Video Killed the Radio Star? Corporations Killed the Vibe.

A quick and light rant about the intoxicating grip of nostalgia and the toxic duality surrounding corporate exploitation of it (OPINION)

(Photo by Katie Flores/Billboard via Getty Images)

This is probably the most important article I’ve ever written for Substack…

I need to know what your favorite music festival was when you were growing up.

(Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

SPOILER ALERT: this is going to be more of a chill piece than normal, so kick off your boots for a sec, dust bunnies.

For any of my younger American readers out there, the answer might be the one we’re currently, technically in the middle of: Coachella. The bright desert carnival filled top to bottom with some of the biggest names in pop and rock music, like Lady Gaga, Post Malone, and Green Day, and the most highly rated acts your hipster bestie loves, like Clairo, Kneecap, and Blonde Redhead, alongside what Jed tells me is the (Jeditor’s Note: REALLY awesome) decision to have an Australian hardcore punk band named Speed call for stage dives and a circle pit at Coachella.

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Everything about Coachella feels like a massive Fever Dream social experiment to me. From the fact that the festival is seemingly populated almost entirely by influencers who are paid to be there, to the lack of proper facilities, with some sources claiming a single slice of pizza can cost ELEVEN DOLLARS… and that’s on top of the fact that a three-day pass STARTS at $600, WITHOUT parking or even shuttle service.

Absolutely no shade to any of you out there who went to this Coachella, or even any past Coachella event. In a world completely decimated by the pandemic, we’re all desperately in need of entertainment and locations away from home to be. At Coachella, you get a glitzy, glamorous influencer carnival, complete with iconic performances from acts that may not be the easiest to see. Where else are you going to see the Circle Jerks and Megyn Thee Stallion play a show together, at the same location that BERNIE SANDERS gives a speech during a Clairo set and WEIRD AL does guest vocals for a Queen cover?

At the same time, though, $600 for a festival during the start of what will likely be a recession, when unemployment is slowly on the rise - and far more rapidly on the rise if you work a government job? It just feels like, and maybe this is a hot take, a LOT of freaking money.

For any Americans whose live music awakening is happening now, or happened any time in a post-lockdown world, things used to be different. Remember Woodstock? Jimi Hendrix. Crosby, Stills, Nash, AND Young. The Who. Jefferson Airplane. CCR. Janis Joplin. Freaking CARLOS SANTANA played, who I swear to God is immortal. This was a three-day, $18 festival - $156 or so in today’s dollars, but even in 1969, virtually every act on the lineup was a verified legend. I didn’t even name Blood Sweat and Tears or The Band initially, because I don’t want to just LIST bands, you know? But Woodstock was a pretty reasonable affair, all things considered - at least on the wallet.

An aerial view of the crowd and stage at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in White Lake, New York on August 17, 1969. (Photo by Dick Kraus/Newsday via Getty Images)

Because you see, after Woodstock, local authorities in Wallkill, New York, drafted and passed a law restricting water and sewer access to large gatherings, aiming to prevent similar events from happening in their area. This law essentially served as a ban on large festivals in Wallkill, as it limited the resources necessary for such events. The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was relocated to Bethel, New York, after this action. This is called the Wallkill Law. It killed big events in Wallkill (and Woodstock WAS big - approximately 400,000 people showed up to an event only permitted for 186,000) - but as time went on, it definitely did not kill the big festival scene in America.

Starting in 1991 with the rise of Lollapalooza, a festival founded by professional Dave Navarro puncher Perry Farrell. Before he was punching Dave Navarro, though, he was performing with him at the inaugural Lolla in Jane's Addiction, with an opening lineup that would make any Gen X-er, or even Gen Z-er with a fetishistic love for the 90s, openly weep.

