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| Lazy Bones |
Sunday, December 28, 2003
Michael Cohl: The man behind SARS-Stock
An exclusive interview with Michael Cohl, the man who brought the Stones to Toronto
By JOHN KRYK -- Toronto Sun
For more than 20 years, Michael Cohl had hardly told a soul about his self-described "goofy" idea of staging a massive outdoor rock festival in Toronto.
He finally got his chance in 2003.
And the man regarded in music circles as the globe's pre-eminent rock promoter, who knows more about how to properly stage a concert than anyone who has ever lived, delivered.
SARS-Stock is the hands-down choice as The Sun's entertainment story of the year in Toronto.
On July 30, more than 450,000 sun-drenched fans wedged themselves inside Downsview Airport as 13 acts -- headlined by the Rolling Stones --rocked the joint for 11 hours, for the purpose of showing the world that Toronto's SARS scare was overblown and over with.
Despite predictions of doom by some pundits, the event went off almost without a hitch. No other massive rock festival ever staged -- including the original Woodstock -- can boast as much.
"I think (SARS-Stock) was everything Woodstock wanted to be and wasn't," Cohl, 55, told The Sun in an in-depth interview, the first time he has publicly discussed the events of, and leading up to, that day.
But despite all the weeks of toil, sweat, worry, daily marathon phone calls and troubleshooting -- and despite being content he had done about as much as he could to ensure the event would run smoothly -- Cohl, on the morning of the show, briefly found himself wondering what the hell he had got himself into.
"I looked in the mirror and I was talking to myself in my head and I went, 'Okay, tomorrow morning, Toronto newspaper headline: COHL KILLS FOUR.' I'm having that moment of doubt before I get in the car. It was like, 'You idiot. Why did you do this? What are you doing? It's going to be COHL KILLS FOUR. That's your legacy: COHL KILLS FOUR AT DOWNSVIEW. You've got to be an idiot.'
"Then I dismissed that thought and went, 'All right. Be quiet. Let's go. Do what you have to do today, and see what happens.' And off we went. And I think in the end, the people of Toronto were the stars of the day."
It sure wasn't Woodstock.
"Woodstock was a mess, just a mess," Cohl said of the famous supposed "peace" concert that resulted in three deaths. "People couldn't eat. People couldn't find places to go to the bathroom. It was horrible. But, you know, those things fade over the years, and now 51/2 million people claim to have had a good time there."
As for history's other massive outdoor concerts: Four died and scores were beaten up by Hells Angels bikers at Altamont -- headlined by the Stones -- in California in 1969. Four died at Woodstock '94. And there were two deaths, eight sexual assaults, 44 arrests, 1,200 injuries and wanton destruction at Woodstock '99.
At SARS-Stock, the lines for food, water, beer and toilets were often long, and dozens succumbed to the heat. But there were no serious injuries, let alone deaths. The mother of all transit backups and traffic jams never occurred. And police said only a "handful" of people were arrested -- fewer, they said, than on the average Saturday night in Toronto's Entertainment District.
Amazing. But it was no fluke.
Credit goes to Cohl and a large group of planners, who hammered out the details over the five weeks that bridged the June 24 announcement and the concert. Point people included MP Dennis Mills and Sen. Jerry Grafstein representing the federal government; local promoters, including Riley O'Connor of House of Blues ("He hasn't got enough credit in the press,"Cohl said. "He did a great job."); and reps from the principal corporate sponsor, Molson.
"We would just get on the phone every night and review everything," Cohl said. "It could be a 45-minute call, could be a two-hour call. Whatever it took. But, really, there were so many people and so many organizations involved --such as the Toronto police and firefighters -- that I don't think anyone can really say that they were the ultimate point people."
Cohl has managed tours for the Rolling Stones for 15 years. They trust him implicitly, arguably as much as they ever have trusted anyone since forming in 1962. "Who would have thought that?" Cohl said. "A kid from Vaughan Road Collegiate."
He said it was in May when he first broached the idea of playing a massive outdoor concert in Toronto with the Stones. He was surprised by their response.
