a story or two about their last big tour...
a very, very large touring outfit brings 20 - 25 trucks with them. like, a show that has its own stage, lots of lights and probably some pyro, tons of merch. im pretty sure that in 13 years i never worked an arena show with more than 23-25 trucks (this doesnt include outdoor festivals like ozzfest and lilith fair). anyway, when the rolling stones last came to vancouver they had 67 trucks. yeah, sixty-seven... they were renting big parking lots 10kms away from the arena in order to park all their rigs and trailers.
they were touring with three different stage setups. one for enormo-dome shows, like the size of a football field. another for smaller, more intimiate venues-- like hockey and basketball arenas. and a third setup for smaller venues of say 1500-5000 seats, like for a very large club. they brought this with them "just in case," whatever that means...
so, their enormo-dome stage is approximately 40+ trucks. they build a steel structure that is between 5 and 6 stories high (or at least has 5 or 6 distinct levels). this structure legally qualifies as a 'building', and so the stones need to have a municipal building inspector on site to approve the whole project prior to the show. this means they have to meet all kind of code about electrical, safety, escapability, etc.
in vancouver they played at bc place, a big domed football arena. i was one of the head forklift drivers (i dont do stagecraft, just un/loading with forks). crews had been working on the stage for about 3 days, around the clock, and the show was in two days. as i understand it from some riggers, a call came in late at night to the stage manager. his conversation was something like: "what? are you sure?" ... "oh for fucks sake, fine, okay, no worries, talk to you later." he had everyone stop work right there. STOP, STOP, STOP. turns out one of the stones had a sore throat or some such shit, and the show had been cancelled for the time being. everyone was sent home for the night, and the next morning at 7am they started taking everytihg apart and loading it back onto the trucks. kicker is, the next week, the stones were playing little acoustic shows at some obscure nightclub in new york city!
anyway, they promised to come back later that summer, and they did. i figure they probably lost a couple million on their vancouver show what with all the logistics involved, but i have 100% respect for those guys because they did come back. their fans mean a lot to them i guess, theres a lot of respect there. they didnt need to, they could have just said 'sorry its cancelled' they way so many hiphop shows do, or dudes like axel rose. but they came back and put on an awesome show, even though they lost money on it or barely broke even.
Topic: ROLLING STONES ARE THE GREATEST! (Read 2380 times)