect of their new tour that is new and newsworthy and might get mentioned and draw attention.

There are two things that people in Live's potential audience are really passionate about. First, in this year of politics, is the working-class, blue collar, salt of the earth mindset, versus the wall street rich man's mentality. People believe that the playing field isn't level. That there are two sets of rules. The second thing is that people like you and me love good, raw, authentic rock music with guitars and drums and heart and soul. And we don't want it to die. And we want to celebrate it and see it in great rock performances.

So my idea is that Live should take the lead on a travelling mini-festival tour. It should be called the "Working-Class Rock Revolution" tour. It should be all about working class people and reviving good old fashioned rock music. TGF tried to tap into this with Honest Man, and I thought it had potential and they really had a great message there, but it didn't follow through. I think now is the time to rally around these two issues. Working-class people and rock n' roll. It could be branded with T-shirts and merchandise and logos that include distressed vintage biker themes (Harley Davidson is built in York) and denim and whiskey. It could be about taking back rock n' roll and celebrating it with the working man. Maybe in addition to Live, the tour could include bands like:

Candlebox
TGF
Velvet Revolver
Staind
Tool
Breaking Benjamin
George Thorooughgood

Who else would be a good fit for something like this?

[Aitkens]

OK - I have given it some thought and I have come up with a marketing strategy for Live. I hope they read this.

In this day and age, you need a gimick. An angle. A vehicle. Jack White has his gimick. The Voice and American Idol and Glee have their vehicle. Metallica and Ozzy have had fesitval tours. Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp have tapped into a cause with festivals and it has kept them relevant and on top. Live needs an angle and a vehicle as a focal point for attention to their tour. It would be helpful if there was some aspect of their new tour that is new and newsworthy and might get mentioned and draw attention.

There are two things that people in Live's potential audience are really passionate about. First, in this year of politics, is the working-class, blue collar, salt of the earth mindset, versus the wall street rich man's mentality. People believe that the playing field isn't level. That there are two sets of rules. The second thing is that people like you and me love good, raw, authentic rock music with guitars and drums and heart and soul. And we don't want it to die. And we want to celebrate it and see it in great rock performances.

So my idea is that Live should take the lead on a travelling mini-festival tour. It should be called the "Working-Class Rock Revolution" tour. It should be all about working class people and reviving good old fashioned rock music. TGF tried to tap into this with Honest Man, and I thought it had potential and they really had a great message there, but it didn't follow through. I think now is the time to rally around these two issues. Working-class people and rock n' roll. It could be branded with T-shirts and merchandise and logos that include distressed vintage biker themes (Harley Davidson is built in York) and denim and whiskey. It could be about taking back rock n' roll and celebrating it with the working man. Maybe in addition to Live, the tour could include bands like:

Candlebox
TGF
Velvet Revolver
Staind
Tool
Breaking Benjamin
George Thorooughgood

Who else would be a good fit for something like this?

The problem with that is that outside of really Candlebox and TGF, none of the other bands really fit together.

Staind and maybe Breaking Ben would be the closest. Tool is way out in left field. Velvet Revolver is something of a wild card. First you have to depend on Weiland not going on a heroin binge again, but otherwise you can always count on Slash. I'd say you'd be better off pairing up with Slash/Myles. However, there's no way that Live would be the headliner in this mix. It would either have to be Slash/Staind/Tool, as they have been more relevant in the recent past.

[FishOutaWater]

The problem with that is that outside of really Candlebox and TGF, none of the other bands really fit together.

Staind and maybe Breaking Ben would be the closest. Tool is way out in left field. Velvet Revolver is something of a wild card. First you have to depend on Weiland not going on a heroin binge again, but otherwise you can always count on Slash. I'd say you'd be better off pairing up with Slash/Myles. However, there's no way that Live would be the headliner in this mix. It would either have to be Slash/Staind/Tool, as they have been more relevant in the recent past.

I am just throwoing out ideas about the bands. Any band that rocks, has name recognition, and is at the same level as Live would be great. I thought of Breaking Benjamin because they are from PA. Also, Trent Reznor is from PA. George Thorogood would be cool. The point is to celebrate rock with a beginning to end rock show and market it as a festival where rock bands are taking rock n' roll back for the people.

Maybe people with an unemployment check stub get in half price. Then, after you put the branding and marketing together, you try to get media outlets to report on it. Rolling Stone. Ed Schultz on MSNBC. Rock radio stations.

This addresses my challenges concerning the band's age, visibility, the state of rock music, distribution, etc. I think this could have a good shot at working.

About 10 years ago, I saw a show with Poison, Cinderella, Dio (or Dokken I forget which one) and Winger. It was a pretty cool show. It had an 80's rock theme and everyone was really into it. It was a really good draw.

This post has been edited by FishOutaWater: May 18 2012, 9:33 am