Field Dispatch
Matt Connarton Unleashed: Madonna lawsuit
I, uh, some interesting music news. Oh, yes, are you
familiar with this older lady. She goes by the name Madonna. Madonna,
she's named she's named after the mother of our Lord, you know. But
but she also Okay, the reason I make that reference is because I cannot.
I can't whenever I think of Madonna, of course, I'm talking about
Madonna, the musical artist. Whenever I think of Madonna, I immediately think
back to, uh when when we were kids, and church Chat was a
recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live, the church lady played by Dana Carvey and
and the uh the guest one week was Sean Penn, and Sean Penn at
that time was married to Madonna, so that, you know, the church
lady says something about you're married to a woman who is named after our Lord
or something like that. So that's that's what I what I think of whenever
I think of Madonna. No, Madonna, of course, the musician who
was popular in the nineteen eighties and has had a lot of plastic surgery.
You know, when I think of her, I think of bruss Oh,
the cones, yes, the cones, the crown. Yes. Well,
apparently she is being sued. This is from you know, I like the
BBC because they don't I don't know. I feel like they do a better
job than a lot of American media just in general. But you can find
this anywhere, of course, if you just google Madonna. But the BBC
reporting Madonna sued by fans in New York over late concert start time. Have
you ever heard of such a thing? I have not. These these Madonna
fans revolting. They're very upset that she started late. Well there's late,
and then there's holy crap, there's no more public transport late. I mean,
well, that's true, and that is a problem in New York.
Now, I have to assume that none of these people have ever been to
a Guns n' Roses concert, because you don't know when Axel Rose is going
to finally emerge. Oh, I think he's gotten better in his old He's
actually gotten better about gone two hours though, like, has he gone to
Axel Rose? Oh? There are stories really yeah. But but but from
back back in the day, as I think the young people say, no,
I think he's gotten a lot better about that. Now. I don't
think he does that now, But when he was, when he was younger,
yeah, he just he'd make he'd make them wait. But uh so
this is what Now, by the way, this is not a large scale
sort of class action lawsuit. It says here two Madonna fans are suing the
singer for being late by more than two hours for a show last month in
New York. According to court documents, they state, the show is meant
to start at two thirty Eastern, which would be I'm sorry, well that
threw me off. It's written as twenty thirty Eastern, which would actually be
of course eight thirty Eastern time. It's the BBC. They do things all
British on all three nights, but in each case it did not begin until
after twenty two thirty, which would be ten thirty, ending around one am.
The case says they quote would not have paid for tickets unquote had they
known it would finish so late. The BBC has asked Madonna, Live Nation
and the Barkley Center for comment. The case, brought by Michael Fellows and
Jonathan Hadden, states that quote, many ticket holders who attended concerts on a
weeknight had to get up early to go to work and or take care of
their favorite family responsibilities the next day. Unquote. They're assuing promoter Live Nation
and venue the Barkley Center for quote false advertising, negligent misrepresentation, and unfair
and deceptive trade practices on quote. Fellows and hadden't attended the show on Wednesday
thirty. The again, it's the BBC. Everything's written weird. Let me
December thirteenth. I'll just give you the date. Well, the way this
is written, it literally says Wednesday English. Right, Well, it may
be the Queen's English, but you know, listen, can can I just
say this? Here in America, we speak American. That's it. We
speak American. So this is difficult for me to read this this way.
This is why. Let me also just add this, okay, this is
a perfect example of why we thought the Revolutionary War. We don't usually we
don't get political on this show anymore, but I just want to throw that
in. This is why because because of the way this is written. Because
this is written they attended the show on Wednesday thirteen, December twenty twenty three.
That's how it's written. That's how they are apparently in the BBC,
by the way, is in Wednesday thirteen a band on the right. So
that's confusing. To me, Yes, they do the wrong date. Yes,
yes. The legal documents note that other nights at the same venue on
fourteen and sixteen December, that's how it's written, also reportedly started more than
two hours late. The document says, quote defendants failed to provide any notice
to the ticket holders that the concerts would start much later than the start time
printed on that ticket and as advertised, which resulted in the ticket holders waiting
for hours unquote. The court papers also say Madonna quote has a long history
of arriving and starting her concerts late, sometimes several hours late. Unquote.
I didn't know that. So she's just like Axelros, citing examples including quote
her twenty sixteen Rebel Heart Tour, her twenty nineteen twenty twenty Madam X tour,
and prior tours where Madonna continueuously started her concerts over two hours late.
Quote. This is a problem. This is a she's she's an habitual offender.
