Best rider in rock n' roll

[dave-O]

(no not New Rider, although he's a close second!)

Iggy and the Stooges

Why is it that lighting men switch the strobes on for ages, and when you ask why, they say they are “testing them� Strobes are designed to be intermittent, aren’t they? So how can they tell they’re not fucked?

As if you need another reason to love Iggy Pop, the veteran rocker (and his band The Stooges) have the single most entertaining concert rider TSG has ever obtained. The document--all 18 pages of which you'll find below--describes Iggy's requirements in terms of amplifiers, security, lighting, stage set up, and dressing rooms. But unlike most similar documents, Iggy's rider is written in a rollicking, stream-of-consciousness fashion that delivers multiple laughs per page. Apparently written by roadie Jos Grain, the Iggy rider is peppered with witty gems, tasteless asides, and typos. For example, in describing how Iggy's dressing room should be made to "look less like a typical rock & roll dressing room," the rider suggests that promoters "just let someone loose with a little bit of artistic flair...Er, do you know any homosexuals?" Explaining the need for two heavy duty fans, Grain notes, "So that I can wear a scarf and pretend to be in a Bon Jovi video." Also, don't miss the backstage requirements of a Bob Hope impersonator and "a copy of USA Today that's got a story about morbidly obese people in it. Most amusing!"

[M.O.B.E]

Wassabi has/had something about a bowl of only 2 colours of M&M's, the rest is pretty creative too.

[faoy]

Wassabi has/had something about a bowl of only 2 colours of M&M's, the rest is pretty creative too.

They must be joking

[AD]

creative, or copied from van halen as well?

Rock concerts have come a long ways since the days when the Beatles performed in boxing rings and hockey rinks, and made no greater demand of I'm a piano! promoters than they be provided with clean towels and a few bottles of soft drinks. As the audiences grew larger, promoters stood to make more and more money from staging concerts, which meant that not only could rock stars command higher prices for their performances, but they were able to demand other perks as well, such as luxurious accommodations, lavish backstage buffets, and chauffeured transportation. It was inevitable that some high-demand acts, all their financial and pampering whims satisfied, would exercise their power and start making frivolous demands of promoters, simply because they could.

By far the most notorious of these whimsical requests is the legend that Van Halen's standard concert contract called for them to be provided with a bowl of M&Ms backstage, but with provision that all the brown candies must be removed. The presence of even a single brown M&M in that bowl, rumor had it, was sufficient legal cause for Van Halen to peremptorily cancel a scheduled appearance without advance notice (and usually an excuse for them to go on a destructive rampage as well).

The legendary "no brown M&Ms" contract clause was indeed real, but the purported motivation for it was not. The M&Ms provision was included in Van Halen's contracts not as an act of caprice, but because it served a practical purpose: to provide an easy way of determining whether the technical specifications of the contract had been thoroughly read (and complied with). As Van Halen lead singer David Lee Roth explained in his autobiography:

. . . Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We'd pull up with nine eighteen-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors — whether it was the girders couldn't support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren't big enough to move the gear through.

The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function. So just as a little test, in the technical aspect of the rider, it would say "Article 148: There will be fifteen amperage voltage sockets at twenty-foot spaces, evenly, providing nineteen amperes . . ." This kind of thing. And article number 126, in the middle of nowhere, was: "There will be no brown M&M's in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation."

So, when I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl . . . well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error. They didn't read the contract. Guaranteed you'd run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show. Something like, literally, life-threatening.

Nonetheless, the media ran exaggerated and inaccurate accounts of Van Halen's using violations of the "no brown M&Ms" clause as justification for engaging in childish, destructive behavior (such as the newspaper article quoted at the top of this page). David Lee Roth's version of such events was decidedly different:

The folks in Pueblo, Colorado, at the university, took the contract rather kinda casual. They had one of these new rubberized bouncy basketball floorings in their arena. They hadn't read the contract, and weren't sure, really, about the weight of this production; this thing weighed like the business end of a 747.

I came backstage. I found some brown M&M's, I went into full Shakespearean "What is this before me?" . . . you know, with the skull in one hand . . . and promptly trashed the dressing room. Dumped the buffet, kicked a hole in the door, twelve thousand dollars' worth of fun.

The staging sank through their floor. They didn't bother to look at the weight requirements or anything, and this sank through their new flooring and did eighty thousand dollars' worth of damage to the arena floor. The whole thing had to be replaced. It came out in the press that I discovered brown M&M's and did eighty-five thousand dollars' worth of damage to the backstage area.

Well, who am I to get in the way of a good rumor?

[M.O.B.E]

no it's 100%...Im looking for the last copy of their rider I had right now.

I havnt booked Wassabi in about 2 years now because of the rider.

[phishtaper]

we had a lighting designer once, but he went mad so we shot him ...

Edited April 4, 2007 by Guest

[faoy]

no it's 100%...Im looking for the last copy of their rider I had right now.

I havnt booked Wassabi in about 2 years now because of the rider.

Really? I don't doubt you but I just figured they were joking to see if promoters actually did it. Wassabi aren't rock stars and I'm sure most promoters don't support their M&M fiasco. If it is in fact not a joke I must say that I now think Wassabi is the fucking joke. I highly doubt Ken or Brodie support this.

[bradm]

Wassabi has/had something about a bowl of only 2 colours of M&M's' date=' the rest is pretty creative too.[/quote']

They must be joking

I'd give them a bowl containing exactly one red M&M, and exactly one green M&M (assuming they come in red and green; if they don't, one each of two of the colours).

Aloha,

Brad

[M.O.B.E]

Even if it is a joke, a good promoter will honour any rider. Thats part of the job. We didnt do it and I doubt many other people do either.

[faoy]

At Wassabi's level any experienced promoter would simply cross the M&M item out, plus anything else they aren’t willing to provide, and send the contract back. Done

It's common place for contracts to be altered and adjusted to suit the promoter and their abilities.

Edited April 4, 2007 by Guest

[skelter]

Crossing shit out on riders was my favourite part of the job. Especially when The Hidden Cameras asked for underwear. Go to a fuckin department store.

However, the Stooges rider is goddamn hilarious. Thank you!

[Hartamophone]

When I did promotion I couldn't believe what some bands asked for. There are definitely bands that try and push the rider as far as they can, just to see how much booze and such they can milk out of the promoter.

[DevO]

haha. i need more rider stories from the huge bands.

[AD]

haha. i need more rider stories from the huge bands.

this should tide you over then: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstagetour/index.html