Few American cities have suffered a corporate dicking as thoroughly as Phoenix, what with every one of its stadiums bearing names like U.S. Airways Center, Chase Field, Wells Fargo Arena, Jobing.com Arena, and, though a little outside city limits, our personal favorite, Tim's Toyota Center. It seems sports teams are willing to pimp their reputation out to anybody for a buck, and now this country's rock stars are lining up to show they're just as big whores, in case you thought any differently. It all started when Vans created the Warped Tour, but now every company in America with a little pluck thinks it can sponsor its own concert series. Here in Phoenix alone, we've got the Jägermeister Music Tour coming up, with the Vans Warped Tour in June and the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival and the Hot Topic Presents "Summer Slaughter Tour." All of this corporate prostitution of artistic promiscuity got us thinking about what other sponsors and tours we wouldn't want to buy tickets to, which is how we wound up with this list.
Depends Diapers' "We're Not Dead Yet Tour"
Are you a trio, quartet, or maybe even a quintet of classic rockers that has somehow cheated death by drugs, alcohol, sex, and airplanes over the years? Are you eager to get back on the road and make some of the money you lost to bad investments? Well, it's time to think sponsorship. That is, unless you want to be playing cruise ships for the few remaining years of your lives.
Type O Negative: Brought to you by Jägermeister.
Details
The Jägermeister Tour, featuring Hatebreed, Type O Negative, 3 Inches of Blood, Pelvic Meatloaf, and Six, is scheduled to take place Friday, May 30.
Marquee Theatre in Tempe
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Trojan Condoms Presents "No Regrets Tour"
Double bill. Britney and Jamie Lynn. No greats, y'all.
Tampax's "Fear the Uterus" Tour
Back in 1996, an all-estrogen tour sounded ludicrous, but Sarah McLachlan dreamed big, and the audiences came in even bigger numbers. If she were to resurrect the tour today, you could be sure it would bear the stamp of corporate sponsorship.
Wal-Mart's "Country for the Under-Educated, Xenophobic, Low-Expectation-Having Percentage of the U.S. Population Tour"
Country used to matter. Thanks to the unholy quest of so-called artists like Toby Keith, Big & Rich, and Kenny Chesney to court the superstore chain's customers, the genre nose-dived from borderline respectability in the '90s to outright absurdity in the new millennium. Further exploiting what the corporation has helped do to the genre only seems justified.
Victoria's Secret Super-Sexy Secret Tour
Actually, we'd buy tickets to this. Doesn't really matter who's performing.
Glock Presents the "Rappers Can Sell Out Stadiums, Too, Muthafuckas" Tour
Bulletproof jackets and PR-cooked street reputations may help rappers sell albums, but they don't sell concert tickets. Probably because suburban white mothers are scared of letting little Timmy and Bruce come to your ghetto fest. Why not allay her fears by scoring sponsorship from a company like Glock that lets fans know how real you are, but also lets Mom and the NRA know how safe her kids will be at your well-armed concerts?
