Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, welcome back to the Barbs podcast. My yesterday
Speaker 1: is truly a legend of the live music war Concer promoter,
Speaker 1: Events promoter, Harvey Goldsmith, Harvey, Hi, Bob, thank you very
Speaker 1: much for having me. I'm kind of looking forward to
Speaker 1: this discussion. Okay, let's start out with the type of
Speaker 1: jure when our shows coming back. Well, yeah, that's been
Speaker 1: quite interesting. Were suddenly in England in the UK seeing
Speaker 1: some light at the end of the tunnel and we
Speaker 1: had a whole discussion about it today. I had Minister
Speaker 1: of Vaccines called me up yesterday to ask me what
Speaker 1: the issues were with our industry because we were getting
Speaker 1: nowhere with the government. It looks like country. So what
Speaker 1: you may have read in the papers that life will
Speaker 1: start probably end of August, beginning of September. We're hoping
Speaker 1: that there maybe one or two smaller open air events,
Speaker 1: but the notion of reading and leads fifty capacity plus
Speaker 1: and all that, I'd be quite amazed if they happen
Speaker 1: this year. But we are hoping that indoor events and
Speaker 1: the smaller outdoor events that happened late summer and then
Speaker 1: indoor events will kick off in September. That's what we're
Speaker 1: hoping for. Okay, Glastonbury canceled, but reading and leads they
Speaker 1: still see that they're going to go on, and that's
Speaker 1: what I was just intervacing. Didn't actually say they were
Speaker 1: going to go on. They said that they the headliners
Speaker 1: are still booked. They didn't actually say yes, we're happening
Speaker 1: because they can't. The earliest that any if everything goes
Speaker 1: well and smoothly, the earliest we are going to know
Speaker 1: whether we can have, you know, a back to normal
Speaker 1: is June. That's the very earliest. What is the significance
Speaker 1: of June because what's happening The government have announced four
Speaker 1: different stages of activity to get back to normal. And
Speaker 1: while that's going on, there is more rapid testing being developing,
Speaker 1: the vaccines being rolled out, there's now three vaccines available, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But the government are thinking, should everything be good and
Speaker 1: we don't find another variant that the infection rate is
Speaker 1: going down, the death rate is going down, the hospitalization
Speaker 1: rate is going down. So consequently, if various schools are
Speaker 1: going back March the eight, the next move is that
Speaker 1: people couldn't start mixing together up to six people. The
Speaker 1: next movie is that retail will open, gym's were open.
Speaker 1: You've got to actually get a haircut for the first time,
Speaker 1: not that you and I need it, but nevertheless everybody
Speaker 1: else does, um and sold and so forth. And then
Speaker 1: they're going made they're going to allow socially distant shows,
Speaker 1: which for us they work um and up to a
Speaker 1: thousand people. And then in June, if all goes well
Speaker 1: and there's no increase in infection rates, etcetera, then the
Speaker 1: government is saying they're going to open the doors to
Speaker 1: get back to normal. But we don't think that is
Speaker 1: enough time from June to get everything together because they've
Speaker 1: still got to work out the protocols for opening up shows,
Speaker 1: which haven't been sorted out yet. They've got to test them,
Speaker 1: they've got to evaluate them, they've got to cost them,
Speaker 1: and then we've got to work out the balance between
Speaker 1: vaccines are rapid testing, because the rapid testing by five
Speaker 1: minute tests are not don't show a long enough results
Speaker 1: as yet, so they're still developing those. They've got to
Speaker 1: look at the results of the vaccine. So we think
Speaker 1: that we may have some smaller up to maybe fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand capacity towards the end of the summer August onwards.
Speaker 1: But I can't personally see a reading and the leads
Speaker 1: at fifty capacity, or even the Big Hide Park shows
Speaker 1: happening this summer because I just don't think there's enough
Speaker 1: time to get it all sorted out. Okay, let's just
Speaker 1: assume we'll use September one, that you can put on
Speaker 1: arena shows in September one if you're the promoter A.
Speaker 1: What are the issues of insurance? Well, that's I was
Speaker 1: going to come onto that. There are three key issues.
Speaker 1: One is what are the protocols which we just talked
Speaker 1: about vaccines cleanin US, dealing with ventilation if it's indoors
Speaker 1: social distancing testing. The next thing isn't sure currants unless
Speaker 1: the government can help either force the insurance industry or
Speaker 1: do what we've asked them to do is to create
Speaker 1: a bond which we will subscribe to UM. And there's
Speaker 1: if there's no insurance, there's no shows, there's no festivals,
Speaker 1: and there's no tours because it's too risky. At the moment,
Speaker 1: you cannot get cover for COVID anywhere in the world.
Speaker 1: The final thing is an issue of US leaving the
Speaker 1: e C. And there are two issues there. One is visas. Currently,
Speaker 1: you have to get a different visa for every country.
Speaker 1: It's a walking nightmare. You're gonna have to have fifty
Speaker 1: seven different passports because you have to send them in.
Speaker 1: They're going to be stamped and blah blah blah. The
Speaker 1: second thing is something which you've never heard of. It's
Speaker 1: called cabotage. Cabotage was a system devised by geniuses at
Speaker 1: the e C many years ago to stop Russian truck
Speaker 1: drivers dumping in Europe. And what kabotage means is if
Speaker 1: you take a truck, load it up with sound, light,
Speaker 1: staging and backline in London, taking on a ferry to
Speaker 1: Paris to do your first show, you can unload it,
Speaker 1: you can load it back up, you can drive it
Speaker 1: to the next gig, and then you have to stop,
Speaker 1: send the trucks back with the driver, and then you've
Speaker 1: got to find other trucks to start again, and then
Speaker 1: every other go you've got to keep doing it because
Speaker 1: you're only allowed one drop off, one load up. So
Speaker 1: that's going to completely screw European tours. They are they
Speaker 1: understand it now, the government they it was an omission apparently,
Speaker 1: but they are starting to talk to the e C
Speaker 1: about sorting that out. They've still got to deal with
Speaker 1: the insurance, which is a major global issue, and they've
Speaker 1: also got to deal with the protocols. That's why I
Speaker 1: think Summer's end of summer is the earliest. Okay, based
Speaker 1: on prior conversations with you, you were very pro Brexit. Yes,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about Brexit? Now? They're still pro it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't because you know they've discovered that there must
Speaker 1: I'm told there were fourteen thousand statutes to go through,
Speaker 1: and I am as much as I think it's staff
Speaker 1: where we've got to, I accept that they're going to
Speaker 1: be issues that just fall out of the trees that
Speaker 1: haven't been dealt with, because that's the way the nature
Speaker 1: of the beast. Anybody that's got any sense will know
Speaker 1: that these things were not meant for our business. They
Speaker 1: weren't there to to stop our business from taking place,
Speaker 1: or to stop European artists coming to England or and
Speaker 1: trucks and so on. So it'll get sorted out. It's
Speaker 1: only if the will is there, the way will be found. Okay.
