UNITED STATES Celebrating their historic eight-night, sell-out run at New York’s Madison Square Garden (cap. 19,025) in July, U2 are pictured backstage with (L-R) Live Nation Global Touring president Arthur Fogel, MSG Entertainment (MSGE) bookings and entertainment senior vice-president Laurie Jacoby, MSGE senior vice-president of West Coast business operations Dana Dufine and U2 manager Guy Oseary of Maverick Management.
John Gammon chasing Bill Graham? says, “John was straight and on the band broke up in 1995. news, and really keen about the As a writer, Gammon often history of people in our business. We ruffled feathers but kept the respect of will miss his sense of humour.” senior figures. LNE president and CEO Michael ”John was a very investigative Rapino remembers, “He was a good journalist, who often uncovered a man and always fair to me when I story before anyone else,” says Folkert lived in London.” Koopmans of German pan-Europe Long-time friend and Audience festival organiser FKP Scorpio. “He’s John Gammon probably already driving [the late] Bill Graham, publisher Steve Parker believes Gammon is a Barry Fey and Fritz Rau mad with all his questions.” particular loss to the live music business. “He was one of the very few with an Live Nation Entertainment (LNE) international chairman Thomas Johansson in Sweden says, objective eye on the industry and not afraid ”John was not only a journalist with great to write things as he saw them, although not integrity, he was also a great agent for Katrina always to people’s liking. But they still took his calls because he had journalistic integrity and the Waves.“ Barley Arts Promotion’s Claudio Trotta in Italy and understood the business.”
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UNITED KINGDOM Live music industry journalist John Gammon, whose four-decade career included being an agent and manager, died of cancer on 10 August, aged 63. Gammon was European news writer for US industry publication Pollstar for 15 years, following a spell at Audience, where he helped to establish the magazine. His biggest act while an agent at Concorde International Artists was Katrina and the Waves, who he discovered and toured internationally. Now a solo artiste Katrina tells Audience, ”He had a fantastic sense of humour and could not tolerate nonsense or drama, saw through bullshit and couldn’t abide time-wasters.” In the early ‘90s he co-managed Kingmaker, achieving UK and international success, until the
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audience • Issue 187 • August 2015
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