 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Feb 21, 2012/ 28 Shevat, 5772
Now we know: Van Halen's M&M rider was just a test
By
Michael Smerconish
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | (MCT)
So it wasn't about the candy after all.
This week, lead singer David Lee Roth resolved a question of rock lore: why Van Halen wanted no brown M&Ms backstage during its concerts — and it turns out there is a Philadelphia/Spectrum connection.
"How many times have I been emailed or tweeted and everything in between — 'What's the real story about the brown M&Ms?'" Roth asks rhetorically at the start of a five-minute video explanation. He says this was not a case of "rock-star misdemeanor excess. ... In fact, the reality is quite different."
According to Diamond Dave, VH was driven by safety, not sugar concerns.
Roth said VH had a large and complicated stage show in the 1980s, one that demanded the attention of promoters and the people moving the band's equipment. To ensure that those responsible for staging their concerts had thoroughly read about the many technical needs, band members inserted the M&M reference in their contracts as a test. If the candy wasn't right, they had reason to be concerned about similar inattention to serious issues like electricity and load stress.
"Van Halen was the first to take 850 PAR lamp lights, huge lights, around the country," Roth explained, referring to parabolic aluminized reflector lamps. "At the time it was the biggest production ever, and getting it in and out of older buildings like the Spectrum in Philadelphia, where the hockey team played, or the Maple Leaf Gardens — these places were built in the '50s or '60s and '70s and they didn't have even the doorways or the loading docks to accommodate a super, forward-thinking, Gigantor-epic-sized Van Halen production."
To ensure that those working at buildings like the Spectrum were prepared for the complexity of staging a VH show, this "munchies" paragraph was inserted in the 1982 contract:
Potato chips with assorted dips
Nuts
Pretzels
M&M's (WARNING: ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES)
Twelve (12) Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Twelve (12) assorted Dannon yogurt (on ice)
Ike Richman remembers. He is not only arguably the band's biggest fan in Philadelphia, but at the time he was the Spectrum's vice president for public relations. Richman has seen VH 57 times in concert and plans to see the band nine times on its latest tour, including the sold-out March 5 show at the Wells Fargo Center.
Richman told me that most concertgoers in Philadelphia correctly remember the Spectrum as a "fantastic venue," but don't know how cumbersome it was for roadies to access. He specifically recalls the massive lighting VH used in the early 1980s to highlight its logo during the shows.
"The only way to get equipment like that in and out was through one long tunnel, which could be accessed by only one truck at a time, whereas at the Wells Fargo Center we can accommodate five trucks at once," Richman said. "If you were doing a show like Van Halen with, say, 20 trucks unloading one at a time, it was a long move-in."
As for the contract rider, Richman said, he had seen it and always recognized the real purpose in VH's demand.
"It was always a test, if you will," Richman said. "Bands always had specific needs, and they were not trying to be nasty. They were not being mean. But it was really a way to say: 'Hey, guys, make sure you read the rider. Make sure you read the details.' ... (VH) had fun with it."
As David Lee Roth explained:
"If I came backstage having been one of the architects of lighting and stage design and saw brown M&Ms on the catering table, that guaranteed the promoter did not read the rider and we had to do a serious line check, because frequently we had safety issues."
And so, the brown M&Ms go on a shelf of Spectrum concert history, alongside notables that include Pink Floyd's Roger Waters once needing a preconcert injection from a doctor during the "Animals" tour, giving later inspiration to his penning "Comfortably Numb."
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here. Michael Smerconish writes for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Previously:
02/14/12 Life inside the (class) bubble
02/09/12 Rethinking paths to wealth
01/17/12 Romney must face his work history head-on
01/11/12 Don't let those gift cards be a gift to retailers or the state
01/03/12 Headlines hoped for in 2012
11/09/11 Romney, beware: Cain may bob through the straits
11/02/11 Where there's ad smoke, there's … what?
10/20/11 After husband is murdered, 30 long years of phone calls
10/13/11 Black women should only marry out of their race?
08/31/11 Some political gaffes really say something
07/27/11 An overture of candidates' theme songs
06/28/11 Where's the app for common sense?
06/02/11 Over-scrutinizing lives costs us potential leaders
04/19/11 Taking a chance to say, ‘Hi’
04/06/11 Race policies should be altered to reflect new demographic reality
11/10/10 Delaware's independent, but short-lived, voice
11/03/10 Papers should leave endorsing to others
10/21/10 Media help to hype perception of bullying
09/23/10 Officer down, killer hyped up
08/04/10 Documents highlight Pakistan's shortcomings as a U.S. ally
07/06/10 On taking back Sept. 11
06/29/10 Name elite corps to develop energy independence?
04/21/10 New account reinforces a serviceman's valor
03/11/10 Medical profession must police itself better
02/18/10 One-trick athletes
02/09/10 Active, retired law officers should be able to carry guns on planes to help stop terrorists
02/04/10 How to bring tech up to speed
01/28/10 Campaign donations must be fully and immediately disclosed online
01/07/10 The flying emperor still has no clothes, and no one is willing to say so
12/24/09 A law to mandate college football playoffs?
12/17/09 Cheney's abuse of freedom of speech
11/26/09 The true cost of freedom from anxiety
10/27/09 If GOP wants to win in 2012, it must reshape its primary process
10/08/09 It's time to get smarter on extended school day
09/03/09 What a summer of eulogizing flawed public figures reveals about society
08/12/09 It's time for cyclists and motorists to reconcile
08/05/09 Faces have changed, but vitriol remains
06/25/09 Fair comment or foul? Warm up the Muzzle Meter
06/08/09 Believability is key in crime-hoax villains
05/14/09 Did Hollywood inspire the meltdown men?
04/20/09 Let's give killers their due: Anonymity
03/12/09 Uninsured who can't afford medical care lose a lot more
02/06/09 My debate with Musharraf on hunt for bin Laden
01/29/09 Torture must remain an option
01/15/09 Making a case for suing Madoff
12/22/08 A difficult but rational chat about ‘plans’
12/17/08 Facebook epidemic: More than 120 million have joined, many too old for this nonsense
12/01/08 The high price of downsizing the news biz
11/14/08 Prescience on greed, arrogance of a system
09/29/08 Closer look at party lines
08/26/08 Obama's pick creates GOP opportunity
08/21/08 Fishing with the Angry Everyman
07/31/08 The perils of e-mail: Ponder, then click
05/22/08 Two very different sides of the Internet
02/12/08 Sublimely ridiculous suits
11/28/08 Cell phones cut out secondary circle of kinship
09/26/07 What do we owe those who have died in Iraq?
08/30/07 A Navy SEAL's gut-wrenching tale of survival
07/30/07 First it was a faux pas, now it's a new word
© 2008, The Philadelphia Inquirer Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
|
|
Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman
Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman
Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|
