LIAM is the opener for the US CH TOUR!! 🥳

I saw Liam on the second date CH V2 at The Glass House in Pomona. I've probably seen him a dozen times since. A great choice!

Yes I got to see him with Neil in 1998 in Orlando when he was 14! And then again at age 24 in Atlanta in 2007 with Crowded House. I met all of the guys after the show and LLiam had impressive recall of the venue in Orlando and how old he was! I guess maybe that wasn’t that hard but I was very impressed! They were all extremely nice and generous with their time.

I wonder why this is? Liam can do it, of course, I'm sure it will be good. But I kind of like having a totally separate opening act. I wonder if they were having trouble booking backup acts, or maybe ticket sales are less than predicted and they're saving money?

In Europe this Summer it was more about maintaining a bubble against Covid on a tour that had already been postponed twice - just 3 dates had an opening act that wasn't Liam performing (Ruben Block in Belgium and Germany)
That's almost certainly still a concern for the upcoming North American tour - I'm sure Crowded House would have little trouble finding a tour opener but they've opted to keep it within the touring party to limit the risk of having to postpone yet more shows.
Liam's opening sets in Europe were excellent and my one hope is that they'll be longer than the handful of songs he generally performed there - Manchester was the one exception where he had more stage time and a drum kit. Either way, Liam will be a fine opener. It looks like there's a few cities he's not listed to open in the U.S. - so they may not have an opening act or there's another plan for those shows.

@slowpogo posted:

I wonder why this is? Liam can do it, of course, I'm sure it will be good. But I kind of like having a totally separate opening act. I wonder if they were having trouble booking backup acts, or maybe ticket sales are less than predicted and they're saving money?

Regarding ticket sales for the US tour, Jeremy Ansell posted an interesting message across various Finn-related Facebook groups last week:

"Hi all. I'm posting this on various Finn Fan groups, so you might see this in a few places.  Fancy helping Crowded House spread the work about their upcoming US tour?  Here's a short silent compilation of fan footage passed onto me from Neil's management that you can download and share as a story on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc, while adding your choice of Crowded House music available on those platforms.  Or, of course, you can used your own video content.  Here;s how to add music to a Facebook story...........  Thankyou! "

So this suggests sales are not going well for the US tour and CH management are recruiting fans to help boost ticket sales.  An unusual marketing strategy.  Some  of the responses to Jeremy's request point to high ticket prices as the main reason for the poor ticket sales.

They seem to be in larger venues than they or Neil have typically played in the past. And the prices are pretty crazy. I mean, I obviously love Crowded House, but they don’t have the cultural footprint here to demand the same ticket prices as U2 or Fleetwood Mac!!

@In Love With It All posted:

Regarding ticket sales for the US tour, Jeremy Ansell posted an interesting message across various Finn-related Facebook groups last week:

"Hi all. I'm posting this on various Finn Fan groups, so you might see this in a few places.  Fancy helping Crowded House spread the work about their upcoming US tour?  Here's a short silent compilation of fan footage passed onto me from Neil's management that you can download and share as a story on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc, while adding your choice of Crowded House music available on those platforms.  Or, of course, you can used your own video content.  Here;s how to add music to a Facebook story...........  Thankyou! "

So this suggests sales are not going well for the US tour and CH management are recruiting fans to help boost ticket sales.  An unusual marketing strategy.  Some  of the responses to Jeremy's request point to high ticket prices as the main reason for the poor ticket sales.

My work involves me in a number of large multi-day events (conferences) throughout the year, mostly in the SoCal area. The prices are an indication of the market right now - cost of labor, venues, parking, everything is way up. Selling tickets to events of any kind requires a lot more work than it used to. As far as CH asking for the same prices as Mac or U2 - The only frame of reference for tickets we have is pre-Covid. Tickets for those acts right now would be much much higher than you're seeing for CH. Gone are the days of seeing Neil and the boys at The Troubadour for $15

I’m not in the music biz but I don’t think asking fans to submit videos is a sign of a struggling artist. I follow all of the guys on Instagram and they are all very good at promoting themselves through social media. It’s just another tool now. I think they just wanted more material and to involve the fans. Many artists do this and will repost fan footage on their stories.
I guess it just depends on the venue as well, I bought my tickets for 85 bucks, which seems pretty reasonable. Good seats as well. I saw U2 on their last tour they didn’t have an opener. Not sure why, I thought it was because they were playing kind of a longer show. This time, I’m just extremely happy to have more Liam! We should be celebrating!

@The Ligature posted:

Liam's opening sets in Europe were excellent and my one hope is that they'll be longer than the handful of songs he generally performed there - Manchester was the one exception where he had more stage time and a drum kit.

Liam had a drum kit at the Scarborough show during the UK your. Did he not have one at every venue when he opened?

In pre-COVID days I would have seen CH multiple times on this your. At these prices, I will see them once.