Karl's Corner - 12/04/2000

...over 600 emails in 2 days...essay after essay after essay bursting with support for the band and what its doing. The band is stunned and impressed at the sheer number of letters, and all the very kind and supportive things you said. They will never forget this.

That having been said, for every big pile of support mail, there was a small but vocal amount of letters which still expressed concern. While these letters were (greatly) outnumbered, Rivers and the guys felt that for every person who expressed concern, there were more who felt it but didnt want to write a negative letter to the band. As we've had it made perfectly clear to us in the last few days, weezer fans come in many, many styles. The great things that unite them are their passion about good music and love of rocking out. The differences between fans can be subtle, such as the difference between someone who just listens to the CD's everyday and loves them, to someone who might not constantly listen, but who will drive 500 miles to catch a show. Both of these types, and the hundreds of other types of fans, are fantastic, and weezer is ACUTELY aware of how lucky they are to have gained any of them.

If it wasnt clear before: weezer is just as devoted to you guys as you guys are to weezer. The last thing they want to do is make fans unhappy. However, they also know that they need to be themselves and not restrict their actions to doing exactly what the fans ask for. Because, besides that being a fairly uncreative way of being a band, its also untrue to themselves. So what they need to do, (as so many of you have said), is what theyve been doing: rocking out, writing and playing the best music they can.

So.... at the crux of the issue is what, if anything, playing the Blink show and doing the Yahoo tour, "mean". When the band agreed to these things, the prevailing thought was "we need to do some bigger shows, look at how fast last summer's shows sold out", "we'd prefer to not charge an arm and a leg for tickets", and (in the case of the Blink show) "this is gonna be a particularly fun and crazy show, what a cool way to spend new years eve". And as I said before, we made Yahoo promise to do their very best not to intrude on the special thing that was the weezer/fan relationship: weezer rocking out to its fans at the shows. They made these assurances and also agreed to provide the kickin' systems needed to make the shows sound and look better. (I know looks arent the most important thing, but to someone near the back, it makes it better and easier to see whats going on). So the guys took the offer and thats where we stand now.

With these upset voices (however "selfish" some folks have accused them of acting), Rivers and the guys had the "corporate" thing thrust back in their faces, and have been doing a lot of thinking about it. They know (as many of you have insisted) that the sponsorship of this tour has no relation at all to their music, which they plan on keeping as high quality and fully "weezer" as humanly possible, for as long as weezer is on the scene. But they agree that the sponsorship is basically unnecessary, and something does feel a little strange about it. It is entirely possible that this is will be the first and last sponsored weezer tour ever. They have decided to go forth happy and healthy (also as many of you insisted on), and view this tour as an experiment. If it ends up leaving a bad taste in everyones mouths, well, then thats it. Experiment complete. Back to regular gigs.The band is very eager to see how it goes, with the prizes, reduced ticket prices and other stuff, and plan on rocking out like never before at these shows!!!