Speaker 1: Just for those people who are not necessarily from the
Speaker 1: UK or at verse can you please tell us why
Speaker 1: you personally approa brexit um. It goes back to the
Speaker 1: time when the EU was formed. There is a difference
Speaker 1: between the EU, the European Union, and the e C.
Speaker 1: The EU was principally formed after the war as a
Speaker 1: way to stop another war and to get countries, all
Speaker 1: of whom were in a complete disaster state, to come together,
Speaker 1: to work together and to to start to redevelop their
Speaker 1: countries and to trade with each other. The prime reason
Speaker 1: was to sort out a trading relationship, which was fine
Speaker 1: as it developed and more and more countries came on board.
Speaker 1: A layer of bureaucracy C came about and the e
Speaker 1: C Commissioners, who are unelected were then put into place.
Speaker 1: They have one agenda and one agenda only, and that
Speaker 1: is to have one federal state of Europe, and every
Speaker 1: other member state and every person that lives in the
Speaker 1: e C is paying for these people fortunes. All they
Speaker 1: want is a one federal state. Whereas every citizen of
Speaker 1: every country in Europe wants to be a citizen of
Speaker 1: that country, whether it's the UK or whether it's Germany
Speaker 1: or France or whatever. They don't want to be in
Speaker 1: one federal state. They do want to trade with each other,
Speaker 1: and there's this mix up and unfortunately, because they're not elected,
Speaker 1: they're starting to become, if you like, semigods. So they
Speaker 1: only eat at the best restaurants. Lunch goes on forever.
Speaker 1: If you and have lunch, they will talk to you.
Speaker 1: You can't get business done. They dictate the rules. They
Speaker 1: suddenly decide, well, you can't have Yorkshire puddings, or you
Speaker 1: can't have British sausages, or our cheddar cheese is no
Speaker 1: good because they're bored, and so on. I spent a
Speaker 1: year going out. There is a representative for the UK
Speaker 1: to deal with an outfit called the EC is divided
Speaker 1: up into divisions, and this was called DG ten, which
Speaker 1: is a cultural division. It just to be clear for
Speaker 1: those who don't know. For those who don't know, EC
Speaker 1: is the European Commission, yeah, and d G ten is
Speaker 1: the Cultural Office. They told us they had one billion
Speaker 1: euros to spend on developing music across Europe and they
Speaker 1: wanted to They have representatives from eight or nine countries coming.
Speaker 1: I went over to represent England. I went there six times.
Speaker 1: They told us they had a billion euros to unlock
Speaker 1: the key of the cupboard that's got the money in
Speaker 1: it is absolutely impossible. But they said, so you go there,
Speaker 1: you have lunch, which is other waste of time. You
Speaker 1: have dinner, you have a hotel, they run you around
Speaker 1: in limousines, you have lunch again, dinner. Can't unlock the
Speaker 1: keys to the money. And what happens at the end
Speaker 1: of the days. Instead of this money going which is
Speaker 1: what we all wanted, was to go to on the ground,
Speaker 1: street level encouragement for people to get into music, new artists,
Speaker 1: new bands, some form of competition, touring around Europe with
Speaker 1: new artists and new cultural ideas. All that happened was
Speaker 1: the money went to the b p I the money
Speaker 1: which is the record industry. The money went to the
Speaker 1: PRS which is the performing rights people. The money went,
Speaker 1: money went to the TV associations and the film associations.
Speaker 1: Are not one single penny went down the grassroots music.
Speaker 1: And it's a joke, okay, just since you're so educated.
Speaker 1: Shifting the focus a little bit, uh, in terms of
Speaker 1: Brexit on banking, certainly the city in London was the
Speaker 1: epicenter certainly for the continent. Uh. And now something for
Speaker 1: the well one could argue in New York City, but
Speaker 1: let's not argue that, Okay, but you know things are
Speaker 1: moving uh. Universal is going to go public in Amsterdam.
Speaker 1: In addition their issues of shipping, there's issues of getting
Speaker 1: e uh like construction of cars, getting parts from other
Speaker 1: countries and sometimes the parts have to go back and forth,
Speaker 1: making the focus larger. You still think Brexit's gonna work
Speaker 1: itself out, Um, yes, because Brexit because they you it's
Speaker 1: got too big and you have the difficulty of propping
Speaker 1: out most of the countries. There's economy. Um is difficult
Speaker 1: to put it bluntly, where the central banks are proper
Speaker 1: having a prop up. We're contributing and we unfortunately in
Speaker 1: the UK or on its citizens. So when when there's
Speaker 1: a rule that comes up which the French farmers don't like,
Speaker 1: they don't do it. But when the rule comes up
Speaker 1: to Britain, the British farmers government, god, and we hate this,
Speaker 1: but we'll have to do it. So we've already always complied.
Speaker 1: But the French do whatever they want to do, and
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. So it just doesn't work
Speaker 1: for us. There will be hiccups. We've only been out
Speaker 1: of the EU and the EC since January the third
Speaker 1: December thirty one. If we're in February, it's going to
Speaker 1: take six months before it sorts itself out. We will
Speaker 1: have a thriving trading relationship with Europe, but we will
Speaker 1: be able to row our own boats, principally in on
Speaker 1: the League Eagle system we'll have. We will be back
Speaker 1: in control of our legal system. We will be back
Speaker 1: in control of trade. We can decide if we want
Speaker 1: to trade with Australia or America or New Zealand or Timbucto.
Speaker 1: We can trade with it. We don't have to ask
Speaker 1: the e C. We will forge a very good, workable
Speaker 1: trading relationship with the EU, and they need us and
Speaker 1: we need them. So it will happen, and it'll within
Speaker 1: and by this time next year you're going, what was
Speaker 1: all the row about? We'll just get on with it.
Speaker 1: There will be a few things that clearly aren't the same.
Speaker 1: There are issues of joint companies and joint ventures like
Speaker 1: the European Space Agency, like Eurotunnel, like and so on
Speaker 1: and so forth, um, but they'll get sorted out as well.
Speaker 1: We need our own car industry. We need to be
Speaker 1: able to build electric cars in the UK with our
Speaker 1: own batteries and our own battery system. We can't be
Speaker 1: just depend on and everything in Europe. We have to
Speaker 1: forge our own independence. And maybe how farmers will get
Speaker 1: better and we'll be on easing really good English lab
Speaker 1: which gets exported around the world. Maybe our fish will
Speaker 1: start to um to regrow and and all of the
Speaker 1: fisheries will start to get bigger again because they're over fish.
Speaker 1: We can control it. We will have our own car
Speaker 1: industry because we have to, and we will control our
Speaker 1: own clothing and all the rest of it. And we'll
Speaker 1: have a great trading relationship with our friends in Europe
Speaker 1: and they'll love it. But we don't want to be
Speaker 1: part of that mess. Okay, let's go back to what's
Speaker 1: going to happen in the four Speak to how much
Speaker 1: pent up demand there will be and be will ticket
Speaker 1: prices sustain or as a result of a year staying
Speaker 1: at home, are people harbled and not able to pay
Speaker 1: the prices they used to? Okay, here's the city squation.