Looking to our British brothers and sisters, they're reporting in the I have
no guid I just own them. I'm very upset about this whole thing with
the dates. Oh so that's stupp The Guardian is reporting that this is not
the first time she's actually been sued over being late to her concert. In
twenty nine and twenty twenty, she was sued by concert goes who felt scorned
by her lack of punctuality. Well score, yeah, I'll love the British
writing. Well, I mean it is uh, it is rude. It's
rude. Well, you know, in all fainness it is. I mean,
if you're if you're expecting to get out of a concert at like ten
eleven o'clock at night, when the trains are still running and the buses is
still running or whatever, and you're gonna get home whatever, you know,
But if you're getting out at one o'clock in the morning and these same services
are no longer available in the overnight hours, which is what some of these
people are talking about, people who got like kind of trapped to figure out
on how to act to get home. M hm oh yeah, yeah.
No in a city like New York, Yeah, that's obviously a really good
reason. That's a huge issue. I mean, it's not like it's something
bad, like if you've got an accident or plane got late, something that's
beyond our control, understandable. But if it's just because you feel like it,
are you know, you're that diva. No, not just on your
side, I'm on their side. Yeah. Any any metropolitan area where you're
depending on public transportation, Yeah, that's going to cause a real problem for
you, if you know. I mean, it's it hasn't happened to me,
but I've known people, you know, who go to shows in Boston
that for some reason run ridiculously late, and then they you know, and
then they have trouble getting getting on the subway. But then you know,
also, if you're a parent, this is your your night out. You've
got to You've got a babysitter at home who's got school the next day,
expected to be home at eleven o'clock at night, I'm less, and they're
not getting out of the venue until one am. Yeah, I'm a little
less sympathetic to that argument, only because, well only because you know,
I mean, the transportation issue is something is one thing, but you know,
you kind of I mean, it is kind of baked into the cake
that if you're going to a concert, you're you're gonna you're gonna be late.
You just don't expect to be, but you don't you don't want to
be so late that you can't get home. No, I don't wire you
against the parents. No, I'm not against it. I just said I'm
less sympathetic to that argue you have any You see, you don't have any
idea how hard it is as a parent. I don't to get time off,
to get tickets, to get a babysitter, if you've got pets,
whatever it is, get all of these things lined up so you can have
those couple of hours out. Well, most people, when they hire babysitters,
there are other kiddos who got to go to school the next day and
you can't be said them home at two three o'clock in the morning. Well,
this is amazing time to get home. This is the entire reason why
I never wanted to start a family, why I have no children of my
own, and I decided at a young age I have no I have no
interest in being a father, specifically because if I ever I knew I knew
from this is something I understood about myself from a young age. If I
ever wanted to attend a Madonna or a Guns n' Roses concert, the children
were just going to drag me down, because then I'd have to be worried
about, you know, the babysitter getting home for them. So I said,
you know what, I just can't have kids. What was that?
Did you What was that sound? Did you hear that? It sounded like
a train horn, a trap? It actually did, Yeah, maybe it
was. We are on a street level now like that. That's true.
Well, that's exciting. We have a crazy cool new building. Yes,
and you know what, we can see stuff, but the people outside can't
see you, so you can make like silly faces and they won't see you.
Says here. The plaintiffs are suing for unspecified damages. This is not
the first time fans have expected I'm sorry, I've objected to the singer being
late for her shows, and in twenty nineteen, a fan sued over a
delay for a US show, but he voluntarily dismissed the case a month later,
according to ABC News. In the same year, Madonna had shared a
post of her live on stage in which she told fans quote, there's something
you all need to understand, and that is that a queen is never late
unquote. Oh my, So that's such a so when she graces us with
her presence in her own time because she's the Queen. Thanks Madonna's sold out
qu tonight myself. I can be laid everywhere now. Her sold out Celebration
tour was a Greatest Hits show, including more than forty songs from her career
to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of her breakout single Holiday, playing venues including the
US, Canada, and Europe. The singer had a health scare. I'd
forgotten about this. She had a health scare last summer after she was found
unconscious in her New York apartment in June and rushed to the hospital, where
she received treatment for a serious bacterial infection. She later said she was lucky
to be alive and postpone the start of the tour from July to October last
year. See, now that's different. That's way beyond her control. Sure,
you know, don't die. We want you to play. Not die.
That is beyond her control. But to simply be late, offer no
explanation anything like that. Yeah, you just screwed up a whole bunch of
people. I mean, how many thousands of people were there? Right?
You know what I mean? And it's a week night, See it's a
week night. Really kicks me because it really messes up everybody. Uh huh.
But this is a good example too of why and this is advice that
no one will probably take, but you should if you're gonna buy tickets to
to a show. And there's another reason why I say this, you should
always before you buy those tickets, no matter how excited you are, just
do some quick light research so you know exactly what you're getting into. There's
an element of buyer beware to this, and I'll tell you what I mean
by that. So somebody like, see, I didn't know this about Madonna.
