When Aerosmith were almost sued by their own fans: “The band is about the music”
As much as I enjoyed the Fyre Festival documentary, revelling in the downfall of another commercial attempt to snatch music, the rather dark underbelly of the story began to eat away at me. Local communities were ravaged by false promises, while billionaire brats once again came away from the mess, relatively unscathed. But then I asked myself, when has abuse of power ever come as a surprise?
While we should never lose hope that music is, in fact, for the people, there are often examples of greed that chip away at our optimism. Maybe it is Fyre Festival, but the very minute that was being advertised by runway models, you probably should have sniffed danger. But maybe more recently, it was Oasis, whose dampened the mood of their triumphant comeback by fanning the flames of Ticketmaster’s warped dynamic pricing policy.
But in 2009, Aerosmith pulled off one of the more transparent money grabbing moves, that left them red faced and with their hat in hand, asking for fan forgiveness. In 2007, they were scheduled to play a show at the War Memorial Stadium in Maui, Hawaii, before cancelling the show and citing “logistical reasons” as the force behind it.
While Aerosmith were valid in labelling the mishap as a logistical error, it’s hard to say that it didn’t come as a result of their own neglect. The show was scheduled for September 26th, but they failed to get all of their instruments and gear to Maui in time, after trying to squeeze in a Chicago show just two days before. The Chicago show was due to originally take place on the 10th, but was then moved to the 24th, which the band deemed okay in terms of scheduling.
However, when their kit didn’t arrive, the overwhelming flaw in the plan came to the surface. Incensed Hawaiian fans then filed a collective lawsuit, led by Lawyer Brandee Faria, who sought to get compensation beyond their ticket refunds. With Faria’s help, the group had calculated that the cancellation cost between £250,000 and £1.5million in travel costs for those who bought tickets as well as the more general economic benefit it would have provided Maui in a local sense.
At the root of this lawsuit was the belief that Aerosmith approved the risky schedule changes on a financial basis and chose to prioritise income over prior agreements, because of the almost doubled audience size Chicago’s show provided. Then, adding insult to injury, the band then played Honolulu a few days later, when their instruments finally turned up. But this show, was in fact for a private concert paid for by Toyota.
After two lengthy years, the band settled with the fans by agreeing to come back and play the island in 2009, assuming they had any fans left. Those who participated in the lawsuit and were of course still willing to go, received a ticket free of charge, and Faria stated at that time: “Some components of the monetary facet of the settlement have been paid, the out-of-pocket reimbursements are expected to be paid sometime over the next 30-60 days.”
Of course, the band spun this as some sort of a charitable endeavour despite being the architects of the mess and their lawyer Jay Handlin, stated, “The band is about the music,” he said. “So they are glad to be able to resolve this in a way that really focuses on connecting or reconnecting the people of Hawaii with the band and its music.”
Clearly, it seemed to patch the relationship up enough for Steven Tyler to return to Maui, where he has now bought a house and claims to be in the hearts of the people. Once again, abuse of power comes at absolutely no surprise.
