You might remember the story of how back in the early 80’s the band Van Halen insisted that at every show they performed at there be a bowl of M&M chocolates with all the brown ones removed. Like most people I thought this was just part of the over-indulgence of the 80’s and rock stars just keeping up with their diva status. However it wasn’t until a few months ago after reading David Lee Roth’s autobiography and other articles, that I actually found out the real reason why they requested such a crazy stuff. It was for “quality control”.
When Artists perform on tour, they rely on several promoters to provide everything they need for the show to be successful and come off without a hitch (or at least as good as possible). The promoter is responsible not only for acquiring the venue for the show, but the personnel and staff that will help load & unload the equipment, set up the stage, the sound, lighting. Everything from the caters to security. In order for all this to happen without any problems, the Artist’s managers provides the promoter with what is called the “contract rider”.
If you ever sit down and read one of these riders, you could easily fall asleep with boredom. They can be around 20 to 30 pages long and although you’ll find common request like the minimum size of the venue to accommodate the stage, most of the requirements are geared towards the safety of the band, crew and the audience. Everything from certain workers being certified (i.e.; electricians) to the strength of girders where lighting will be hung is specified in the rider. It is the responsibility of the promoter to make sure that everything noted in the rider is provided as specified. Unfortunately that’s not always the case.
Back in the 80’s when I played with the band “Erotic Exotic” we had a rider, and rarely was everything on it ever done correctly. Most promoters & club managers wouldn’t even read it. However, our show didn’t consist of elaborate lighting and props. We played mostly dance club and outdoor festivals, but Van Halen was a totally different story.
They were one of the first groups to tour with a huge production. While most other groups back then had three or four 18 wheelers, Van Halen had 9. It was extremely important that the promoters followed all the requirements of the rider so that they wouldn’t find themselves with unexpected surprises. Thus appeared the bowl of M&Ms. The managers for the band knew that if they walked into a venue and looked backstage and found their required bowl of M&M with brown candies in it, chances were that the promoter did not read the rider.
Now to the common folk this might seem a bit “out there” just to make sure a promoter read a boring 25 page contract rider, but when you look at some of the tragedies that have occured in some concerts due to negligence, you start to see why it was so important. Take for example the fire that killed 96 people in Rhode Island in a Great White concert. Pyrotechnics were used in that club that clearly wasn’t suitable to have such props. Also the venue didn’t have sufficient exist for emergency. Just this month 1 crew member in Madonna’s tour was killed in an accident while setting up her stage in France. It’s not known if this was due to irresponsibility on anyone’s part, but it’s for this reason why Artists and managers take the concert riders so serious.
So looking back, the M&M request from Van Halen wasn’t so crazy, however the story became so popular back then, that I wonder if the promoters after learning about it didn’t just started placing bowls of M&M without the brown pieces backstage, but never read the whole rider as they were supposed to….uhmmm.