Speaker 1: There were hundreds, if not thousands, of concerts um Plan
Speaker 1: for two thousand and twenty. Every single one of those
Speaker 1: was postponed to two thousand and twenty one. All of
Speaker 1: those concerts that were planned for the first half, quarter
Speaker 1: one and quarter two of twenty one have now been
Speaker 1: moved to quarter one and quarter two of twenty two.
Speaker 1: Plus a lot of people who are like unsure about
Speaker 1: um indoor shows coming back in quarter three have also
Speaker 1: moved into twenty two. So we have a situation of gridlock.
Speaker 1: The venues are suffering because they're having a whole dates
Speaker 1: in twenty one and twenty two and they don't know
Speaker 1: which ones are going to work. Currently. You cannot get
Speaker 1: a date in a venue for love nor money. That's
Speaker 1: point one. The interesting thing is that the ticket rebase
Speaker 1: people getting there asking for their money back is probably
Speaker 1: less than five percent across the board. I had a
Speaker 1: whole discussion with with one of my fellow promoters this afternoon,
Speaker 1: and um, we've got I've got a whole series of
Speaker 1: shows with Andre Pacelli coming up. Um, we've moved it
Speaker 1: from twenty to twenty one, and we may have to
Speaker 1: move it to twenty two depending on what happens. We've
Speaker 1: refunded out of twenty eight thousand tickets, we've refunded a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty eight and so on as you go
Speaker 1: through this week and last week. As a result of
Speaker 1: actually this week really as a result of the Mayor's
Speaker 1: the gut the Prime Minister's an announcement, thousands of tickets
Speaker 1: were sold. There's huge pent up demand for concerts. There
Speaker 1: is a confidence issue, but there is no there is
Speaker 1: no um let up of people wanting to go. So
Speaker 1: there is an issue of confidence. Some factors are not
Speaker 1: quite sure and they want to be dead sure before
Speaker 1: they actually go. But nobody's giving up their tickets, which
Speaker 1: is really quite fascinating. So for example, I start my
Speaker 1: September off with Jimmy Buffett. My Jimmy Buffett shows sold
Speaker 1: out in about four seconds, and when we moved them
Speaker 1: from twenty to twenty one, nobody back an eyelid. Were
Speaker 1: actually refunded twelve tickets. That was it. And if I
Speaker 1: have to move into twenty two because they're early September,
Speaker 1: it'll be the same. So what we've discovered is that
Speaker 1: obviously the younger you get, the more pent up demand
Speaker 1: there is. There is a little bit reticence of reticence.
Speaker 1: I probably the forty five plus age group, but they
Speaker 1: just want the confidence to know they've had a vaccine,
Speaker 1: there's a proper testing environment. What's the issue we have.
Speaker 1: Do you have to wear masks or not masks? And
Speaker 1: how are the venues if they're indoors, going to be
Speaker 1: sanitized with better ventilation and so on and so forth
Speaker 1: once they know that they're going to come back in droves.
Speaker 1: So ticket prices can't go up at the moment because
Speaker 1: there's nowhere to go up to because all the concerts
Speaker 1: of books are all twenties inventory that's the same globally,
Speaker 1: same in America, same all over the world. All the
Speaker 1: inventory for twenties now moved to twenty one. And that's
Speaker 1: the situation it's going to be before probably to the
Speaker 1: middle of twenty two, before a new life starts. Whether
Speaker 1: ticket prices starts to increase a lot, I don't know um,
Speaker 1: But at the moment they can't because they're fixed. So
Speaker 1: you can't have a differential from ticket somebody that bought
Speaker 1: a ticket in nineteen or early twenty for constant in
Speaker 1: twenty that are now going to happen late twenty one,
Speaker 1: and you've got to say a thousand tickets left because
Speaker 1: you haven't sold them all. You can't suddenly put them
Speaker 1: out and double the price. But the issue who pays
Speaker 1: the course of the sanitization, the ventilation and the extra
Speaker 1: insurance that's going to be gobbled up between the promoters
Speaker 1: and the artists, And quite honestly, the artists gonna have
Speaker 1: to come to the table the same as the promoters are.
Speaker 1: So the old days of the agents hanging out so
Speaker 1: they squeeze your nuts off and there's nothing left are over.
Speaker 1: They're going to have to be more open to be
Speaker 1: able to allow shows to happen. They have to be
Speaker 1: aware that if there's an insurance issue, whatever it ends
Speaker 1: up being, if shows a counsel at the last, very
Speaker 1: last minute because of COVID and it's overcover for it, um,
Speaker 1: everybody's gonna have to dip into their pockets to deal
Speaker 1: with it. So it's shared risk and then life or work.
Speaker 1: So I think there will be some shift changes for
Speaker 1: the better, if I may add, but of course they
Speaker 1: won't last very long because the grief factor then sticks
Speaker 1: in them. We'll go back to the the rolling. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the business has changed dramatically from when you got
Speaker 1: in in the seventies. Are so if that time essentially
Speaker 1: after it leads up when it was but the guarantees
Speaker 1: were low. Now the guarantees are incredibly high. And do
Speaker 1: you see that changing. No, the guarantees will still be
Speaker 1: the same because there's too much demand. There's too much
Speaker 1: competition between promoters in each marketplace who don't want to
Speaker 1: give in, who have to have those acts that they're
Speaker 1: going to pay through the nose for them. And all
Speaker 1: the agents sit down, they're just playing tennis. They look
Speaker 1: at this one and then they go what about you?
Speaker 1: And they look at that one and he says this,
Speaker 1: and then they go back this one and says he
Speaker 1: says this. That's the nature of the animal. Okay, which
Speaker 1: brings up the issue of consolidation, which is five years
Speaker 1: old that year. What is your viewpoint because you're a
Speaker 1: total independent, he mean, were you ever offered to join
Speaker 1: either age or a live nation And what is your
Speaker 1: viewpoint about them? And how do you compete with them today? Okay? Um,
Speaker 1: I don't compete with them, is the answer. I do
Speaker 1: different things. I work on events and shows all over
Speaker 1: the world. I work with my own kind of level
Speaker 1: of artists that I want to work with bit Hand Summer,
Speaker 1: who I kind of created be it Um. But Celli
Speaker 1: the artists that I want. You know that I do.
Speaker 1: I do events all over the world, and I work
Speaker 1: on more on a different side of the business than
Speaker 1: I used to. So I'm not that there is no
Speaker 1: way that I can compete with the ages or the
Speaker 1: Live Nation, and I don't want to have fun enough.
Speaker 1: I work with both of them as well when it
Speaker 1: when necessary, so I concentrate. I do enough. I do
Speaker 1: my events, which I get paid for. I work kin
Speaker 1: in an immersive theater world. I work in other areas
Speaker 1: of activity uh, and I work in on creating events
Speaker 1: all over the world, which I do very nicely. Out
Speaker 1: of when I started, it was different. Um. I got
Speaker 1: to the point where I actually used to go in
Speaker 1: the office to figure out who I was that day?
