No Peek at Private Shows

The Private Gig Industry is Now Humongous

I read a fascinating story in the New Yorker (June 5 print edition) about “How to Hire a Pop Star for Your Private Party.”

Reporter Evan Osnos usually writes about geopolitics and other serious business for the magazine. But this was the Music issue, and he did a deep dive into the now big business of musicians who do "private gigs." These used to be under the radar events for artists to appear before conventions or private audiences for a lot of money. It was an unapologetic money-grab, and it used to be considered uncool. It is still uncool, but the money has gotten to be so spectacular for such little work that only a few artists--Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, "and, for reasons that nobody can quite clarify, AC/DC"--are known to say no to such requests.

There are some locations and clients that are particularly egregious, but the money always talks. Beyoncé did a private show in January for a new hotel in Dubai, a one hour set, for $24 million. Before the Arab Spring uprising in 2011, Mariah Carey, 50 Cent, Usher, and Nelly Furtado performed for the family of Muammar Quaddafi in Libya. Jennifer Lopez, in 2013, sang "Happy birthday, Mr. President," to the ruler of Turkmenistan, whom Osnos describes as "one of the world's most repressive despots." The Human Rights Foundation issued a report saying that Lopez had earned more than $10 million from "crooks and dictators from Eastern Europe and Russia."

But that was then. Osnos quoted a Los Angeles drummer, Charles Ruggiero, representing the musician point of view: "A gig is a gig is a gig." And with touring wiped out for about two years by Covid, and record royalties almost non-existent for many artists because of the ubiquity of streaming, more musicians than ever are open to private gigs.

Queens, NY, June 7, 2023, 2:30 EDT. If your air looked like this, you’d stay in and write another Substack post, too.

On a more prosaic level, Rod Stewart earned $1.25 million for a private gig for Kia in Las Vegas. An entire department at the C.A.A. talent agency is now devoted to private gigs, and in 2022, they booked more than 600 such dates.

To frame his story, Osnos focused on the rapper Flo Rida appearing at a Bar-Mitzvah for a boy named Andrew, in a suburb of Chicago. Like so many today, Andrew's father works in finance, and did not want his name used. Flo Rida, whose hits in 2008 and 2009, his peak chart years, included "Low" and "Right Round." For domestic gigs, his fee is $150,000-$300,000. Private jet required. The Bar-Mitzvah boy and his friends were treated to Flo's backup dancers, in "black leather bikini tops and mesh leggings."

I was twice invited on the road to interview stars in the 1980s who were doing private gigs, and as a result, had their afternoons free. I went to Toronto to interview Linda Ronstadt, who if I remember correctly, was doing a private gig that night for a Ford Motor Company Canada sales conference.

A similar situation ensued with Barry Manilow. He was going to be doing a long run at Radio City Music Hall (again, I'm relying on memory here). I was invited to do an advance interview with him at the Four Seasons Hotel in Naples, Fla., the posh resort city on the Gulf Coast. He would be doing a version of his show for the pleasure of a Wall Street investment banking firm.

I was eager to go to Naples, because I had often visited there when it was just a smallish town with placid public beach. When visiting my mother in North Miami Beach, I would often drive the 71 miles across "Alligator Alley," (now the Everglades Parkway), then one lane in each direction, always keeping out an eye for the gators. You had to have gas in the tank and faith in your tires, because there were no rest stops, and no shoulder, or very soft swampy shoulders, to pull over. To see Manilow, of course, I flew to nearby Ft. Myers, a half hour north.

The reason for the interview was unusual. Manilow wanted publicity for his shows, of course. But he also gave me a "scoop": he was going to marry a woman, a longtime associate.

I was skeptical about this wedding thing. I wasn't looking to "out" anyone, and it was the 1980s. AIDS was decimating the gay community, and it was enough to drive anyone in the public eye back to the relative safety of the closet. But from the moment Manilow became known as Bette Midler's piano player and bandleader at the Continental Baths in Manhattan, at the beginning of her career, there didn't seem to be any doubt about his sexuality, nor did anyone in New York's sophisticated music and show business circles care the slightest.

Meet my grand-dog, Napa.

But what do you do if you're interviewing someone you are pretty sure is gay, who is saying he's marrying a woman, and you suspect he is using this as a cover for something? I remember sitting on the porch patio of his suite at the Four Seasons in Naples, listening to him but skeptical. I thought about my strategies: We were alone, and I said something like, "come on, Barry, what is this really about?" I didn't know if he was with a companion at the time, and I thought about putting my arm around him and kissing him on the lips. It was something I had done before. Not with Barry Manilow. I had come to realize it wasn't my preference, I had spent some time coming to terms with my heterosexuality, but coming of age in the glam years in New York, it was not entirely a foreign notion to me.

As the conversation developed, however, I understood why Manilow did not come out of the closet until 2017, when he announced it in People magazine. "After coming out publicly in 2017, Manilow told People magazine he kept his personal life private for so many years because he was worried about disappointing his fans. The ‘Mandy’ hitmaker explained: “I’m so private. I always have been. I thought I would be disappointing them if they knew I was gay. So I never did anything,” a Toronto newspaper wrote.

I think it went deeper than that. He had been married to a woman once. Susan. The story Manilow told me about what troubled that marriage made my skin crawl. It was Barry's mother. As soon as he and Susan got married, his mother rented an apartment directly upstairs from them, moved into the same building. He felt under surveillance. His whole life had been like that. I realized that Manilow could not announce he was gay because it would absolutely kill his mother. Literally kill her, drop dead heart attack on the spot sort of thing. Or she would kill him, with hammers, knives, pots and pans. She seemed that crazy. It turned out to be a very interesting story.

But as with the visit with Linda Ronstadt in Toronto, only one element of that day in Florida with Manilow was forbidden: I was not, under any circumstance, allowed to see the shows they were doing. Short set. Stripped down band, limited act. Maybe half hour, 45 minutes, one hour. They would absolutely not let me see the shows.

As professionals, they were too ashamed of these take the money and run schemes to let anyone from the media see the half-assed shows. But the money was so good, they couldn't say no. Same as it ever was, only the scale has become monumental.