McNutt Against the Music

So as I figured I would, I jumped the gun a bit on the Elton John gossip last month. I wasn’t wrong – the city was trying to get the British icon to play here – but things just couldn’t be worked out. So where does that leave the good city of Halifax? As the Daily News reported this weekend, in a bit of a mess.

On the surface, the pieces seem to be coming together for a two-night extravaganza on the Commons this September that has the potential to offer a little something for everyone. On Friday, September 21 – Justin Timberlake. The next night, Saturday, September 22 – The Who (who the city has been trying to get here for a while now). That’s a solid one-two punch of shows that would solidify our city’s place on the North American touring map.

So what’s getting in the way? What might prevent this impressive double-bill from taking place? According to David Rodenhiser, it’s petty politics, a territorial feud between the provincially-appointed Events Halifax and the mayor’s office, that might keep Halifax megaconcert-less this summer. Here’s the nitty-gritty (from Sunday’s Daily News):

Andy Cotton of TAO Productions said Friday that if EH! and Kelly can’t settle their issues quickly, the Timberlake and Who shows are probably on the rocks.

“It’s 50/50 now,” Cotton said. “If it can be solved in the next few days, maybe a week, then everybody from our side – and certainly I know Jens and the people he’s talking to – would support getting it in there and getting it done.”

This is a twisted tale that involves Kelly casting himself in the role of concert promoter after becoming dissatisfied with a lack of progress on the part of Events Halifax!.

…

Sources say Kelly became concerned in March when two things happened. Halifax lost a country concert package featuring Faith Hill and Tim McGraw to Magnetic Hill, and talks between EH! and Donald K. Donald about bringing The Who to Halifax stalled due to a lack of communication from EH!.

Kelly and Coun. Dawn Sloane (Halifax Downtown) decided to see what they could scare up on their own. Sloane contacted Brazil, a former tour manager for the Commitments who now lives in Bedford. Brazil called Cotton, who had managed the Commitments, to help with technical expertise and access to artists. Cotton has a Rolodex of A-list acts.

Cotton flew to Halifax in May on his own dime to tour the Citadel, the Garrison Grounds and the Common. He called the Garrison Ground and the Citadel “phenomenal” locations for concerts, and attractive to artists who like performing in, and recording DVDs at, unique sites. He estimated the parade grounds inside the Citadel, which hosted a Blue Rodeo show in 1997, could accommodate 25,000, and the Garrison Grounds up to 40,000.

“I cannot see any reason why Halifax is not getting a lot of stuff going through there,” Cotton enthused. “I think it’s just a case of, it needs to be done for a year, and it needs to be on the circuit so everybody knows that this is a city that knows how to do things, will assist in doing things, and as an artist you want to come there.”

It grew into an effort coordinated by Brazil, with Grodt and his connections working on Timberlake, while Cotton worked on The Who. Cotton also had discussions with such other acts as Elton John, Billy Joel and Diana Ross.

It came together for the last weekend of summer. Timberlake would perform on Friday, Sept. 21, and The Who would headline Saturday, Sept. 22 – one of today’s hottest pop stars, followed by one of the most influential bands in rock history.

Part of the plan was that the profits would go into a fund for the city to use as seed money for more concerts in 2008, the profits from which would go toward 2009. And so on and so on.

Seed money for this year’s concert was a concern, though. Kelly approached a number of well-off Haligonians looking for private financing. Multi-millionaire entrepreneur Mickey MacDonald came aboard, Cotton said.

“The shows were in a good state of order. The artists were pretty well ready.”

Things seemed to be going along swimmingly, then Kelly took the package to Events Halifax!. EH! is in charge of booking concerts for the city, but it doesn’t answer to the city. EH! is an offshoot of Trade Centre Ltd. and answers to the provincial government.

They’re the same group of people, headed by Trade Centre CEO Fred MacGillivray, who shepherded the Commonwealth Games bid. You’ll recall that Kelly scuttled the Games bid in March – just before EH! lost the Hill/McGraw show to Moncton, and talks with Donald K. Donald over The Who went bad.

The Trade Centre/EH! folks don’t like Kelly. Not one bit. First he aborted their Games baby, and now he had circumvented them in organizing a Concert on the Common to follow up last year’s Rolling Stones show.

About 10 days ago, Cotton, Brazil and Grodt discovered that EH! had brought in another promoter – rumoured to be Gillette Entertainment Group – to negotiate with Timberlake and The Who.

“All of a sudden, Events Halifax! said there’s another promoter with exactly the same concept, on exactly the same date, for exactly the same artist, where the promoter will take risk, so they want to go down that route,” Cotton said.

Management for Timberlake and The Who were baffled to find themselves with competing offers from Halifax.

“The message is out there that Halifax doesn’t know what it is doing,” Cotton said. “Instead of going forward as a cohesive unit, there’s differing signals being sent.”

My thoughts – thank goodness that Andy Cotton went public with this. We have a right to know when childish turf wars are getting in the way of common sense in our town. There’s an institutional problem playing itself out here – why a Halifax events organization reports to the province and not to the city, I have no idea – but, really, everyone involved answers to the public of this city/province, and they don’t really give much of a shit about whose fault this is. We just want a killer concert, and the idea that we’re going to lose out on two of them because the city has got two different promoters vying for the same event is asinine, make no bones about it.

Fingers crossed that with this information going public, saner heads will prevail and we’ll have something to talk about (and rock about) this September.