Speaker 1: Was I Elton John? Was I Paul McCartney, Was I
Speaker 1: led Zeppelin? Was I Queen? And if I went out
Speaker 1: with Queen, Elton John would find me out and say,
Speaker 1: where the hell are you? You're with that Freddie again.
Speaker 1: So I went out with Elton John. He Freddie would
Speaker 1: call up and say, I'm not working with you again
Speaker 1: because you're out with Elton John. And that that was
Speaker 1: my life. I used to go in and say who
Speaker 1: am I today? It was nuts six seven shows a
Speaker 1: day all over the world. Um, I've done that, had
Speaker 1: the paint, I've had the most fantastic life, which I
Speaker 1: thoroughly enjoyed. But it sence the consolidation. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: now interest just to let me tell you about the
Speaker 1: consolidation is a very interesting situation. That's where I was going.
Speaker 1: As you know, America. The whole promoter pattern in America
Speaker 1: was created by Frank Barcelona. Frank Barcelona, for those that
Speaker 1: don't know, run an agency called Premier Talent. Premier Talent
Speaker 1: was had the best of the best of the British acts,
Speaker 1: which is how I came to know Frank. He and
Speaker 1: I became unbelievably close friends. I'm still friendly with his
Speaker 1: wife and his daughter. Um. And Frank showed the way.
Speaker 1: Frank really opened the doors to how music should work
Speaker 1: in America. And what he did is he picked a
Speaker 1: promoter in every main city and every main connurbation and
Speaker 1: said that's your city. I'm going to work with you
Speaker 1: and you're going to get every show I have, which
Speaker 1: is great. That worked very nicely because there was some
Speaker 1: competition in the middle, and then there was a come
Speaker 1: nicolled Concerts West, which UM through Jerry Weintrobe had the
Speaker 1: rights to deal with Elvis Presley, and then they started
Speaker 1: to do national tours. And there was a hundred pound
Speaker 1: gorilla called Bill Graham who lived in San Francisco who
Speaker 1: kind of did what he liked up to a point.
Speaker 1: So that was the marketplace and it all worked really well.
Speaker 1: When uh Mitch Slazer and Ron Delsner came across UM,
Speaker 1: this very interesting chap who started a company called sf
Speaker 1: X and wanted to buy up promoters. He only wanted
Speaker 1: to buy up promoters that had a solid base either
Speaker 1: they had some value, which was a venue. So that's
Speaker 1: how it started. He started buying up promoters that had venues,
Speaker 1: mainly amphitheaters. Some had clubs, but most of them were amphitheaters,
Speaker 1: and he started to build a network. When that started
Speaker 1: to happen, you could see the consolidation of SFX turned
Speaker 1: into Clear Channel. Clear Channel then became Live Nation, and
Speaker 1: we know where it is. So we now have this
Speaker 1: big brute called Live Nation that is across the whole
Speaker 1: of the entertainment industry and is a global player. God
Speaker 1: bless them they have God knows seven thousand employees and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah, good luck to them. A g
Speaker 1: came about because phil and Shoots wanted to build an
Speaker 1: arena business and he came to me because he wanted
Speaker 1: to buy Wembley Stadium and he wanted some help. But
Speaker 1: he wanted wem To Stadium and Wembley Arena, and unbekownst
Speaker 1: to him, I was sitting on a government committee um
Speaker 1: looking at the future of Wembley Stadium and there was
Speaker 1: a piece of land that had to be compulsory purchased,
Speaker 1: which means you couldn't talk about it because it just
Speaker 1: literally turned up with a Britain say I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: buying this piece of land and then there's a fair
Speaker 1: market whatever. So he said to me, would would I
Speaker 1: help him buy Wembley Stadium And I said absolutely, no
Speaker 1: wirries at all, except unfalsely, you can't. He said, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: and I've got to check in my pocket and I've
Speaker 1: got a cupboard for you know, briefcase for the contracts.
Speaker 1: It's not going to happen, and it didn't. I was
Speaker 1: also working with the government trying to find the future
Speaker 1: for this thing called the Dome, which was built for
Speaker 1: the Millennium Exhibition and anyway, so I took a fill there.
Speaker 1: He was fuling when he found out he couldn't buy Wembley,
Speaker 1: which he couldn't, and he thought about it. He wanted
Speaker 1: a base in London, and we talked it through and
Speaker 1: I introduced into the government and blah blah, blah blah.
Speaker 1: He ended up buying the Dome, which is now the
Speaker 1: O two. And I said to him at the time,
Speaker 1: when everybody said it's a disaster, I said, this is
Speaker 1: turning a lemon into a melon. And if you can
Speaker 1: create a venue that both the audience like front of
Speaker 1: house and the artists like back of house, it could
Speaker 1: be in the middle of a field, in the desert
Speaker 1: or in the desert, people will go to it. If
Speaker 1: Madonna's playing there or the Rolling Stones are playing there,
Speaker 1: they will go. But you better makee damn sure that
Speaker 1: you have satisfied both the audience and made it good
Speaker 1: and convenient for them and the artists. So they like
Speaker 1: going there because they'll tell everybody else to go there.
Speaker 1: It's exactly what happened. Phil is a genius because he
Speaker 1: gets the best of the best. He built the O two.
Speaker 1: He opened it and for the day it opened it
Speaker 1: became the number one venue in the world, and it's
Speaker 1: never got off that perch ever, So there was a
Speaker 1: business there. Phil's problem was that he was deeply concerned
Speaker 1: that as clear channel will building up their business, they
Speaker 1: were also controlling venues management, and they were and promoters,
Speaker 1: and he was worried that if they build up sufficient venues,
Speaker 1: they were just block going to the A G venues.
Speaker 1: So alongside it, against his better judgment, I might add,
Speaker 1: he built up a promoting side and suddenly with the
Speaker 1: meet with Mr Irving as off in the middle of
Speaker 1: it all. And it was Irving that introduced me to Field,
Speaker 1: by the way, so I have no problems with Irving personally,
Speaker 1: but right whatever, just to go into Irving from his
Speaker 1: viewpoint on this or I'm speaking for Irving, he wanted
Speaker 1: Fill to build a promotion business so he could play
Speaker 1: the two off each other benefiting. That's that's that's his pocisition.
Speaker 1: That's fair enough. But what happened was he did better
Speaker 1: the acts. But what it's set up was a deep
Speaker 1: competition between A G and Live Nation, and they were
Speaker 1: each outbidding each other, which meant that if you were
Speaker 1: a an independent promoter in America or indeed some of
Speaker 1: the great cities of Europe, you just didn't have a
Speaker 1: chance because they had unlimited pockets. They had lots of backing,
Speaker 1: and they had unlimited pockets. So therefore you couldn't compete.
