Actually, Headache, it's the other way around. I have ordered from Ten Club too. I strongly suspect Pearl Jam modeled Ten Club on the old Propaganda..Eddie is a notorious U2 fan...one of his first ever concerts he attended was a JT tour show, and he even made a habit of donning a "Fly" mask for shows on PJ's 1993 tour. If you've read Flanagan's book you'll see just how much infuenced by U2 in all aspects PJ are.
PJ are able to keep their costs down b/c PJ are a nostalgia act. Clear channel does not care about them much.
I will also say that U2 are contradictory right now: While they may genuinely want to try and keep prices down, (I stillthink they try to make things as good as possible for fans), there is no way we are going back to the days of $65 tickets, even for rafters seats in stadiums. U2 need the money, from their POV. The band does not live a lavish lifestyle per se, like the Stones etc, but you have to admit, their personal living expenses are...well... a bit high. Primiarily b/c of their fancy pads.
Let;s break this down:
Bono: 3 properties: his mansion on the Killeany beach, a smaller house elswhere in the Dublin suburbs, and his $5 million pad in Central Park.
Edge: 3 properties: The most expensive house in Ireland, (according to media accounts of the time he bought it), right next door to Bono; a home in the West of Ireland, and his house in Malibu, CA.
Adam: his mansion next to his old boarding school, in Dublin.
Larry: 2 properties (that we know of): his place in Dalkey (I think), and his modestly priced --but on expensive land--in Rockland County, NY. (Not a big place, really-- just a converted barn without a fence; I've seen the place, it's 15 minutes down the road from my uncle's house.)
Finally, they all jointlyshare the costs of both the mansion in the South of France they've owned a while,, plus the just as big place next door to that, , which they recently bought.
Now, can revenue from replays of U2's music in resturaunts cover the cost of all that? Not likely. Royalties from replays? No.
And am I excusing charging us a bundle b/c of this? No. I have mixed feelings.
So, our money is going to pay for the upkeep of these places. Other artists, such as Springsteen and PJ, don't have so much property, and therfore, don't need to charge as much. Bruce lives in a modest little place in the inner wilds of Jersey, for example. Should we feel bad about that? What do you do when you have more money than you know what to do with? I have mixed feelings. Any other band I'd condemn this outright. But the amount of good the band do, and the way Bono seems to feel the need to work to deserve those blessings--his tireless lobbying and traveling on behalf of the world's poor, which has had tangible results, and the amount the band no doubt give from those royalties--negates some of the outcry, for me, that would naturally come from these circumstances normally.
I don't mind giving, as long as I know that much is being giving in return. But I have a limit to how much should be "given." What that limit is, I haven't made my mind up yet...
It's like the dabate over just how "poor" the band should continue to be. Is is wrong for them to enjoy their wealth? This is debatable too.
Just yesterday, my uncle was talking to me about this. He said he saw nothing wrong with the IpOd ad and U2's being a corporation, "B/c they know what poor is. They grew up dirt poor, they came from the projects, for God's sake, they know what it is to be poor. So that's why they care about the money." (I didn't bother to correct him that they weren't exactly "from the projects"(!) but they did have a semi-poverty spell in the early 80's. Also, he didn't talk about Bono's good works, but he was unlike my Mom, who despises the band outright and won't listen to any tales of good I tell her.)
This is a debate that could go on and on...and hinestly, I don't know where I stand, b/c I don;t know for sure who is behind the prices. It could be argued that U2 is primarily the ones behind it..but the way Clear Channel runs things, I can say they are partly to blame too.
