Beck, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, and Social Distortion frontman Mike Ness have been added to an already impressive list of top-shelf acts that will perform in Los Angeles on February 26 to help raise funds for the Recording Artists Coalition (RAC). However, LAUNCH has learned that Elton John, Ozzy Osbourne, Korn, and Rob Zombie are no longer participating in the potentially historic night of music.
Beck, Vedder, and Ness will co-headline a show at the Wiltern Theater. Playing elsewhere on the same night, for the same cause, will be the Eagles, Billy Joel, Sheryl Crow, and Stevie Nicks at the Forum; No Doubt, Offspring, and Weezer at the Long Beach Arena; and country headliners Dixie Chicks, Dwight Yoakam, Trisha Yearwood, and Emmylou Harris at Universal Amphitheater.
John backed out due to a tight tour schedule. “One of the few breaks in (his) tour is in that window, so he’s gonna go home to the U.K.,” a spokesperson for the superstar said. As for the Korn/Ozzy/Zombie show, a spokesperson for the RAC said that the participation of those acts was mentioned only as part of a “preliminary schedule” earlier in the planning.
Proceeds from the shows will go to the RAC’s legislative and lobbying efforts to change the way the record business operates, methods that some performers have called “unconscionable.” Among the issues the group wants addressed at both the local and national level are better copyright protection, punitive accounting and auditing practices, missed payments for health care and pension funds, free agency for performers, and contract length, as recording artists are currently held to deals for longer than is legal for other workers.
Several artists, including the Eagles’ Don Henley, Crow, Beck, and the Offspring’s Dexter Holland, took the issues of the RAC to the California state capitol in Sacramento on Wednesday (January 23).