Speaker 1: So that build up and what happened, what's happened is
Speaker 1: that it's now like dealing with a country. You're dealing
Speaker 1: with civil servants, because that's what they are. They're not
Speaker 1: really creative people. They do a bloody good job. I
Speaker 1: have no complaints about either company whatsoever, but they do
Speaker 1: it to a level. And so the business, in my opinions,
Speaker 1: has suffered very badly because you need that Mumma and Papa.
Speaker 1: You need that independent guy. You need that man, the
Speaker 1: Bill Grahams of the world. You need the Rondelsters who
Speaker 1: got sucked into obviously into into five Nation and so on.
Speaker 1: And you need the Larry maggie Is who had a
Speaker 1: different way of doing things. And the only two that
Speaker 1: stuck it out was An'tie and Jerry now Um Jerry
Speaker 1: in Chicago in America, and they're the only I think
Speaker 1: they're the only two independents left. And Um I never forget.
Speaker 1: There was a time when Frank Barcelona phoned me up.
Speaker 1: He was having problems for you too, and he asked
Speaker 1: for some help. And then he says to me, listen,
Speaker 1: you are going to stick with me on on this
Speaker 1: whole Live Nation business or SFX business. At the time,
Speaker 1: I said sure, and he said, I'm going to get
Speaker 1: Don Law on the phone, and Don is going to
Speaker 1: you know, he's really adamant. He's not going to work
Speaker 1: with them or anything like that. I want you, really,
Speaker 1: let's work together and make sure they don't pick off
Speaker 1: the best of the best in other territories. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: fine whether this conversation or great. Now. Less than three
Speaker 1: months later I pick up. I can't remember. It was
Speaker 1: all board and variety of one of the others, Like
Speaker 1: I see that Larry's side that don't sold his business
Speaker 1: to lot to SFX, and I phone Barcelona up. He
Speaker 1: was in tears. So I don't understand it. And I
Speaker 1: think what happened was it just got to the point
Speaker 1: where everybody just started to roll over. There was a
Speaker 1: check waiting for them. It was a bit of security.
Speaker 1: Their view was I'm going to sign a three to
Speaker 1: five year contract and I'm out of there, and so
Speaker 1: on and so forth. But of course Live Nation grew
Speaker 1: as a business and it is. It is an incredible
Speaker 1: business when you think about it for what it does.
Speaker 1: And a G became a slightly different business because they
Speaker 1: really control more arenas than anybody else in the world,
Speaker 1: and particularly with the latest deal with it with SMG,
Speaker 1: they are the biggest arena operators in the world and
Speaker 1: um between them they controlled the market. So how do
Speaker 1: you want to compete with them on a tour? You can't.
Speaker 1: Whereas before there were global tours, but most of them
Speaker 1: were regional tours, so you would I would have my region,
Speaker 1: and Bill Graham would have his region and the Australians,
Speaker 1: Michael Goodinski would have his regions Australasia and he would
Speaker 1: handle that and so on and so forth. Suddenly, um,
Speaker 1: these big companies were pitching and say we're going to
Speaker 1: buy you globally, We're going to buy a merchandizing So
Speaker 1: I had my merchandizing company. Unfortunately I sold to Michael Cole,
Speaker 1: but that was good, so I got there for that.
Speaker 1: But um uh, suddenly they were in every facet of it,
Speaker 1: and they were doing different deals in essence, they were
Speaker 1: doing treasury deals because they were pitching advances and guarantees
Speaker 1: to the artists based on forward ticket sales. And then
Speaker 1: when they started, when they became the ticketing company as well,
Speaker 1: they had all aspects of it. So the whole business changed,
Speaker 1: but it lost, in my opinion, a lot of creator
Speaker 1: of a t okay looking forward maybe beyond our lifetimes,
Speaker 1: is this the end for the consolidation or is there
Speaker 1: going to be a twist that changes. There's always a twist.
Speaker 1: If you look through history of every major business, every industry,
Speaker 1: there's always been consolidation and then suddenly a new raft
Speaker 1: of independence come out of it with a slightly different
Speaker 1: way of doing things and life starts again. It's constantly involving.
Speaker 1: There is nothing new under the sun because it's just
Speaker 1: keeps going around in cycles, and we're at one particular
Speaker 1: facet of the of the cycle. I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: the live nations or ages are going to go anywhere,
Speaker 1: because they're not. But there will be new promoters who
Speaker 1: come out want to do it differently, and there will
Speaker 1: be a raft of new style of artists who will
Speaker 1: stick with the new young promoters, which is what I hope,
Speaker 1: because that's what it should be. Okay. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go too deeply into ticketing, but we have to
Speaker 1: mention it conventionally. If you don't own the building, all
Speaker 1: the money is in the ticketing. Okay. Then there's the
Speaker 1: issue of the stones flex price. What is the future
Speaker 1: of this? My views are known everywhere. Um. One, I
Speaker 1: hate with a passion the secondary ticket market. Two I
Speaker 1: hate with a passion or the box office charges, the
Speaker 1: over the tables, the under the tables, the premium deals, that, this,
Speaker 1: that that the other. I think we've forgotten that we're
Speaker 1: here to satisfy fans demand to go and see their heroes.
Speaker 1: We melt them. We don't have a duty of care
Speaker 1: to the fans at all. And it never ceases to
Speaker 1: amaze me how much the Sands fans will suck up
Speaker 1: to it. I I don't get it. Um I'm from
Speaker 1: the different school and from the old school, where I
Speaker 1: feel if the tickets twenty five quid, Okay, it costs
Speaker 1: a bit for convenience of buying the ticket and whatever,
Speaker 1: but it should be sold as close to twenty five
Speaker 1: pounds as possible. I can't see any justification for a
Speaker 1: twenty five or thirty five pounds ticket at the top
Speaker 1: end being sold for two hundred and fifty pounds or
Speaker 1: five dollars. It doesn't make any sense. There's no logic
Speaker 1: to it at all. We've created a tool which I
Speaker 1: think is unsavory. There are too many strange deals that
Speaker 1: go on. Still, the secondary market has to stop. We've
Speaker 1: managed to deal with that with vir Go Go through
Speaker 1: the UK to stop that conglomerate deal coming to into fruition.
Speaker 1: It's not right and I think to some extent um
Speaker 1: all the bad side of ticketing will carry on, but
Speaker 1: it shouldn't. It really is. It just doesn't work. And
Speaker 1: what happens is every bad habit that we learned that
Speaker 1: comes from our fellow brothers in America to the rest
Speaker 1: of the world feeds through to the rest of the
Speaker 1: world and it's not good. So that the same thing
Speaker 1: is happening, as you know in theater with premium tickets
Speaker 1: in theater where for the privilege if you'll arrive in
Speaker 1: a city you want to go to the theater and
Speaker 1: you want to get see a show, um and their
Speaker 1: tickets available for the privilege of you going on that night.
