Hip hop
Historic Bruce Springsteen fanzine Backstreets will close after 43 years – due to the prices of the music legend’s current tour.
The Boss returned with a new album last year, the vintage soul homage ‘Only The Strong Survive’. Set to go back out on the road in 2023, the decision to utilise so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ has led to a divisive response from fans.
With prices for some areas of the shows rising to eye-watering levels, long-time manager Jon Landau was forced to intervene, attempting to defend the decision publicly.
Long-time Springsteen fanzine Backstreets, however, isn’t to be swayed. After 43 years they’re set to cease publishing, stating: “it’s with mixed emotions that we announce Backstreets has reached the end of the road.”
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Christopher Phillips writes: “We are immensely proud of the work Backstreets has done, and we are forever grateful to the worldwide community of fellow fans who have contributed to and supported our efforts all these years, but we know our time has come.”
He writes: “A key reason something as gonzo as Backstreets has been able to exist, and for so long — since 1980 — is that it has consistently sprung from a place of genuine passion, rooted in a heartfelt belief in the man and his music. As difficult as it is to call this the end, it’s even harder to imagine continuing without my whole heart in it.”
Getting to the crunch, he says: “These are concerts that we can hardly afford; that many of our readers cannot afford; and that a good portion of our readership has lost interest in as a result.”
Continuing, the Backstreets team directly cited the ticketing issue as the key aspect of the zine’s closure. The statement reads:
If you read the editorial Backstreets published last summer in the aftermath of the U.S. ticket sales, you have a sense of where our heads and hearts have been: dispirited, downhearted, and, yes, disillusioned. It’s not a feeling we’re at all accustomed to while anticipating a new Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band tour. If you haven’t yet read that editorial (“Freeze-out,” July 24, 2022), or the crux of Springsteen’s response to Rolling Stone in November, we encourage you to do so; we don’t want to rehash those issues, but we stand behind our positions and points.
We’re not alone in struggling with the sea change. Judging by the letters we’ve received over recent months, the friends and longtimers we’ve been checking in with, and the response to our editorial, disappointment is a common feeling among hardcore fans in the Backstreets community.
When I revisit that writing now, it reads like a cry for help; most discouraging was that six months went by with no lifeline thrown. What we have been grappling with is not strictly the cost of admission (“It’s not just about the money!” is a refrain we’ve heard from Backstreets readers) but its various implications.
Signing off, Backstreets writes: “The shared love and joy, the camaraderie, the minutiae and close attention paid, the passion, the post-shows.… if you’re still on the train, may all of that continue for you. Rave on. We have every hope of meeting you further on up the road.”
Find the full statement on their website.
