Secrets of a tour manager: Tricks and tantrums
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The crowd at the Live Aid charity fundraiser concert at Wembley Stadium 1985.
Source: News Limited
BEHIND every great singer or band is an exceptional tour manager, someone whose job it is to make sure everything runs smoothly behind the scenes.
The Hollywood Reporter
spoke to some legendary tour managers who have worked with artists such as Keith Richards, Barbra Streisand, George Michael to name just a few.
Here are some of the highlights:
Shakira cancelled a gig because the stage was unsafe. (AP Photo/William Fernando Martinez)
Source: News Limited
On cancelling concerts:
Marty Hom: We were doing a sold-out stadium with Shakira in Spain. And during load-in, a corner of the stage buckled. I called the promoters and the guys who built the stage into the tour production office. They said, “Oh, it’s safe.” I looked at them and said, “OK, you’re going to stand with me, your kids and your family underneath that stage when we play tonight. Because what you’re asking me to do is put my family underneath that stage.” They didn’t say a word. It was dead silence. And I said, “Here’s my answer.” We cancelled.
Barbra Streisand can be a bit of a diva. Photo: AP PicAdrian/Wyld
Source: AP
On problem solving:
Marty Hom: When Barbra Streisand was playing Staples Centre, it was like going to the Academy Awards. Everybody was there: Sidney Poitier, Elizabeth Taylor, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman — the crème de la crème of Hollywood. What happens is, they all send her flowers at Staples Centre. And at the end of the second night, she says, “Marty, I’m going to send my gardener back to pick up all the flowers and have them driven to my house.” I tell her, “No problem,” and I ask our production manager to lock the dressing room. The gardener shows up at Staples Centre the next day, the dressing room door is open, and all the flowers are gone. Panicked, I call Barbra’s assistant and ask, “Do you still have the cards that were attached to the flowers?” She did and I called them all and said, “Do you remember those flowers that you did for Dustin Hoffman and Sidney Poitier? Can you duplicate those and send those up to Barbra’s house?” I get the 20 arrangements that we were supposed to pick up, and they all get delivered to her house. And then at the end of the day, I give Staples Center the bill and they pay for all the flowers.
Alice Cooper played a gig injured just so he could get paid. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Source: AP
David Libert: Alice [Cooper] was doing a show in Vancouver and he slipped on one of the props and flipped off the stage like a tiddlywink and ended up in the pit. He cracked his skull open. This was after a couple of numbers. We take him backstage and I know he’s in bad shape. And it came down to this: “We’ll put a bandage around your head. You go back out there and do two or three songs. Otherwise, we’ll have to postpone the show, we won’t get paid, and you’ll have to come back.” So that was the motivating factor. “Go out there and do a couple of songs because as bad as you feel right now, it will feel a lot worse tomorrow.” So we put a bandage around his head with a little red ink on it, he did three more songs, pretended to collapse and we took him offstage. And he got paid.
Bono loves to sleep in his own bed. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Source: AP
On how things have changed in the past 20 years:
Hom: Now on bigger tours they have hotel advance people who actually fly ahead of the artist and prep the hotels and make sure they’re ready for the artist’s arrival.
Libert: And on really big tours, the artists want their suites with their own personal stuff in them.
Ross: I know somebody whose job it was to drive Bono’s bed from hotel to hotel on the last tour. Bono wanted to sleep in his own bed every night. So instead of being able to fly him, I assume, back to Dublin, there was a bed that was in a Ryder truck and they loaded it into the hotel.
Read more at
The Hollywood Reporter.