Speaker 1: They'll try at you five times as much as the
Speaker 1: phase value, which is outrageous, and I think there will
Speaker 1: be eventually a reaction towards it, and I think tickets
Speaker 1: will to some extent stabilized. I think there will be
Speaker 1: easier systems to control the reseller tickets so that we
Speaker 1: can get the prices stabilized. And I think out of
Speaker 1: um technology that will happen. And I hope that it
Speaker 1: settles down to become a real market and not the
Speaker 1: false market. It is, okay, what do we know? Demand
Speaker 1: outstripped supply in many cases, certainly for all these hard acts.
Speaker 1: Are you saying we should establish a system or hopefully
Speaker 1: we get a system such that the act sets the
Speaker 1: price and that is the price everybody pays, or do
Speaker 1: we have to adjust it, adjust the price of tickets
Speaker 1: to their true market value. Probably a bit of both,
Speaker 1: because some acts will want to set the price. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of acts. We have this thing called
Speaker 1: the Fanfare Alliance, which is fighting the secondary market in England.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of acts that signed up to it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of acts that haven't. So there is
Speaker 1: a greed factor that's always there. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day. What's changed of course, is the fact that
Speaker 1: the old dinosaur acts that we all grow up with
Speaker 1: um have they've reached their peak, and they are peaking,
Speaker 1: and they're getting to the point where they're going to
Speaker 1: start diminishing because they can't carry on for much longer,
Speaker 1: So that marketplace will go. What happens thereafter is going
Speaker 1: to be really interesting, because even though the new acts
Speaker 1: and the dance acts and the hip acts and the
Speaker 1: pop acts or whatever are charging humongous prices, it's only
Speaker 1: off the back of what they're rolling Stones charge or
Speaker 1: YouTube charges or Madonna charges or Fleetwi Mac charges is whatever.
Speaker 1: When they're gone, I think we'll see a completely different horizon. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously we're in a different era with the Internet, were
Speaker 1: experiences or everything. Do you believe the sunset of the
Speaker 1: dinosaurs will impact the business at all? Where there will
Speaker 1: always be a new generation of acts that people hunger
Speaker 1: to see. Yeah, why not? I don't see any reason
Speaker 1: why not. When I first started, it was all the
Speaker 1: cooness you know, it was Frank sin Archer and it
Speaker 1: was Johnny Ray and all these kind of people. When
Speaker 1: I first I went to see the Stones and the
Speaker 1: who I thought it was the best thing since Slice
Speaker 1: Bread I was weaned on jazz. We had to decide
Speaker 1: notionally in the UK whether you're a Beatles fan and
Speaker 1: that pop era or whether you were a Stones and
Speaker 1: a Who fan. You didn't very few people were both.
Speaker 1: You were one or the other. I kind of went
Speaker 1: with the Stones and the Who. I didn't have any
Speaker 1: problem with the Beatles, but that's that was my music.
Speaker 1: It was that that heat, that intensity, and that grew
Speaker 1: up and grew up and grew and grew, and every
Speaker 1: week there was a new act coming out. It was
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like it. That middle sixties onwards
Speaker 1: for ten years was the greatest upheaval of music we've
Speaker 1: ever and culture really that we've ever seen, because for
Speaker 1: the first time ever, young people demanded a say in
Speaker 1: society was previous to that scene or not. They wanted
Speaker 1: to do it their way, they wanted to do it differently.
Speaker 1: They went out of their way to say, we don't
Speaker 1: care what our parents did, this is what we want.
Speaker 1: It was their revolution and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: So there were artists coming out. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do. It was like picking cherries off the tree
Speaker 1: every week as somebody else coming up and we get
Speaker 1: a phone call. I've got this bank called jethro Toe.
Speaker 1: I got this bank called ten years after, I got
Speaker 1: this bank called the Move. I got this bank called
Speaker 1: the Action, and so even what to do. So we
Speaker 1: were really lucky. Um. I don't know if that will
Speaker 1: ever happen again. But what I do know is as
Speaker 1: you come to the end of an era, there's always
Speaker 1: a fuzzy period and then suddenly something brand new comes out.
Speaker 1: There's a whole new engagement, there's a new activity, there's
Speaker 1: new people getting involved in it. They will bring the excitement,
Speaker 1: they'll make it happen, and we're going forever. Music's inside us.
Speaker 1: We love it. The biggest problem we've got with COVID
Speaker 1: and why there's so much pent up demand is purely
Speaker 1: and simply because as humans were tribal, we love being
Speaker 1: together sharing experiences and there's nothing better. They're going to
Speaker 1: see a concert at the time with Jimmy Hendrix or
Speaker 1: someone like that. We're going to see a concert even
Speaker 1: you know your favorite pop band, but it's Beyonce or
Speaker 1: whatever it is you want to see. Being with thousands
Speaker 1: of other people, just completely consumed by the entertainment that's
Speaker 1: in front of you. You can't beat it. And that's
Speaker 1: what's held up. Okay, So in the UK there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of scuttle but about the death of the
Speaker 1: club business. What is going on there and what can
Speaker 1: he what can take place in the future city. It's
Speaker 1: not really, it's just a physical situation that, um, there
Speaker 1: hasn't been any any live entertainment since the beginning of
Speaker 1: March two thousand and twenty. And but yet if you
Speaker 1: own a club or indeed a venue, you that's still
Speaker 1: paying rent to the landlord, you're still paying business rates,
Speaker 1: you might get some alleviation which is city taxes, you're
Speaker 1: still paying your overheads and so on. But you're empty,
Speaker 1: so you can't any money. So that's that's what you
Speaker 1: call scuttle. But it's not scuttle. But it's just a
Speaker 1: fact of life. Now. I'm really referencing before COVID, okay,
Speaker 1: in a lot of communities for noise restrictions or valuably
Speaker 1: and the number of clubs was decreasing. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about whether it's the two. However, I helped formed an
Speaker 1: organization called the Empty i A which is the Nighttime
Speaker 1: Association of Venues and slowly but surely we've got around
Speaker 1: all of the local authorities insistence on controlling noise, pollution,
Speaker 1: controlling late hours, the police, the numbers, and all that
Speaker 1: Harrison we're getting. We were getting round that and doing
Speaker 1: really well, and actually clubs were reopening and new clubs
Speaker 1: were opening up. It goes back many, many years. Two
Speaker 1: local authorities suddenly trying to stop young people from enjoying themselves,
Speaker 1: and they're realizing, as they do in every city, that
Speaker 1: the nighttime economy, which is people going out and enjoying themselves,
Speaker 1: whether it's restaurants, bars, clubs, music in bars, music in clubs,
Speaker 1: that's what keeps is the soul and the heart of
Speaker 1: the city. So they have to let that happen. So
Speaker 1: it's just again it's an evolving situation. But you were right.
Speaker 1: There was a period of time when clubs were closing
Speaker 1: up because the licensing laws were so ridiculous. But they
Speaker 1: were coming around and slowly but surely, counselors were realizing
Speaker 1: the damage that was being done to their own cities.
