Today was always going to be a brutal day for Live Nation — you just weren’t supposed to know about it in advance.

That’s because today is the day that Live Nation employee Ben Baker will take the stand in the USA vs Live Nation trial. Ben was one of two authors of what I’m now calling the “Robbing Them Blind” Slack messages from Hell that surfaced late last week and exploded across the Internet.

The messages had been redacted and out of the public view until last week when a filing from Live Nation seeking to suppress the Slack messages backfired and eventually led to their release. To say the messages are a PR disaster for Live Nation would be the ultimate understatement — the thought that someone wrote these out, forgot about them, had them discovered by a lawyer and are now having to read them back, four years later, invokes the famous eyelids held open scene from A Clockwork Orange.

Now imagine that person having to show up in court and be cross-examined by a tough litigator, in front of the top executive of your company, and all of its lawyers, and reporters, and a room packed with strangers plus a jury of 12 people.

No thank you. Sources tell me that Baker has already apologized profusely to the top brass at Live Nation and has been granted a second chance by company management. Baker just has to just make it through today, where he will be interviewed by high profile litigator Jason Kessler from New York law firm Winston and Strawn to bring a case against Live Nation.

Baker has already been deposed, I assume, so he should have an idea about what is in store, but now the states are litigating the suit after the DOJ reached a settlement, he’s going to face questioning from private litigator Jeffrey Kessler.

Kessler’s an experienced antitrust lawyer who argued before the U.S. Supreme court and won 9-0 in NCAA vs Alston (2021), winning the right for collegiate athletes to receive compensation and successfully represented the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team, winning a $24 million settlement to address gender pay discrimination. Kessler is known as a tenacious and cunning attorney not afraid of taking on large institutions or challenge the status quo.

Kessler has already made several aggressive moves in the case, filing a motion to block Live Nation from mentioning the company’s various community engagement efforts in the case, saying any attempts to clean up its image just distract from the case.

Kessler says the ten women, two man jury in the Live Nation case should not hear about programs at Live Nation that support environmental and sustainability projects, create jobs, increase revenue for local communities or donate tickets to veterans groups and members of the military.

“This purported ‘good neighbor’ evidence is plainly irrelevant,” Kessler wrote in an motion in limine filled to the court docket Sunday. “Community and charitable endeavors have no bearing on whether Defendants harmed competition in violation of the Sherman Act.”

Such evidence could “confuse the jury,” Kesller continues, or “invite them to decide this case on factors other than” those set forth in the Sherman Act, the U.S. government antitrust and monopoly law. Kessler wants to avoid “wasteful mini-trials over whether Defendants, in fact, provided social benefits to the communities in which they operate.”

Further, it would require the states “to respond in kind, by providing full context and to counter Defendants’ purported evidence of the community effect of sustainability and environmental action, ticket donations, and purported increases in regional jobs.”

Attorneys for Live Nation are also busy, asking the court to seal pricing information connected to yesterday’s testimony from Bob Roux, Live Nation president of U.S. concerts. Mark Campana is also scheduled to testify today, while Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino is scheduled to take the stand later this week.

I’ll have more in-depth coverage of all the twists and turns in the case all week long at Decibel News and on my podcast Decibel and Docket. If you haven’t already checked out the show, please visit our Spotify page and subscribe to the show. It’s free and it really helps me out.

A steady diet for the week of March 16-20