Demanding Situations : When It Comes to Pickiness, Pop Stars Are Professionals

Rod Stewart wanted 12 soccer balls, Sting, a complete body massage.

INXS requested two bottles of expensive French wine, one red and one white--each of a specific vintage, each from a specific vintner.

The Georgia Satellites asked for six pairs of white tube socks, and an English new wave band that shall remain nameless insisted on six condoms, “unused” and, preferably, multicolored.

These are just a few of the off-the-wall demands placed by pop stars on San Diego concert promoters.

Pop stars like to be pampered--particularly when they’re on the road, far away from the comforts of home. The degree of pampering is set forth in what’s called a “rider,” conditions promoters must meet in addition to normal contractual obligations.

Riders typically focus on backstage accommodations: dressing rooms, security and meals. Careful attention is paid to detail, particularly when it comes to the munchies.

When Depeche Mode appeared at the San Diego Sports Arena, the group’s gastronomic requests included a dozen drumsticks from Kentucky Fried Chicken and 10 tuna sandwiches, “five on white bread and five on brown, displayed on a bed of lettuce on a tray covered in (Saran Wrap).”

And when John Cougar Mellencamp was in town, also at the Sports Arena, he demanded that his band

and crew be served their pre-show meal on “covered tables, and upon china or stoneware (with) individual place settings . . . and linen napkins.”

“In my mind, that’s perfectly acceptable,” said promoter Bill Silva. “If you or I go to a restaurant, we get to order off a menu. But for a band that’s on the road, they don’t have that--so what they’re essentially asking us to do is to create that restaurant for them.”

Quite often, however, riders also include certain oddball requests for such pleasantries as soccer balls and massages, tube socks and condoms--or maybe a little something for the wine cellar back home.

“There’s this one road manager who has come through San Diego several times in the last few years, and every act he works with always requests two bottles of expensive French wine,” Silva said.

“Not too long ago, I asked him about it, and he told me the wine was for him . Apparently he does this in every city, on every tour. He takes the wine home--and his goal, he said, is to have one of the best wine cellars in the United States.”

In most cases, finicky pop stars get what they want, no matter how outrageous their demands. Former San Diego concert promoter Marc Berman said he will never forget the Prince show he produced in 1984.

In his rider, the androgynous-appearing singer asked that the furniture in his dressing room “be of a certain floral pattern,” Berman recalled, “and that we import several tropical birds from South America and put them in his room as well.”

“At first I thought he was joking,” said Berman, now a music consultant to MTV and Showtime. “But when I called his road manager, he told me that whatever was on the rider wouldn’t be in there if it wasn’t meant to be in there, and, unless Prince got what he wanted, he might not do the show.

“So I really had no choice but to give in. I ended up selling the furniture and the birds to the next promoter, so he wouldn’t have to go through what I did--and so I could get my money back.”

With horror stories like this, it’s easy to understand why local promoters fear riders almost as much as an empty house.

“The point of riders, to promoters, is to make the show more expensive than it already is,” said David Swift of Avalon Attractions. “Riders specify all the things the bands say they have to have in order to do a good show--that’s how they get away with it.”

On occasion, however, there is room for compromise.

Last February, Avalon brought Mission U. K. to the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa. Swift didn’t mind giving the band the six dethorned roses they asked for in their rider, but he drew the line at the additional request for seven packs of European silk-cut cigarettes.

“I told their agent that I didn’t think it was right that the promoter should have to pay for their vices,” Swift said. “I told him I considered that to be out of the realm of putting on a good show, and, in the end, he agreed.”

Similarly, the Bacchanal’s in-house booker, Jeff Gaulton, has frequently negotiated his way out of supplying bands with what he considers excessive amounts of booze.

“I have a real problem with bands that come in here and demand 10 cases of beer and liquor to stock their tour bus,” Gaulton said. “I don’t think it’s my responsibility to keep them happy while they’re traveling from San Diego to Tucson.

“So, whenever I come across a rider like that, I immediately call the road manager and negotiate. I say, ‘Guy, I’m already giving you all the money I’ve got, can you live with two cases instead of 10?’ And, most of the time, the road manager understands.

“It’s like everything else in life: The bands ask for whatever they think they can get, and then they settle for what is reasonable.”