Speaker 1: So they were starting the wize up again. Okay, why
Speaker 1: does britty music out punch its wheat and why does
Speaker 1: all the innovation come Oh, there's not innovation in America
Speaker 1: but consistently. I mean, and the forties you had people,
Speaker 1: you know, with a little opportunity, fewer diversions. But even
Speaker 1: at this late date there's a level of innovation in
Speaker 1: the UK. You don't see another country except maybe Canada.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is? I don't know. Interestingly enough, Um,
Speaker 1: in England we like quirky things. So when this um
Speaker 1: revolution started in the early sixties and different forms of music. Liverpool,
Speaker 1: which is now the home of the equivalent of the
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Museum called the British Music Experience, is
Speaker 1: based in Liverpool, which is the UNESCO Home of Music.
Speaker 1: By the way, um, this whole eruption of pop music
Speaker 1: came about through a little club called Cabin, and out
Speaker 1: of it came dozens of bands. Then Manchester got involved
Speaker 1: and then it came down to London. London was going
Speaker 1: in a different direction of music because in London we
Speaker 1: had things called crystal sets with a little tiny boxes
Speaker 1: with a crystal in it, with a long while that
Speaker 1: hung out the window. We could listen to pop music
Speaker 1: on a station called Radio Luxemburg. And then we had
Speaker 1: Pirate Radio starting and that infused people to say, were
Speaker 1: they were listening to jazz, they were listening to blues,
Speaker 1: they were listening to early rock from American said we
Speaker 1: could do this, and so they started to create and
Speaker 1: do it. So we've always been innovative. But we love quirkiness,
Speaker 1: and it's really interesting that we love quirkiness from somewhere else.
Speaker 1: So Michael Jackson was a thousand times bigger in England
Speaker 1: than he was in America for a period of time,
Speaker 1: Madonna was Bruce Springsteen broke in England much bigger than
Speaker 1: he did in America, faster and so on. So we
Speaker 1: like the quirkiness. America is a huge it's a continent,
Speaker 1: and what the Bridge didn't really understand was, with very
Speaker 1: few exceptions, that if you want to break in America
Speaker 1: and become big there, every state is another country. Whereas
Speaker 1: where a tiny little country where you can go from
Speaker 1: You can literally go from Manchester to London and do
Speaker 1: two gigs. You know, you could do an early gig
Speaker 1: in Manchester and a late gig in London. You can't
Speaker 1: really do that in America because of the distance and
Speaker 1: so on. So we have this I'm not sure really
Speaker 1: maybe it maybe we have inside is some kind of
Speaker 1: symptom that we are with the lost people, that we
Speaker 1: have to prove a point. I don't know, but so
Speaker 1: much creativity has come out of the UK. It is
Speaker 1: mind blowing, going back to the British evasion right at
Speaker 1: the beginning and all the way through to today, the
Speaker 1: innovation of punk, the innovation of glam rock, the David Bones,
Speaker 1: that Mark Boland's, all of those artists, all of Brits,
Speaker 1: but they all made their made it out of it
Speaker 1: in the main out of America. When they came back
Speaker 1: to the UK, they were heroes. So it's quite interesting.
Speaker 1: And what happened was at the beginning, a lot of
Speaker 1: those early bands and even the progressive rock bands that
Speaker 1: I grew up with, Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Speaker 1: and even Genesis, they got to a point here where
Speaker 1: they were doing okay. They then went to America, and
Speaker 1: when we read about them in Melody Maker and Sounds
Speaker 1: the music papers, because that was our bible of how
Speaker 1: well they were doing in America, when they came back
Speaker 1: to the UK they were ten times bigger, and the
Speaker 1: vice versa happens. Okay, I want to talk about your
Speaker 1: experience in management. You are me and Jeff back for
Speaker 1: a while. You've got him a lot of high profile gigs,
Speaker 1: Bill acknowledge and well, I believe he is the best
Speaker 1: of all the rock guitars. Then it ended, So talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about your management career, dealing with talent,
Speaker 1: how you approached it, why it ended, etcetera. Huh, I've
Speaker 1: managed a lot of people right now. I've just used
Speaker 1: exact to tell us how you got into management. I mean,
Speaker 1: because you're a promoter. Yeah, Well, I always wanted to
Speaker 1: be a promoter. Um. It used to be joined the
Speaker 1: Navy and see the world. That was the slogan, and
Speaker 1: for me it was be a promoter and see the
Speaker 1: world because I went around the world promoting right up
Speaker 1: from the beginning. I started going to Australia in the
Speaker 1: early seventies with people like Black Sabbath and so on.
Speaker 1: I never ever dreamt or wanted to be in management.
Speaker 1: It started as follows. Um, when I left college, um
Speaker 1: or university, I wanted to be I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a pharmacist for various reasons. The course I wanted to
Speaker 1: do I couldn't do. I got very upset about it.
Speaker 1: I went to a particular university in the south coast
Speaker 1: of Brighton, and um, I thought it was gonna be
Speaker 1: a great social life and there wasn't. And I persuaded
Speaker 1: the student union to open a club called Club sixty six.
Speaker 1: That was the start of my life. I then got
Speaker 1: very upset because the course I wanted to do was
Speaker 1: canceled and I ended up doing a course I didn't
Speaker 1: want to do, and I got fed up with it
Speaker 1: and I went to America. I went to America. I
Speaker 1: saw what was going on in America. I got a
Speaker 1: great hound bus ticket. I went from one side of
Speaker 1: America to the other, ended up in hate Ashbury. Hang on,
Speaker 1: I'll finish this and you'll I'll get it. No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: What year was sixty six? I started? My club was
Speaker 1: called Club sixty six. I went to a student union meeting,
Speaker 1: which is like your fraternities, and I listen to them
Speaker 1: talking about the rugby club, the cricket club, the chess club,
Speaker 1: the bridge club, blah blah blah blah, And I said,
Speaker 1: where's the social life? And they said, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: I see, where's the entertain This is a town known
Speaker 1: for fun parties, entertainment. There isn't any. They said, well,
Speaker 1: we've just talked about it all. I said, that's not entertainment,
Speaker 1: it's hard work. So they said, what you didn't we
Speaker 1: should do? I said that I think we should open
Speaker 1: the club. So they kind of looked at me and said,
Speaker 1: who are you. I said, I'm from pharmacy. That was
Speaker 1: the course I was studying. They said, we've never seen
Speaker 1: a pharmacy repped before because it's such a condense course.
Speaker 1: It was hard work anyway, So the president Union said,
Speaker 1: a right clever dick, open a club. So I said, okay,
Speaker 1: screw you, I'm going to open the club. So open
Speaker 1: the club called Club sixty six for students. It wasn't
Speaker 1: literally an instant success, and it was at the point.
Speaker 1: One of the earliest acts idea was the Moody Blues,
Speaker 1: and next Fleet with Mac and then it went from
Speaker 1: there onward Family Taste and someone. It just went on
Speaker 1: and on. We I was so lucky to be at
Speaker 1: the right place at the right time, so all of
Speaker 1: this style it off. And then I decided I wanted
Speaker 1: to learn a bit more. I got fed up with
Speaker 1: this whole university thing of having to do this theoretical
Speaker 1: degree that I didn't want to do. And I got
Speaker 1: shipped on an exchange course to America. I went to America.
