Today I learned that Van Halen have that rider in their contract about âa bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones removedâ in order to know at a glance if the promoter read the entire contract. And the reason they do THAT is because they once had a stage collapse because a promoter hadnât read the proper way to set up all the specific technical stuff.
So if the band goes in the dressing room or catering and sees brown M&Ms, they know they have to double-check the stage setup for safety.
I heard about this on Freakonomics Radio. Turns out the bit about no brown M&Ms is HUGE, in BIG font, bold, underlined and quotated like theyâre on the Group W Bench.
The band was all, âWe have fifty-pound lights hanging over our heads and fire being shot out of cannons. We had to know whether they read our safety regs so we didnât flamebroil any roadies.â
interesting how this has become a meme in the music industry about divas. iâve always heard jokes that amount to âthis stuck up celebrity hates the green gummy bears!! theyâre refusing to perform just for that???â and its reading stuff like this that i realise how that joke might have come about. people get grumpy that the band refuses to play but cant admit its because THEYâRE incompetent, so they make it all about the M&Ms. another example of artists using a creative method to ensure they have a perfectly reasonable request fulfilled that is then bastardised by lazy people who wanna make money off them.Â
âŚthis is like the music industry version of hearing the truth behind the McDonalds hot coffee lawsuit
