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Recently I had the opportunity to see Dolly Parton’s latest tour when it performed in Anaheim and what happened there reminded me of my very first concert, when I was a child. The concept of an opening act was foreign to me prior to attending my first concert but being young and naïve, I thought the opening act was an up and coming group that the headliner had hand selected to offer some pre-show entertainment. I though the music industry was this big, happy-go-lucky place where everyone knew and helped each other out. Boy was I wrong!!

In the many intervening years I’ve attended several concerts and found some of the pairings of opening acts with the headliner acts to odd choices to say the least. Pairings of groups/artists from completely different genres and lack of commonality between the two acts have made for some excruciatingly long and boring sets that you wonder if the goal was to annoy you so much you become desperate to hear the headliner. It makes you wonder if the headliner had any say in who gets to tour with them or if the label was forcing an act upon the audience in the hopes some people in the hopes of being able to get the act to sell at least one copy of that artist’s album. A couple of bad pairings that spring to mind include, Keb Mo opening for Celine Dion, and The Presidents of the United States opening for U2.

With many cases, it looks and feels like the opening acts and the headliners don’t even know they’re in the same show. I’ve read interviews where opening acts were asked what it was like to tour with their respective headliners and the response, was along the lines that they still haven’t met those headliners even though they toured together for many shows. Apparently the thought that the altruism of an establish act helping out a developing act by sharing an audience to help introduce the audience to the developing act, was too idealistic for the cold, harsh, reality for the music business. Heaven forbid artists have to compete for the attention of the same audience.

But fortunately, my naïve thought about the big, happy-go-lucky place in the music industry wasn’t just a figment of my imagination but something that actually happens from time to time. Dolly Parton’s recent tour is an excellent example of that. Dolly had invited an up and coming bluegrass band, The Grascals, to be her opening act. Several of Dolly’s most recent albums have been bluegrass in nature, so this was a complimentary choice in an opening act. But that’s not where the association ended, Dolly acknowledged the band by asking for a round of applause for them during her first opportunity to speak with the audience following the introductory songs. The Grascals were also invited out on stage to perform with Dolly’s band for couple of songs, and were also given an opportunity to perform their debut single for the audience midway through Dolly’s show for those who might have arrived a little late to see The Grascals in the opening set. Her support even extended beyond the concert in that she served as a featured guest vocalist for the Grascals’ first single, a cover of “Viva Las Vegas” and the Grascals will be featured musicians on Dolly’s upcoming album according to the tour program.

In much the same was a Dolly Parton had built a bridge between her headlining performance and the performance of her opening act, the Bangles had also done the same when I had a chance to see them in concert a couple years ago. Their opening act, The Continental Drifters, had a bit more prevalent reason as to why they were the opening act for the Bangles in that Vicki Peterson, a member of the Bangles, is also a member of the Continental Drifters. So in effect, Vicki was doing twice as much work being part of both the opening act and the headlining act. The Continental Drifters tended to be a bit more acoustic/folk than the pop/rock style of the Bangles, but the difference was not significantly different that the audience couldn’t appreciate both. In fact, due to Vicki’s role in both bands, it offered the audience a unique opportunity in that the Continental Drifters performed a Bangles song in the style of the Continental Drifters, and later the Bangles did a Continental Drifters song in the style of the Bangles. I viewed it as an acknowledgement that both bands can co-exist even though both bands share one band member, and not only that, but both bands can share the same stage on the same night for the same audience.

In ABBA’s case, I don’t have first hand experience in attending one of their concerts, but during their 1979 tour, ABBA shared their stage just as Dolly Parton and the Bangles would do decades later. In this case, I’m referring to allowing Tomas Ledin an opportunity to perform a solo song for the audience in the middle of ABBA’s show. While Tomas wasn’t the opening act, he was right there on stage with ABBA during the entire show as a backing vocalist. And for one song he was given center stage for audiences around the world because ABBA had the ability to share the spotlight.

If the reason that a lot of headliners do not demonstrate any involvement with their opening acts is due to the fear that they might loose part of their audience to the newer acts, then I would hope that those acts could learn a thing or two from Dolly Parton, The Bangles, and ABBA. Those acts would see that even though they give up a moment of their time in the spotlight to acknowledge up and coming acts, they are actually gaining attention and respect for being a contributing factor in the potential success of the new act. And for this music fan who was once naïve enough to think this kind of behavior was common practice, it’s nice to see it does exist, even if it’s more the exception than the rule.