Toronto Star March 21 2013 Unmasking the biggest unknown in rock ’n’ roll Ottawa-born rock impresario Arthur Fogel “changed the face of rock ’n’ roll” but doesn’t play by Hollywood’s rules, or by anybody’s for that matter. By: Peter Howell Movie Critic. You can tell right from its title that Who the F**k is Arthur Fogel? isn’t a Hollywood production. The big studios avoid obscenities, question marks and complete sentences in branding movies. Blandness and brevity skirt the censors and fit marquees. But the Ottawa-born Fogel doesn’t play by Hollywood’s rules, or by anybody’s rules, least of all the rock show realm he commands as CEO of global touring and chairman of global music for Live Nation , the world’s largest concert promoter. “There’s an old saying in Hollywood: ‘If you act this way, you’ll never eat lunch in this town again.’ Arthur doesn’t eat lunch and he doesn’t give a s--t about it,” says Michael Rapino , the CEO/President of Live Nation, who hails from Thunder Bay. Who the F**k is Arthur Fogel? , a documentary which screens Friday at TIFF Bell Lightbox as part of the Canadian Music Week Film Fest , is full of such testosterone testimonials. At various points in the film, which is directed by Ron Chapman, Fogel’s former boss at The Edge , the late lamented Toronto punk club, Fogel is described as “the most important person in live music in the world” and a man who “changed the face of rock ’n’ roll.” The tributes roll out from fellow promoters and from rock stars, with no less a figure than U2’s Bono extolling Fogel as “a very unique dude. There’s no one like him out there.” Fogel has some interesting thoughts on the future of concerts and what works (and doesn’t) on the rock ’n’ roll stage and screen, which he expresses both in the film and in an interview with the Star. Before we get to that, though, let’s answer the question about who the eff Fogel is. Still lean at 59, and still favouring all-black rock attire, he’s a self-effacing gent I always thought of, back in my rock critic years, as the calm behind the storm of Michael Cohl, when the two were running Toronto-based Concert Productions International . Fogel was at CPI for most of ’80s and ’90s, before it and other concert firms morphed and merged into the scene now dominated by Live Nation. He followed a path that took him from SPX to Clear Channel to his Live Nation roost, which he commands from his current Los Angeles base. He can lay claim to having a hand in seven of the 10 top-grossing concert tours of all time, including treks by the Rolling Stones, Madonna, U2, Lady Gaga, David Bowie and the Police. Fogel can also take a significant share of the credit for having pioneered the global mega-tour, beginning with the Stones’ Steel Wheels tour of 1989, where everything from tickets to T-shirts is handled by one company and its subsidiaries. That’s quite the build-up for a man so modest, he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page or a serious IMDb entry. All the talk in the film of how tough a negotiator and how maniacal an organizer he is seems at odds with the laid-back persona Fogel presents to the world. He long resisted Chapman’s entreaties to be the star of a documentary: “I kept saying to him, ‘It’s not me. I don’t really want to do it.’ And then eventually he got to my wife, who thought it would a great idea for our kids to learn about their dad. She convinced me to do it.’” Fogel’s original life plan, after moving from hometown Ottawa to Toronto, was just to hit the skins as drummer for the local roots band Mandolin Wind. At the time he was known for his handlebar mustache, waist-length hair and stash of weed he carried by the bagful. He also toyed with the thought of going into social work, but he was dragged further into music when Chapman hired him to be the night manager at The Edge, a nightclub at the corner of Gerrard and Church Sts. The job taught him “how to fight, figuratively and literally . . . I learned how to identify theft . . . I learned that there are some really sick people out there in the world.” It also prepared him for the time, a decade later, when he and Cohl would wrestle the Rolling Stones away from legendary U.S. promoter Bill Graham, a ferocious man who considered the Stones his private fiefdom. The CPI upstarts persuaded Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the other Stones to roll with them alone on the 1989-90 Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle tour, which set new records for concert attendance and revenues. The tour created a template that reversed the economics of the music business, which used to be driven by record sales but now rely on concert profits (which is why top show tickets can cost hundreds of dollars). The timing was perfect: the music industry would soon be hit by the tsunami of the Internet, illegal downloads and plummeting record sales. The new digital reality was forced upon the music business years before it began to really hit Hollywood. “Nobody I know saw it coming, not to that degree anyway,” Fogel says. “It’s just been this seismic shift, where somehow the live show has really become the centre of the universe for most acts and really their lifeline in terms of making a living. And there’s always the potential that another shift could happen that we can’t even see right now.” Fogel, who will be in Toronto Friday for a CMW keynote address and interview, has been making the most of the mega-tour concept he helped pioneer. From 2009 to 2011, he produced U2’s 360 Tour , which holds the record as the most successful tour in history: more than seven million tickets sold worldwide, grossing more than $735 million U.S. He’s also been behind the past five Madonna tours, including her recent MDNA tour , the highest-grossing such event of 2012. He’s currently producing big-ticket shows by Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna and Beyoncé. “I think my particular skill set has to do with going with something that’s big and making it the biggest it can be, as opposed to developing something from the ground up,” Fogel says. The interesting thing about Who the F**k is Arthur Fogel? is not so much what it tells us about Fogel, who still prefers the backroom to the limelight, but what it reveals about the entertainment business. No matter whether you’re talking rock shows or blockbuster movies, all aspects of entertainment are increasingly global and increasingly fragmented. “Today’s world is just so niche and segmented,” Fogel says. “If you’re into EDM (electronic dance music) then you’re probably not into AC/DC. I just think there isn’t the broad appreciation or openness that there used to be. And things just happen so quickly in all aspects of life that people don’t seem to build those really strong bonds (with bands) that they used to. “Maybe part of it is that a lot of them (bands) just aren’t that good. They don’t sustain because they’re not great — they’re good, but not great.” He knows that sooner rather than later, the Baby Boomer acts that made the concert business what it is will have to hang up their electric guitars. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin are finished as live acts, and the Stones — whose members are in their 60s and 70s — will soon be announcing the details of what may well be their final tour. The solo acts are also a question mark. Fogel recently had to deal with an expensive interruption to the Lady Gaga tour, brought on by her need for emergency hip surgery. And you can hear the wistfulness in his voice when he talks about whether David Bowie will hit the road this year, his first time in nearly a decade, to capitalize on his new hit album The Next Day : “I’ve been involved with David and done all his touring since the late ’80s. There has been no indication that he’s mobilizing despite the new record and the activity. I’m hopeful and I absolutely love it but I’m not certain by any means that it’s in the cards . . . although it would be a huge tour. People would love to see David again.” Fogel is also not sold on the concept of concert movies and Pay Per View television concerts. In 1991, when IMAX released its Rolling Stones Live at the Max chronicle of the Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle, there was much talk that IMAX-sized shows might one day replace the live concert experience. It never happened, and Fogel predicts PPV television won’t do it, either. “People absolutely want the real live deal on the show. Nothing can take the place of that and that’s why people will go nuts when Rolling Stones tickets go on sale in the near future.” And even though Live Nation won’t be handling the Stones shows (AEG, the world’s second largest promoter, reportedly got the gig ), Fogel still hopes to rock into the future. “In the last couple years I’ve become very much more positive and optimistic about new artist development. And I’ve seen it in the last couple years: whether it’s Mumford & Sons or Adele or a new young country act, there’s different stuff that seems to be developing pretty strongly, in terms of building a fan base. There is a wave of new stuff that’s captivating people.” And maybe, after this movie, more of those people will know who the f**k Arthur Fogel is. Peter Howell
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 18:37:13 +0000