I just knew it about guns and Roses because of Axel Rose. But
you know, but I've also never been interested in seeing Madonna live, so
uh, but you know, you want to know. You kind of want
to know what you're getting into because if it's if it's an artist who is
notorious for being late, you you know, if it's going to be a
problem for you potentially, like if you have kids and you know you've you've
got a babysitter and you've got to be home at a certain time, you
know you're you're gonna want to know that before you buy those tickets. Especially
I assume she's charging outrageous sums of money, because all major artists do.
But the other reason I I there's an unrelated reason that I always say this
to people too, that has nothing to do with punctuality. There are a
lot of if you're seeing you especially see this with classic rock bands, seventies
you know, rock bands, eighties rock bands, and and I suppose at
this point some nineties bands as well. You know, if you're going to
see a band and you're someone who is concerned about who's knowing who's actually in
the band, for example, or you know, are they are, how,
how are how are they doing on stage? Are the shows good?
Or are they stumbling out there addled with drugs and alcohol or whatever? It's
it's worth well, but it's now is their issue back then? If you
go back then, sure, so if you were going to that concert,
you knew, you knew what to expect back then. Yeah. Now now
they're all pretty clean, I think, but much to not be. Yeah,
you get to a point where you can't do that anymore or you'll die.
But but the reason I say this is there's a lot of bands now
and some people get upset and they don't realize what they're getting into. So
I'll just give you an example. If you say Foreigner, this is a
perfect example. Say Foreigner is touring. If you're someone who's particularly concerned about
who's actually going to be on stage. There's so many examples of this,
but Foreigner is a great example. If you're someone who's concerned about who's actually
going to be on stage when you go to see them, Is it going
to be any semblance of the original lineup, the one you grew up with,
the one that you love. Is Lou Graham going to be singing?
Spoiler alert? He is not Kelly Hanson I think has been singing for Foreigner,
probably for at least two decades now, longer than Lou Graham was ever
even in the band. You know you're going to want to do some it'll
take you two minutes. Just do some quick light research before you buy those
tickets. If you're someone who is concerned about that. Now, the average
consumer I don't think cares. But let me just tell you, if you
go to see Foreigner, there's nobody in that band on that stage who is
an original member at this point. Even what's his name? Is it Mick
Jones? I always get to get the name wrong. I did not know
this. The guitar player. It's the guitar player's name something Jones is.
I feel like it's Mick Jones, but I'm not sure. Anyway, the
guitar player in Foreigner actually now manages the band, and he doesn't he doesn't
even want to be on stage. The original guitar player. Yeah, yeah,
he so he's still he's still part of the band, but not on
stage. He runs the band. He acts as tour manager, but he
lets but he lets them go out on stage and form. He doesn't want
to perform anymore. But right, but he's still you know, so he's
still making that money. Interesting thing. A number of years ago, Foreigner
went on a tour with Cheap Trick, but Cheap Trick's management insisted that the
guitar player had to actually participate in a certain percentage of the shows. Oh,
they wanted at least one original Yeah. Yeah, things like that happen
when in what was it, two thousand and four or two thousand and five,
when Kiss and Aerosmith did their co headlining tour. They Aerosmith actually closed
out every show. Kiss was on first and then Aerosmith, so they weren't
really co headlining because you know, whoever goes on last is truly the headliner.
So really Aerosmith was the headliner and Kiss was the opener. They called
it a co headlining tour because they're both. The thing is, so dare
you say such thing? Well, the thing is, though, Aerosmith management,
when they put that deal together, they had leverage because Aerosmith had all
five original members, whereas Kiss had a different guitar player because Ace Frehley had
left the band again, so they had Tommy Thayer on guitar. So when
they were putting the deal for the tour together, which Doc McGee, the
manager of Kiss who's still the manager of Kiss today, he really wanted that
tour. He really wanted that tour, so he agreed. You know,
okay, so Kiss will open all the shows. We're gonna call it co
headliner. They're going to play the same amount of time, but Kiss is
going to open every night because Aerosmith had had all five original members and Kiss
only had three of the four original members, So Aerosmith had that leverage.
