I don't know if the same is true in other regions, but of the 4 shows I bought tickets to in the past 2 years, the most expensive were $56 after tax.

Ticketmaster is awful, but I've still been able to find at least some of the shows I want to see at reasonable prices.

Granted these haven't been huge acts, but big enough that I could mention them to certain friends and be reasonably sure they'd know what I was talking about even if we'd never spoken about the band before.