Rock and . . .Whoa!

In his ‘80s song “This Note’s for You,” Neil Young mocked some rock rivals for putting avarice ahead of art. That tune didn’t make it onto the set list, however, when Young played the Wiltern Theatre in March and charged fans as much as $127.50 per seat.

Some say that steep price makes Young seem greedy himself; others say it only means he’s market savvy (the two acoustic shows, after all, quickly sold out). One thing it doesn’t make him, however, is unique.

The concert industry is enjoying a year of unprecedented revenues, and skyrocketing ticket prices among veteran acts is the key reason.

If you were a rock fan who opted to go see, say, four concerts by old favorites this year--Young, the Rolling Stones, Tom Waits and the Bob Dylan-Paul Simon tandem show--you could have shelled out $620 for top seats.

To bring a date, figure a cool $1,240. That’s the box office prices, not some scalper’s fee. And then there’s food, baby-sitting charges, parking. . . .

If you find that shocking, get used to it. There’s no sign of relief on the horizon.

“Everyone is fighting the battle of greed right now,” says Tom Ross, a 30-year veteran of the concert business and former agent for Dylan, Eric Clapton and Janet Jackson. “[The artists all] started out as hippies and having fun. Now they’ve all grown up to be what they fought against: big business.”

The average cost of a concert ticket is surging, up an eye-popping 50% in just three years, according to a survey of the 50 top-grossing North American concerts during the first six months of the year. Watch for prices to continue rising, but not as sharply, says Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, the industry trade magazine. “I’m not sure we could see another increase that sharp,” he says.

The Stones, the kings of the concert circuit, led the way with an average ticket price of $110 (the best seats were $300), but Young and Dylan-Simon also sold triple-digit tickets, albeit only for the best seats in the house. The rare stage appearance by Waits was priced at $67.50 for all seats.

Moreover, a legion of other veteran artists, such as Van Morrison, the Allman Brothers, Bad Company and Lynyrd Skynyrd, have raised their top ticket prices into the $60-to-$85 area, a range that was relatively rare a few years ago but is now a familiar fixture. Their target audience is clear: graying, well-heeled baby boomers who are less likely to go to numerous concerts but are more willing and able to pay big bucks for an “event show.”

“It comes down to the artist and their managers and what they are comfortable doing,” says Los Angeles promoter Andy Hewitt. “And what we’re seeing is [that] many of the established artists have decided to push the price envelope more than in the past. And people pay it.”

That envelope will be pushed even further for upcoming New Year’s Eve shows, which, keying into the historic vibe of the year 2000 celebration, have been priced to dizzying heights. The Eagles, for example, will play the Staples Center and have a ticket range that tops out at $1,000 per seat--a price that, so far, has been too high to sell out.

Defenders of the artists point out that, for years, artists kept tickets cheap--and it was the scalpers who scooped them up and jacked up the price. Doesn’t it make sense for the artists to make the money instead of a ticket broker?

“The public is going to decide what it’s going to pay for art. . . . It’s no secret that there’s always been a certain percentage of seats that sell at a high price,” says Tim Ryan, general manager of the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim. “That money is now finally going where it belongs.”

Ryan and others point out that concerts still stack up well against professional sports events, shows and performing arts as entertainment value. The concerts are also more expensive affairs, with higher production costs and elaborate stagings, Ryan said.

That’s true, but artists aiming at younger audiences have been able to successfully keep their prices within reach of their fans. Tickets for the Offspring, for instance, range from about $18 to $22. And country music titan Garth Brooks, who has made a pact with fans to keep prices low, charged $21 on his last tour for an elaborately produced show.

“You haven’t seen a lot of artists stand up and say, ‘This price is too much,’ the way Garth Brooks has,” says Bongiovanni. “Most see the money out there and want some.”

Hewitt notes that some veteran artists such as Elton John, Tom Petty, John Mellencamp and Billy Joel have also resisted the trend to push prices up toward the triple-digit level. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are coming to town in October, and the top ticket face value is less than $70.

“These are superstars, but you can get good seats for about $50, and that’s because they want it that way,” Hewitt says.

The overall higher ticket prices are not entirely good news for the concert industry, Bongiovanni says. Increasingly, big-name artists are asking for guaranteed up-front payments for shows, which jacks up the ticket price but can reduce the profit margin for promoters.

Many observers say the prices are also a splashy effect from the arrival of SFX Entertainment onto the industry landscape. The New York-based company has spent more than a $1 billion in less than three years to consolidate promoters and venues into a single empire, and luring artists with big, guaranteed paydays has been one its strategies. The $500,000 up-front fee for Dylan and Simon, for instance, pushed up ticket prices.

Many industry insiders are also concerned that fan loyalty and artists’ career development may wilt in the face of the higher prices, and that going for the steeply priced ticket is a short-sighted strategy.

“You get the higher prices because artists and their managers are trying to maximize profit, but you see some half-empty houses along the tour,” Bongiovanni said.

Fans who pay $130 for a pair of seats and find themselves in “a sea of empty seats” may be inclined to skip the artist’s next visit to town, he said. Indeed, some of the Dylan-Simon shows and Rod Stewart’s recent tour are examples of pricey affairs where some dates were far from sellouts.

Will the spiraling cost of concert tickets eventually cause the attendance declines that have hit professional sports? To Ross, who recently resigned as the chief of the music division at Creative Artists Agency, the price frenzy may be a case of veteran artists selling themselves short. “The trends are disturbing, frankly,” he says. “We’re not growing the business. The older acts are looking for more paydays, but it’s going to bite them on the butt. The next time they play, the fans might not be there.”