But I'm just saying if you're someone who because you know, every once in
a while, I'll see people online, Oh I went to see such and
such band, and I didn't even recognize anybody on the stage. Check it
out first, do some light research there are there have been instances where this
is something I'd have to do a little deeper research to really get into the
subject in depth, but we'll do it on a future show because it is
a fascinating subject. I think there was a point where remember the band La
Guns. Yes, the Ballad of Jane was like their big massive hits,
but they had a few other hits. Oh that's right, Edgewise open for
La Guns right right right over there, right right, because we're on Canal
Street now, so right across the street a jewel, that's right. I
forgot about that. There was a point where there were two versions of La
Guns touring at the same time, one with Tracy Guns and one other version
with I think the singer. And it was yeah and and of course oh
that's crazy. Yeah, you know now he is. You have to be
a deep fan to know which concert to go to or like, whose side
are you on? That's why I tell everybody if it matters to you,
if it matters to you, and like to you know, to the average
no clue to the average concert goer who just likes going to a concert.
They probably don't even care. And that's what the industry depends on. That's
what these these bands who do this, that's what they depend on. You
don't care who's in the band, so it doesn't matter, and everybody's replaceable.
But if you do care, do the research. And to kind of
circle back to the Madonna thing again, you know it's going to be the
real Madonna, unless it's an AI version of Madonna or something. But do
the research. If you're concerned about what time you're going to be getting out
of that venue, do the research. I don't think it's going to be
too far that we're not look at it, look at it? Is that
AI? Is that not AI? I mean, isn't Kiss supposed to be
setting up something like that? The avatars? Yeah, that's all it's basically
it's AI. Yeah. So yeah, we may welcome to the twenty second
century twenty first No, not yet, okay, No, I have to
say though I love living in my Jessine world. I really do remember your
kid, You've watched that stuff. Now now we have it, Come on
yet, all right? I don't have my car in a suitcase yet.
I'll give you that. I'll give you that, but I do have the
screen come up and somebody there and we can. Yeah, but I don't
know why. I mean, I don't know how this lawsuit is going to
end up. But I assume, you know, just uh, just refund
their money, right, something you would think would do that. Hopefully,
nothing really, really bad happened because of this. There's a huge difference between
getting out of a venue around eleven o'clock and getting out at one am.
There really is a big difference between them. Yeah, and I don't blame
people for being upset if there was no good reason given. It doesn't sound
like they give any reason. Well it it's something happened. In her defense,
I mean, she had that post from a while ago when she said,
you know, she's the queen. Yeah, that's not good enough.
She's never late. Yeah, No, that's Queen Latita shows up on time
and she is the queen of course. Yeah. Yeah, No, No,
I don't. I don't think that's good enough. No. I think
you owe your fans something when they're gonna come spend all that money to come
see you and spend money on all your merch. I wonder if she sings
live? Can you imagine standing? Well? For me, it would never
happen. I could have never if you had seats that were a ground level.
Everybody's standing or your no seat. What if you're on the floor,
there's no seat, you're standing there, and you're spending over two hours on
your feet before you even get to see a show. No better be a
good show. I couldn't do that. I would have to leave. Do
you think she sings live or does she lip sing? Of course I wouldn't
be her non seated because she probably still dances around, right, she probably
can't sing live anymore? Does her face even move? Have you have you
seen her? It's awful. Have you seen how strange she looks. I'm
just saying because she's she's had all that. I mean, she looks weird.
A lot of she looks very strange. A lot of people seem to
enjoy plastic surgery in a way that it's psychologically addictive. Yes, I believe
that. Yeah, oh yeah, no, it definitely is. Yeah.
Then you're staring at yourself, always looking for flaws. I hate that.
I hate that it makes people do that. I suspect what happens is beautiful
people have they get the plastic surgery, and then they're they're not happy with
the result, and they probably it becomes like you know how if you know
how with if you're addicted to uh well, addicted to anything, if you're
addicted to drugs, and you get into that, okay, just one more
fix, just one more fix. Or if you're addicted to video games,
you know, just one more game, just one more game, and then
I'm gonna put down this controller. I think I think it's the same thing.
It's probably the same thing with plastic surgery. You get plastics and then
you thought it was going to make you look so much younger and it doesn't,
and then you go, all right, I'm just going to get one
more surgery, just one more surgery to just this yeah, just that,
yeah, and then you end up like and then you end up like Kenny
Rodgers. Like remember like in the last ten years that he was still alive,
he looked like a different person, like he had a different face,
because you know, he just kept getting plastic surgery. And it can be
pretty addictive to people, you know, but I'll never shame somebody for doing
it. But you know me personally. I love imperfection. I think imperfection
is the most beautiful thing in art everything I like. When I make scarves
and things, there's always something maybe a stitch got dropped and I pulled it
back up, or one's a little tighter than the other. That's part of
what makes it special and unique, is that each one has its own and
that's what I like about art. I don't want it to be. If
I want something perfect computerized, well that I can go to a computer.
But if I want something that's human, that has passion in it, or
emotion or feeling, whatever it is that I'm looking at, I want those
imperfections. It's what makes them beautiful.
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