Presented by NACPA and Moderated by Ben Liss

Bob Lefsetz and Ben Liss

Oh, yes he did. Whoever had "within the first five words" in the pool for how quickly industry critic Bob Lefsetz would drop his first F-bomb, please pick up your prize.

Subscribers and others who know "The Lefsetz Letter" - an e-mailed and Web-published newsletter - understand. Those few unsuspecting souls in the packed room unaware of the iconoclastic, often incendiary, Lefsetz weren't likely to have been bored.

The North American Concert Promoters Association graciously sponsored a one-on-one conversation between former chief Ben Liss and Lefsetz, in a departure from the usual panel format, and packed with enough fact and opinion to keep people talking for days.

Lefsetz let it all hang out, and his audience got 90 minutes of in-your-face opinion on everything from the future of Live Nation to the future of Led Zeppelin - and whether the industry needs either. And he didn't pull any punches.

With the room full of live industry pros, he informed them that "the live industry thinks it's immune, because you can't steal a live show. But at the same time, you're fucking the customer up the rear end for like 10 years, and the customer knows it! Even my 81-year-old mother knows it!"

Liss raised the issue of add-on ticket charges that increase ticket prices.

Bob Lefsetz

That's not the case with Dave Matthews Band, Liss countered. "Dave does incredible business year after year," he said. "The pool that he's drawing from increases year after year. Why is that such a difficult formula for others in the industry to understand?"

The answer probably caused ears to burn from Los Angeles to Florida.

After a brief discussion about Live Nation board chairman Michael Cohl's stock compensation, and speculation of what that's worth to Madonna, Lefsetz got to the point.

"Coran Capshaw has a pretty nice lifestyle, but it's not all about the money with Dave. The story is the fan," Lefsetz emphasized. "The fan will give you the money if they believe. They want to buy the T-shirt. They want to be part of it. They have the fan club; and not one of those where you join and still get shitty seats, either.

"Irving Azoff has it right. If you are willing to pay the price, you get the front-row seat, the fake laminate, the whole nine yards. But you don't get a shitty seat."

Liss used the Azoff namecheck to segue into a discussion of the vaunted 360-degree artist deal.

"I've told Irving, 'you shouldn't do 360 deals with the labels, the labels should be doing 360 deals with you," Lefsetz said.

"The labels should be doing 360 deals with Irving and Steve Jobs. They have the access to the fans; the labels don't," Lefsetz said. "What Irving is sick of is the labels dictating to him. ... and have you ever heard of a deal where Azoff got fucked?"

And speaking of record labels, Lefsetz had plenty of special words for them, and especially for Warner Music Group: "Edgar Bronfman is a fucking idiot" for making the deal to buy last summer's Social@Ross series in the Hamptons for $18 million.

With losses piling up on the CD sales, Lefsetz offered a solution: "If I were Warner Music Group, I'd close down the music division and create one for catalogs," he said. "We know Neil Young sells a lot of catalog. We know Led Zeppelin is going to continue selling records. It's incredibly expensive to break a new act. Look at Rhianna and 'Umbrella.' Most of you don't even know it because you don't have to.

"You used to have to know the music. Now, you can not really sell a record. What was the top record on SoundScan last week selling? Sixty thousand copies? People freak out if a record sells 100,000."

Liss turned the question back to the concert business by asking why the live industry should care about the record labels' problems. "You only care because they built your acts," Lefsetz shot back.

Ben Liss

With Harvey Goldsmith, Marek Lieberberg and Brian Murphy in the front row, Lefsetz went into his concerns. For instance, he said the Rolling Stones have been overpricing their fans for years, basically because everyone wanted to see them before Keith Richards died. But if Richards can fall out of a coconut tree and not die, what value did the pricing have?

"Who's going to move first and bring the fan back into the equation? The '60s and '70s was a renaissance age," Lefsetz said. "Most bands that were huge 20 years ago can't even get on Top 40 radio now."

And then the bombshell: "Led Zeppelin isn't going to go on tour. The industry doesn't need Led Zeppelin to go on tour."

Goldsmith, who produced the Ahmet Ertegun benefit at London's O2 Arena that sparked the recent Led Zeppelin tour rumor frenzy, was sitting about 10 feet away and chuckled loudly. And so it went for some 90 minutes, including a lively question-and-answer period with the audience.

Another eminently quotable industry figure, Live Nation's Danny Zelisko, provided sparks by calling Lefsetz out on his dismissal of a Led Zeppelin tour.

He prefaced his question by pointing out he'd attended the London show and called it one of the greatest experiences of his career.

"If Led Zeppelin were to go out on tour, that would be a great thing for everybody," Zelisko told Lefsetz. "The fans would get to see what I got to see, with the passion I had for seeing that show. And the thousands of dollars I spent to go to that show was worth it, as opposed to feeling ripped off. Most of the other bands touring today don't belong on the same stage with these guys."

Lefsetz, who surely is not cashing in beer cans for extra spending money, let Zelisko know that he considers the concert industry to be suffering from a serious class divide.

"Every concert promoter was [at the Led Zeppelin show]," Lefsetz explained. "Everybody's flying over there, and you know they're not flying coach. It was unbelievably expensive. The live business is divided between the haves and the have nots. What's up with that?

"The average person feels closed out. I believe the average person has to be brought in. Now there's a class of people who can buy all the good tickets, and a class that can't buy them at all. I think that's evidence of a problem." And, as if to wrap up a lecture, Lefsetz said, "I believe that if there was an appetite for a tour, I would sit down with them. But based on the latest information, there really wasn't. But hey, the show was great."