Perry Farrell doing the thing he loves best (from The Independent)

Siouxsie and the Banshees! Living Colour! Butthole Surfers!!! NINE INCH NAILS. Ice-T, before he played a cop on TV and shouted lyrics like “Die pig, die! Fuck the police!” 10,000 people showed up to the inaugural festival, making it a bona fide hit that made the festival culture in America become a GO-TO destination for youth culture. The success of Lollapalooza led to MORE Lollapalooza. It led to WARPED TOUR - the punk rock circus, a real “jump the fence” event where you could see everybody from Fall Out Boy to NOFX to… uh… whatever Nekrogoblikon is.

wtf (Photo by Chelsea Lauren/WireImage)

Warped Tour today is considered a bit of a moral Rorschach test. Today, you might find memes about Warped Tour that refer to it doubling as a “sex offender registry,” given the troubling amount of former artists that played the fest who have seen troubling allegations (and in some cases, even convictions - TW for child abuse on both of these hyperlinks) against them.

Yet when Warped Tour initially launched, founder Kevin Lyman described the tour as a safe space for "punk" ideals, including the freedom to express diverse opinions, even if they are not widely accepted, and fought to keep ticket prices affordable for the average fan. Even in 2018, the year of the last NORMAL Warped Tour (more on what I mean by that later), tickets topped out on average at about $44 for nearly A HUNDREDS bands. No matter how corporate the event got through sponsorships and larger ticket headliners, it at least FELT punk. Especially to a teenage me (even if, in hindsight, the carnival was probably a bit more predatory than I realized at the time).

You want something with a bit more BITE? Come to OZZFEST, BROTHER, and watch a naked man crawl out of a giant toilet on stage with Limp Bizkit (Jeditor’s note: Rest in peace, Lynn Strait)!

Maybe you prefer genre-bending a bit, so you could go watch Linkin Park AND Jay-Z at Projekt Revolution. The emo kids got Taste of Chaos, the über metalheads got Mayhem, and then for people like me… who also enjoyed the heck out of Warped Tour… there was the Radio 104 Festival.

Lemme tell ya about the single greatest day of my life: Radio 104 2000.

I’ve got a pretty distinct memory that I paid $15 for a ticket to this, but realistically, it was probably $30 or so. But this is $30 in the year 2000’s dollars for THIRTY BANDS, including the legendary main stage lineup that included EVE 6. AUTHORITY ZERO. BOWLING FOR SOUP. SEVENDUST. HOOBASTANK. STAIND… uh, Staind… Uh… 3 Doors Down? …Crazy Town??? Oh god, TRAPT? CREED??? Do not judge me, these were simpler times. Oh - VERUCA SALT.

(Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)

You remember Veruca Salt, the kickass alt rock band with that one hit Seether? Pepperidge Farm remembers. And so do I - you see, fun fact about Radio 104 - there was no backstage area for artists. They were like the rest of us - they had to eat the same shitty comfort food, drink the same overpriced water, and use the same porta potties as the rest of us. It was like a day at camp with some of the biggest, most poorly aged in 2025 names in rock n roll.

I mention all of that to flex that I, V Spehar, as a teenager, got to meet THE Louise Post of Veruca Salt - because the band was, again, just walking around. And you know what Louise did? She gave me a half smoked lit cigarette and said, and I’ll never forget this,

“Here, finish that.”

So, I… did not smoke it - but rather, I saved it, and that ciggy butt with electric pink lipstick became the CENTER of the shadow box I crafted to commemorate that day. Before and after the fest, you could also go to the Webster to catch 5 bands for 5 bucks to see even more up and coming bands. My sister saw Fall Out Boy when there were less than 50 people in the audience. The opener of all openers.

Truly the best day, or couple of days, of my life, followed only by the SECOND best day(s) of my life: the 2001 Radio 104 Festival, with Alien Ant Farm, blink-182, Boy Hits Car, Cold, Good Charlotte, Jimmy Eat World, New Found Glory, Saliva, Sum 41, The Crystal Method, and Dave Navarro. Do not be that guy in the comments asking me where my wedding day or any major milestones in my life rank on this list, because much like Trapt, I’m gonna have to ask you to BACK OFF or I’ll TAKE YOU ON.

this is not a shot from soundcheck, this is the average Trapt crowd attendance in 2025.

