"Pretty brutal": Peter Garrett slams Taylor Swift for price gouging tickets
Peter Garrett has taken aim at Taylor Swift, calling out her extrationate ticket prices for a place at the Eras Tour.
The Midnight Oil frontman joined 107.1 SAFM’s Bec & Soda radio show on Friday when he was informed that he was co-host Mark “Soda” Soderstrom’s favourite artist, or in other words, “his Taylor Swift.”
Garrett didn't take too kindly to the comparison, and launched into a rant about the price of Swift's concert tickets.
“I’m not price gouging like Taylor, to be blunt,” he began.
The radio hosts reminisced about attending a Midnight Oil concert in 1985 when tickets were just $15.90, compared to Swifts forking out hundreds of dollars for the highly anticipated Eras Tour.
Tickets for Swift’s Australian tour ranged from $79.90 for G-reserve tickets to $379.90 for A-reserve ticket, while also offering fans multiple VIP packages, reaching an eye-watering $1249.90 for a single ticket.
Some diehard fans were quick to complain about the lack of added value in the packages, which included premium seats with add-ons such as a tote bags, collectable pins, stickers and postcards.
Garrett continued, “I wouldn’t begrudge anyone’s success, that’s the first thing to say."
"She’s obviously touching a chord with masses of people, particularly people of a certain age group who have experienced growing up at a certain time, and what she’s singing and talking about is really ringing true with them.”
However, he also said that “the dollar end of it having looked at it from a distance, having been in this business forever, is pretty brutal.”
Garrett continued to share his disapproval of Swift's Australian domination, complaining about how five of her albums dominated the ARIA charts, booting Aussie artists off the ladder.
“She is so pervasive, she has become such a phenomenon, that she is displacing artists left right and centre. In our ARIA top 100 chart – that’s the Australian record industry chart – I think at one point in the last week or two, we only had three Australian artists in that top 100,” Garrett said.
“Not good enough! And that’s not me crying about it, I’ve had an incredible run. But I think about the younger artists coming through and it’s extremely hard for them now.”
Image credits: Getty Images