The Stones: Satisfaction at $35 a Ticket?

Tickets for the Rolling Stones’ fall stadium tour won’t go on sale for weeks, but anyone planning to go better start saving their money. The tickets are expected to at least match and probably surpass the previous high for a stadium tour. They’ll be at least $30, and could go as high as $35.

The Jacksons were the first stadium-touring act to reach the $30 ticket plateau on their mega-event “Victory” tour five years ago. Tickets on the current Who tour are a relative bargain at $25.

The Stones’ four-month tour of North America is expected to begin in September, to coincide with the release of the group’s second album for Columbia Records. Michael Cohl of Concert Production International in Toronto is the tour promoter, having guaranteed the Stones a reported $60 million to $70 million. For Cohl to recoup that total, the group will have to do knockout business in ticket sales, corporate sponsorship, merchandising, pay-per-view cable and international television rights.

Can they do it--especially with tickets that are expected to be price-busters?

Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, a trade magazine that reports on the concert industry, doubts that the Stones are a guaranteed draw these days.

“I don’t think it’s an out-of-the-box home run at $35 a ticket,” he said. “The right thing to do would be $25 tickets, like the Who did. That’s the fair price in the marketplace for them.”

Cohl has refused to discuss the tour with the press pending the official announcement, which is expected in early July. But it’s Topic A of conversation among many industry insiders.

Larry Solters, a senior vice president at MCA Records, said that the Stones audience will extend beyond the realm of regular concertgoers, and thus the usual rules about ticket pricing don’t apply.

“The audience is going to see them because it’s a big media event, so I think they’ll pay anything,” he said.

Rob Kahane, co-manager of George Michael, strongly disagreed.

“To me, it’s death,” he said of a $35 ticket price. “All you have to do is take a historical look at stadium shows and see how artists can price themselves out of the market. The Stones are going to suffer for it.”

Many will be watching to see if the Stones take as much heat as the Jacksons did five years ago for charging $30.

Writing in his Rock & Roll Confidential newsletter, rock muckraker Dave Marsh noted: “Five years ago, the press mercilessly whopped on Michael Jackson for the ‘Victory’ tour’s $30 ticket price. The Rolling Stones tour is expected to carry a $35 ticket, which is just as much out of line with other acts’ prices. It’ll be interesting to see if the Stones take the same kind of heat for gouging their fans.”

Mark Shimmel, an executive with Entertainment Services Inc., which specializes in rock ‘n’ roll and TV, said that he thinks most boomers will stay home.

“I don’t see a lot of people my age going to stadium shows,” said Shimmel, 37. “I definitely think it’s a kids’ show. One thing that the Who tour proved is that you don’t sell out stadiums on people our age. You sell them out on kids.”

Pollstar’s Bongiovanni said that for the tour to be successful, the concerts will have to draw both adults and the teen-agers who form the core of the concert-going audience.

“I suspect that a lot of the tickets that are being sold to the Who are going to younger kids wanting to check it out,” he said. “Here’s a seminal band in rock history and this might be the kids’ last chance to see them. The same attitude could prevail with the Stones too. But at $35 a ticket, some of those people may drop out.”

NEVER FORGET: The Neville Brothers have stepped into controversy with their version of Bob Dylan’s anti-war anthem “With God on Our Side.” The song speaks of the fact that wars are often fought in the name of God, and harkens back to the Indians, the Spanish American War, the Civil War and World War I.

The Nevilles’ version includes all those references, but omits Dylan’s reference to the Holocaust, replacing it with a new chorus about the Vietnam War. The deletion prompted an unsigned letter to The Times which said in part: “Why would the Neville Brothers excise the Nazi horror? . . . Someone representing the (group) need answer why they decided to gloss over, ignore, delete the Holocaust from the original Bob Dylan version.”

Bill Graham, whose San Francisco-based company manages the group, was sympathetic to the letter-writer’s position.

“It’s a very valid point,” he said. “They’re the artists so it’s not for me to answer on their behalf. But the question carries merit.”

Charles Neville, sax player of the seven-man band, acknowledged that the omission may have been insensitive, but said it wasn’t meant to be hurtful. He said that the group recorded the full version, but later deleted that chorus when the album was running long.

“In order to fit everything on the album some things were cut from most of the songs,” he said. “But it wasn’t done with the idea of ‘Oh, forget the Jews.’ We’re very sorry that (the writer) took it that way because that’s not the case. The whole purpose in including that song was that the message is still relevant now.”

Neville said that when the point about the song being too long was raised, a suggestion was made to cut the new verse about Vietnam. But Neville said that his brother, Aaron, fought to keep that chorus, arguing, “That’s closer to what’s happening now. Let’s don’t cut that one.”

The band’s manager, Morty Wiggins, added: “As a manager and also as a Jew, I didn’t take any offense to it. The song was way too long and they had to cut out a verse, so they (kept) what was relevant to them. I don’t think there was any maliciousness at all in their intention.

“There’s nothing about the black man’s struggle in the song either. I guess people could make an issue of that: Why are the Neville Brothers speaking of oppression with every other race except their own? If they were going to add a verse, why didn’t they add a verse about the black man’s struggle? This is what they did. It’s their music.” NEWS NOTES: George Michael is set to release his follow-up to the Grammy-winning “Faith” in January. It’s tentatively set to be a double concept album, focusing on Michael’s pop and R&B; roots. . . . Laura Nyro’s first album in five years, “Laura Nyro Live at the Bottom Line,” is due July 5 on Cypress Records. The album, recorded at the New York club last summer during Nyro’s first tour in 10 years, consists of mostly new material. . . . The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ upcoming album, “Mother’s Milk,” includes a lighthearted salute to Lakers star Magic Johnson and a rock/funk version of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground,” but the most heartfelt cut is “Knock Me Down,” an anti-drug song dedicated to group guitarist Hillel Slovak, who died of a heroin overdose last year.

SHOPPING SPREE: Want to buy a Boy George doll? A Stevie Nicks tour jacket? A James Brown poster? Check out The Rock Store, at 6817 Melrose Ave. in Hollywood, which opens Wednesday. The store specializes in pop memorabilia, from postcards and pins to a silk robe worn by Elvis Presley in the movie “Kid Galahad.” . . . You say your tastes run to more offbeat, alternative music? A new mail-order company specializes in hard-to-find records, CDs and cassettes by local underground artists. No Limits Distribution’s initial catalogue ranges from spoken word exotica to progressive jazz to art-rock. The company is run by Edan Benn Epstein, who hosts “Something Else” Saturday nights on KCRW-FM. Address: P.O. Box 7438, Culver City 90233-7438.