But speaking of Dave Navarro, let’s back up a second to Lollapalooza. We’ve been talking about how cheap this obscure 2000 rock festival was - do you wanna take a stab at how much the inaugural Lollapalooza cost in 1991? Mmm, you’re guessing $100? And you - $300? Oho, Mr. Contrarian over here is guessing $30. As if THAT lineup would cost thirty freaking dol-

from Reddit

$25. Plus a $2.50 fee. For all of those bands. And for those of you screaming “V! WHAT ABOUT INFLATION?” I KNOW! WHAT. ABOUT. INFLATION? In 2025 dollars, that $25 is roughly $59. That $2.50 fee is now roughly $6. Meaning after inflation, that lineup would cost you about $65. Which is pretty crazy, right? Especially when you consider that even as late as 2005, tickets for a two-day pass when the festival expanded to multiple days was still only $115. And for chrissakes, Radio 104 was THIRTY. DOLLARS. In the year 2000.

Yet today, Lollapalooza costs $189…….. for ONE of the days. If you want to go to all FOUR days, get ready to drop an absolutely eye watering $415. And if you want to get up front? $4550. Warped Tour’s BACK - and it costs $260 for a two-day pass, better than Lollapalooza’s prices but still a far cry from the festival that once topped out at $43 per day.

I could probably put together a few resources explaining potential reasons why; Vice did an excellent deep dive into rising fuel costs and the various effects of Covid, and Cosmopolitan correctly points out that the record industry is in complete shambles with the death of physical media and the rise of streaming services paying pittance per stream.

But I’ve got something a bit more “vibes” based to throw out there.

I blame LiveNation.

Now, I wanna make it clear: this all started because I was talking about my gripes with Coachella, a festival thrown by Goldenvoice. In its inaugural year of 1999, Coachella was a bit of an anti-Ticketmaster event with headliners Beck, TOOL, and Rage Against the Machine highlighting the anti-corporate imaging - and even pricing, with tickets being $50 per day.

Unfortunately, the event bombed, with not even half of the tickets being sold for a 70,000 cap event (EVEN WITH FREE PARKING AND WATER, LIKE… WHAT?!?!?) and Goldenvoice reconsidered the way the event was held - with bigger and bigger changes being made year after year, until we get to the place we’re at today.

The reason I blame LiveNation for this is simple: according to the Department of Justice, LiveNation (and Ticketmaster) are a monopoly. And as the years have gone on, and LiveNation have introduced more and more predatory practices into the equation, from “dynamic pricing” to absurd junk fees to outrageous prices exploding all around. Being a monopoly, it would probably be quite hard for Goldenvoice to keep up with the concept of “supply and demand,” and considering that Coachella is their biggest cash cow, we see a noticeable uptick in every ticket price for Coachella with every average price increase in the touring music economy.

Of course - all music festivals are ruined by consumerism. Coachella was built on it from the get. But when I think back on Woodstock, Warped, Lollapalooza, Radio 104, Coachella stands out to me as something unique in terms of excess and classism within what once felt like a safe space for folks who simply needed another PLACE. Coachella is the day, or rather the two weekends, the music dies. I’m thinking maybe we’ve lost the plot on music festivals a bit.

But that’s where YOU come in, because I guess I’m wondering about people’s relationship to music now... what are your thoughts on anything from free love, to Rage Against the Machine and protest music, to tryhard punk rock AND those bands rejecting the aristocracy, too…? What are your thoughts?

I know this was a different kind of piece for Substack, but I want this to be a place for casual discussion too. And right now, I’ve got $25 chicken tender baskets and $600 starting price tickets on the brain and it’s making me feel ill when I’ve got such distinct memories of $25 Radio 104 tickets on the mind.