Needless to say, the music industry isn t pleased with these developments. But artists, labels, and promoters are already on the defensive after a new round of attacks from cultural conservatives, including some hysterical US Senate hearings last month on explicit lyrics that centered on the suicide of a North Dakota teenager who shot himself while listening to Marilyn Manson. Despite the Manson nastiness in Fitchburg, no organized movement to clamp down on or rate concerts is evident locally, according to several sources in or familiar with area concert promotions. Lee Esckilsen, executive director of the Providence Civic Center, said that he would not object in principle to some kind of concert rating system, however. But Nina Crowley argues that ratings present thorny practical issues.
Concerts change every time they re given.
You can t base a rating on what might happen. On a recent November night, former gangsta rap producer Puff Daddy and occasionally riotous punks Green Day played Worcester, and the cheerfully ordinary alt-pop band Everclear was at Boston s Paradise club. After the stage-diving of a certain pro quarterback, we know which show landed a young woman in the hospital with spinal injuries. And it s not hard to see where all this is going. Parents are the only people who know what their kids are able or not able to handle.