|
|
| CS |
Buzz: Music: Rolling the Stones
Errol de Cruz
SITTING in his position is like winning a world competition. Like winning the F1. Like winning at Wimbledon. The World Cup. Like Australia winning at cricket. No one else can do it.
He doesn't have to get airline tickets because he flies in an exclusive 747. He doesn't have to line up at the bank. He travels all over the world and over in Singapore, last week, he stayed at the six-star Ritz Carlton, where a suite costs S$545 a night.
He doesn't have to go to work at nine o'clock in the morning and write a story for a newspaper editor; and as long as he's around, no one else is going to be Production Director for the Rolling Stones.
I'm drinking coffee in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton in Singapore, where the Stones have just played two sell-out concerts, and I'm talking to the man himself - Jake Berry, who enjoys tremendously the enviable task of putting together the concerts of the Rolling Stones, getting them from A to B, and making doubly sure that everything moves like clockwork.
Since he joined the team in 1994, Berry has put together an awesome 380 shows for the world's most famous rock and roll band and has another 35 more to see to before the current World Licks Tour 2002/2003 is over.
There were 140 on the Voodoo Lounge tour, 120 for Bridges To Babylon, 50 for No Security and 70 already completed for the one that's on the road now.
It isn't easy. Venues have to be checked out. Stages have to be designed accordingly, the band's suggestions have to be incorporated.
�The band is involved in everything,' Berry revealed. �After 40 years, you must know what you want and they know how to tell you what they want ... that makes my job easier.' What makes his job difficult, however, is that he works for the biggest rock band in the world and that means that everything they do must be the best. Or like Mick Jagger says: �We're the f***ing Rolling Stones ... we have to be bigger and better than the rest.' The stage is the most important and difficult aspect to work out because every venue is different; and �different' is the key word on this World Licks Tour that is promoting their most recent EMI compilation, 40 Licks.
�This show was specially designed for Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and India,' he noted. Now, however, Hong Kong has been cancelled because of the SARS scare. Shanghai and Beijing may also face the same fate.
However, if that happens, Kuala Lumpur may just get lucky because, Berry says, not all is lost. �We may come back this way to fulfill the dream.' �The Stones also wanted to do what they did before - play in the small clubs and theatres that meant so much to them before they became so famous,' he explained. �That meant huge stadiums that could hold 55,000, arenas for anything between 8,000 and 16,000 and also the cosy clubs and theatres that take in 2,000.' �It's a concept the band always wanted ... to take a step back to what it was like in the early part of it's career.' Designer Mark Fisher made up to four presentations before everyone finally agreed on an ideal stage plan, and when that was done, the show design had to be seen to.
Work also had to begin on the actual stage ... 4,000 times larger than the model they worked out.
�It's got to be done so perfectly that a blind man can walk on it and know where he's going,' Berry said. �We take that stage wherever we go.' You only have to watch the three main front-liners - Richards, Wood and especially Jagger - working the stage to know what Berry means.
While Watts sits in full control of the drums at the back, these three are all over the place, each lifting their part of the audience to delightful levels.
In the case of Singapore, the visuals were the most attractive. Giant columns licked by a quartet of tongues to reveal larger-than-life figures of the four - singer Mick Jagger, drummer Charlie Watts, and guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood - belting, whacking and slashing away to the audience's delight.
There was also a manga-girl surfing the giant tongue, giving us all sorts of naughty thoughts, as the Stones thrashed us into rock and roll heaven with Honky Tonk Woman.
Of course, there are other �smaller' details. The Rolling Stones is one of the fittest bands and tightest organisations on earth. Each member has a personal trainer, there are Press people in the entourage, back-up vocalists and musicians, crew members, numbering a grand total of 132 people and 103 tonnes of equipment to haul whenever they tour.
This would also explain why the Singapore tickets were so expensive (between S$100 and S$500).
The start of any tour, the production director says, is always the most difficult, and that's when the final changes are made. And what usually needs five weeks to change must be done in five days.
In his 10 years of rolling with the Stones, Berry has found them to be the most hard-working band around. They rehearsed more than 200 songs for the World Licks Tour 2002/2003 and the Lion City's audience was very lucky because they played Can't You Hear Me Knocking?, a hit they haven't done in 20 years.
This tour is something the Rolling Stones, have always wanted to do. �It's only natural,' Berry said, �for the world's greatest rock and roll band to play in every country in the world.'We can only hope that they actually accomplish that by going to Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and KL, real soon.
|
|
|
| 100 Years Ago |
great article, thanks for posting CS |
|
CHAT
ROOM aka THE FUN HOUSE] [
RESTROOMS<
/a>]