WASHINGTON—A Senate subcommittee opened hearings Tuesday following the shocking Def Leppard tour announcement that locked down every major venue for the summer of 2027. The line of questioning quickly shifted from antitrust violations to broader music industry corruption.
Q: Please state your name for the record.
A: Barnaby Quill, Senior Analyst of Unsolicited Forecasts at Goldman Sachs.
Q: Mr. Quill, why did Def Leppard book a 45-date stadium tour three years in advance?
A: The math is simple. By securing the Goo Goo Dolls now, we corner the market on mid-90s nostalgia before inflation makes fake rain too expensive to simulate.
Q: Is it true that Live Nation now owns the concept of the year 2027?
A: Legally, yes. We trademarked the entire calendar year. If an indie band wants to play a house show in May 2027, they owe us four dollars and a slice of pizza.
Q: The court finds that troubling. How deep does this go?
A: Much deeper. The Struts are not opening. They are actually a shell company holding subprime drum solos. We packaged those solos into collateralized debt obligations and sold them to pension funds.
Q: You financialized classic rock riffs?
A: Of course. We shorted the chorus of 'Pour Some Sugar on Me' back in 2019. The entire global economy relies on Rick Allen's snare tone. If that Def Leppard tour fails to gross ninety million dollars, the Swedish banking sector collapses instantly.
Q: You are describing a massive, industry-wide fraud scheme.
A: It is not fraud if the baby boomers buy t-shirts. We already scheduled the 2035 reunion tour. We cloned Joe Elliott twice just in case.
