Van Halen Tour Rider: Absolutely No Brown M&Ms
The Smoking Gun has unearthed a copy of an infamous 1982 Van Halen world tour rider. As the site explains, it's like the Holy Grail of tour riders, in that the brown M&M ban had heretofore been hearsay. Now there's proof.
Along with the M&M stipulation:
- Herring in sour cream
- Four cases Schlitz malt liquor beer (16 ounce cans)
- A total of eight bottles of wine and liquor
- One (1) case Country Time lemonade
- M&M's (WARNING: ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES)
According to the Smoking Gun, "the group has said the M&M provision was included to make sure that promoters had actually read its lengthy rider. If brown M&M's were in the backstage candy bowl, Van Halen surmised that more important aspects of a performance—lighting, staging, security, ticketing—may have been botched by an inattentive promoter."
If you're interested, here are breakfast, lunch ("assorted sandwiches [minimum of 44], ie., BLT, chicken, turkey [fresh, not pressed]"), and dinner requirements. Pretty standard fare.
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
13 Comments:
Except for the beer, it sounds like a hospital cafeteria. Where's the jello?
PerkyMac at 10:57PM on 12/11/08
they had jello for dessert after dinner. lol
dabiscuits at 11:10PM on 12/11/08
Wait David Lee Roth is too cool for brown M&Ms but he is eating jello and herring. The 4 prong fork thing is scary. I would give none of them anything sharp. Sadly their food requirements look like cafeteria food. Money and fame do not buy taste.
JerzeeTomato at 11:26PM on 12/11/08
I was surprised to see the Herring. I wonder what they did with it?
Southern Comfort and Blue Nun.....ewwwwwww
chanterelle at 11:32PM on 12/11/08
The name alone(rhymes with?)Schlitz kind of says it all. Sorry, but my friends' standards, Schlitz was just about the generic red white and blue brand sold for $1.19 a six pack in 1983 and Pabst Blue Ribbon was pretty darn good. Genesee was darn cheap and good...except for the Genesee Cream Ale. In that particular case, Genny Cream, Genesee'in was NOT believe'in. I sure do I feel old when I think back to the days when my bf, now husband, used to feel like hero when he spent $6.50 for a case of beer, a loaf of bread and two pkgs. of hotdogs and fed the band and road crew. Condiments may have been procured by others and other means.
Brown m&m's, hey, they would have taken whatever was free food.
dhorst at 1:12AM on 12/12/08
I can totally understand. The brown ones are the least tasty. :P
wunami at 2:18AM on 12/12/08
I used to work in the theatre, and riders get a lot of abuse but are essential. Your contract says you need a shower area and a towel. The venue gives you a bucket and a washcloth. So the contract has to be amended to specify the pressure of the shower and the size of the towel. And to the outside world you look like a tool.
Same with food. If you don't specify exactly what you want, the typical venue would serve you hardtack and swill. You also have to specify food for the crew, or else they don't get any. And if it's a tour, food for the bus afterwards.
Please also note, this gets charged back to the tour; it's not free.
NotAmerican at 2:49AM on 12/12/08
This tour would have had TONS of crew, so their beer requests would have covered lots of different tastes. And VH themselves, and much of their crew, most likely got a meal buyout on top of their rider food. A meal buyout is just money the venue gives to the band for ordering food/going out for a meal. So, as fun as it is to imagine that VH just ate ham sandwiches and M&Ms despite being super-rich and -famous, it was probably not the case.
@NotAmerican - In the music industry (in which I work), rider requirements are generally NOT charged back to the artists, but absorbed into the house's fixed expenses, which are mentioned in the contracts - and contracts are signed before riders are submitted. So the house has every motivation to skimp on riders, because the less they spend, the more they make.
producestories at 9:11AM on 12/12/08
"Place settings (not plastic; all forks must have four prongs)" is a bit obsessive. Damn that 3-prong flatware! I would also like exactly 22 seeds on my sesame seed bun and 2 3/4 slices of room temperature (72 degrees) slices of pickle on my burger.
crazy_betty at 9:50AM on 12/12/08
@produces stories: Interesting; I didn't know riders were covered under house expenses in music! No wonder they're so demanding. We were always happy with a functional shower, an edible pizza, and a case of lager when on tour, mainly because we knew we were paying for it,
NotAmerican at 9:57AM on 12/12/08
As legendary as the "no brown M&Ms" clause was, it was an ingenious way to make sure the promoter read the rider and followed it. If they missed something as noteworthy (because, if one read it, they'd say WTF?) as that, what else would they be missing? Especially since, as @producestories said, the producers would make more money if they skimped or didn't follow the rider as written.
I think it's genius!
DOWN WITH BROWN M&Ms! ;-)
blogkitten at 11:43AM on 12/12/08
Everyone needs a large tube of KY Jelly.
O_Leaozinho at 1:32PM on 12/12/08
wait... "4 dozen doughnuts ... sufficient for 8 people" -- wow, and I thought I was a hearty eater
anitaepler at 2:37PM on 12/12/08