"I started with Mick (Jagger), and then Keith (Richards). I spoke to the two of them on the same day and both of them said, 'Look, it's a good idea. We should definitely do it, so long as you think that it's something that could be done properly.' The commitment to do it was there in an instant, which somewhat surprised me, because when I first thought of it I went, 'This is nuts.' I mean, we were about to embark on a very ambitious European tour. So how the heck can we come to Toronto, do a show and go back on the tour? You can't just do that and not think about things like jet lag and money, and other things.
"But just the basic principle -- 'Should we do this? Should we try to do something to help Toronto?' -- was accepted in about a minute. And it's kind of not the way I think people would expect it, and I'll tell this little part of it because I think it's the other side of the coin that people just would never, ever dream happens: The band's attitude was, 'My God, they think we can help? Of course we have to do that then,' as opposed to, 'We know we can help.' "
The band's soft spot for Toronto has been well documented, and Cohl said that definitely was a factor in their willingness to do the concert.
Perhaps a chance to finally exorcise their Altamont demons was a factor, too. Altamont is the darkest moment in the band's career. All hell broke loose on that cool December 1969 night, as the documentary Gimme Shelter vividly captured. A day of violence culminated when a gun-carrying young black man was stabbed and beaten to death by Hells Angels bikers as the band, his white girlfriend and thousands watched helplessly. The experience left a deep scar on each of the Stones.
"Altamont was the biggest thing we had to overcome," Cohl said. "We've had proposals to do other kinds of (massive outdoor) shows like this over my years with them, and each time ... if the proposal had any merit ... it would get to the point where they would go, 'No. We don't do those shows. We did, and we had a bad experience, and that's the end of it.' So in my head I'm going, 'If there's a reason they're going to turn it down, that's going to be it.' "
So what made SARS-Stock different?
"I think they just probably knew that the people of Toronto were kind of calm and cool and it's not a crazy kind of place, and it could be (put) together."
Soon after Cohl began looking after the myriad details, everyone in the band and its touring entourage had an opinion as to how many tickets would be sold. They started a betting pool. Predictions ranged from 125,000 to 185,000, Cohl said. He was the one with 185,000 and won the pool. Who had the low number? The always fiscally conservative Mick?
"Naww, I'm not going to tell you who had low," Cohl said, "but, yes, it was a band member. We never expected to sell that many tickets."
Did the band thank him after the show for providing them, at long last, with an antidote to Altamont?
"Absolutely," Cohl said. "For me, that was one of the thrills of a lifetime. And they all felt (the vibe) that day, and saw it and experienced it like everybody there. Everybody in the band just looked at each other and went, 'Holy smokes -- wasn't that amazing!' "
As for the other bands that played, Cohl said that while he was distressed in July by negative stories emanating from some Toronto media outlets, and by what he calls "Cooler-gate"(the short-lived ban on coolers and blankets, which Cohl says was the result of "somebody having the wrong insurance company"), he said he got almost all the acts he wanted.
Oh, and that U2 rumour?Just a rumour, Cohl said.
"No, there were no super acts approached ... Generally speaking, we didn't get 100% to say yes, but we had more than enough."
Although the consensus is that AC/DC stole the show, Cohl said the Stones "were great, too ... Next time we'll go on at 7 o'clock, though."
But, as Cohl emphasized, the real stars of the day weren't the bands, the crews, the organizers, the police, the paramedics or the firefighters.
"At the very top, I think you've got to hand it to the people of Toronto, who intrinsically knew --and somehow decided -- that this was their day to shine for the world, that the whole purpose of this show was to give them an opportunity to prove something. And they walked in that place with a smile on their face, and goodness in their hearts. And they displayed it all day, for 15 to 18 hours."
It could not have gone better in Cohl's wildest dreams -- the ones he'd had almost since the day he got into the rock-promoting business in Toronto some 33 years ago.
"I'd shared the idea only with a couple of intimate friends, that it would be great to put together a gathering on Canada Day for a free show. The theme was that it was going to be the largest gathering in Canadian history. That was sort of like my, 'What's your No. 1 objective?' And for years I'd had it.
"Then there came the phone calls this past May in which I was asked, 'What can we all do to help Toronto?' And I said, 'Well, I've had this goofy idea for years ..."
The rest is history. |
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| Monkey Woman |
Cool story LZ!  It's obvious why the Stones and Cohl work so well together: his arrogance and hubris perfectly complement theirs!   |
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