Speaker 1: I stuck the course out for one semester. I've had
Speaker 1: enough of this. My aunt lived in you. I'm interested.
Speaker 1: Where was that course taught the University of Toledo in
Speaker 1: Ohio somewhere. Everybody goes to, Okay, you've got there for
Speaker 1: one semester, and then I go back to It was
Speaker 1: in the summer. It was the summer semester, got or
Speaker 1: whatever however you call it. I go back to New York.
Speaker 1: It's boiling hot. It's June or end of June, July
Speaker 1: and um. I stayed with my aunt for a week,
Speaker 1: and I saw an ad in the paper that said
Speaker 1: greyhound bus tickets. If you're an international student, you get
Speaker 1: nine nine days for which is just about what I had.
Speaker 1: I had the greatest time in my life going from
Speaker 1: one side of America to the other on a greyhound bus.
Speaker 1: I saw more cities then than I've ever seen since.
Speaker 1: I saw more that was going on than I've ever
Speaker 1: seen since. I ended up going over Golden Gate Bridge
Speaker 1: to go to the downtown wine in San Francisco, and
Speaker 1: I heard this noise, saw this massive people and I thought,
Speaker 1: what the hell is this? Go to the wide said
Speaker 1: what's going on? Somewhere near the Golden Gate bridgeless so
Speaker 1: as a concert. I shot down there and I saw
Speaker 1: the Grateful Dead and quit Silver Messenger service. I thought,
Speaker 1: this is fantastic. I went. I literally were my way backstage.
Speaker 1: They loved my accent. I met the Grateful Dead. I
Speaker 1: became friends with them for thirty five years thereafter, and
Speaker 1: it's started my pathway to realize that music's where I
Speaker 1: wanted to be. The thing that got me, very simply
Speaker 1: was that all over San Francisco were the most unbelievable
Speaker 1: looking posters advertising shows of artists I had never heard of.
Speaker 1: But all I knew is those posters were so good
Speaker 1: I had to go and see the show because they
Speaker 1: sucked me in. So um, I did a deal with
Speaker 1: Bill Graham and chat Helms. Chat Helms had Family Dog
Speaker 1: and Rand the Avalon Ballroom. Bill Graham had the film
Speaker 1: More and had his film More Posters to represent them.
Speaker 1: I came back to England and I co started a
Speaker 1: company called Big Old Posters. Let me start for us,
Speaker 1: let me stop your hard you say you're not gonna
Speaker 1: forget your what'd your father do for a living? My
Speaker 1: father was a tailor. My mother was a millionaire, made hats. Okay,
Speaker 1: they work for themselves. Yeah, so we're you know, what
Speaker 1: made you such an entrepreneur? No idea, No idea? I mean,
Speaker 1: were you the type of kid before you went to
Speaker 1: when you were in secondary school? Did you deliver papers?
Speaker 1: Were always hustle money or I'll tell you, you know,
Speaker 1: you just fell into this. You might laugh. But my
Speaker 1: training came from being in the Scouts. I became a
Speaker 1: Scout because that's what everybody did. I then got into
Speaker 1: it and became a Queen Scout, which was a big deal,
Speaker 1: and I learned a huge amount of managing people from
Speaker 1: the Scouts. That's the only place I ever got it from,
Speaker 1: because it didn't come from my parents and didn't starting
Speaker 1: a business. You started the club, you started the poster business.
Speaker 1: Did you just look in the mirror and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I think I can do this, or it was just instinctive,
Speaker 1: I see an idea, I'm doing it. It was a challenge.
Speaker 1: I love challenges. Anyway, I'm going to get into the
Speaker 1: management because I don't want to drag out. This is
Speaker 1: very very interesting digression as a space of life. So
Speaker 1: we started with the big Oh was in existence, but
Speaker 1: it was really very arty. I joined up with a
Speaker 1: guy called Peter Ledibar. We started Big Old Posters. I
Speaker 1: rolled in this contract and said, I've got this contract
Speaker 1: to sell Avalon and Family dog posters from America. And
Speaker 1: it was people like Stanley Mouse and all those great
Speaker 1: artists um all over Europe and the this is this
Speaker 1: is where you love. And this guy who had already
Speaker 1: who was a printer, who started the business, said to me,
Speaker 1: very funny, you're the fourth person that's come in this summer.
Speaker 1: Bill big Bill as he was, had told everybody they
Speaker 1: could have the exclusive because he didn't even think about
Speaker 1: it anyway. We started this company, we built it up.
Speaker 1: We were signing acts after acts, and the two things
Speaker 1: we did was we supported two underground magazines. One was
Speaker 1: called International Times and one was called Oz Magazine. Both
Speaker 1: of them are the legendary papers they were. They were
Speaker 1: They were being pubs at the same time as magazines
Speaker 1: in America called Screw and Suck, you remember all that stuff.
Speaker 1: They were always sure of money, they were always in trouble.
Speaker 1: OZ Magazine were busted for obscenity and they were drug
Speaker 1: bust or whatever. And because I had this, people knew
Speaker 1: a little bit that I was in music doing something.
Speaker 1: Every time I was busy trying to build this poster
Speaker 1: of business up, this is to me, could you do
Speaker 1: a concert because we've got to raise some money to
Speaker 1: pay the lawyers. Next week, he put on a concert
Speaker 1: and it works. We could have enough money. So I
Speaker 1: was always being drawn back into doing concerts, and then
Speaker 1: eventually I was asked do a big concert, a big
Speaker 1: fundraiser for OZ to raise money to pay the barristers
Speaker 1: to fight this obscenity case, which they would have gone
Speaker 1: to prison if they'd lost. And I put on a
Speaker 1: show called Christmas on Earth, which was with the animals,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Hendrix, Pink Floyd and whatever a place called Olympia,
Speaker 1: and it was a huge success. So I thought this
Speaker 1: is good and um, eventually I decided I've not made
Speaker 1: for the post of business, but music keeps drawing me in.
Speaker 1: I then went to see my brother in law, who
Speaker 1: was a lawyer, and I said to him, look, I
Speaker 1: don't know anything about the music business. Really, I'd like
Speaker 1: to learn. Do you know anybody who's in management or
Speaker 1: in promoting and he said, actually I represent Man frew Man,
Speaker 1: and um, why don't I introduce you to his manager,
Speaker 1: which he did. I then went to work for Man
Speaker 1: frew Man's manager, guy called David Joseph, who was an
Speaker 1: Australian TV producer who produced the series and individuals. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He produced the most successful Pops series ever called Hey Hey,
Speaker 1: It's Saturday. He was managing Man frew Man. He was
Speaker 1: living in Australia producing this series six seven months of
Speaker 1: a year. I only met him four times in the
Speaker 1: ten months I worked for him. During that period of time,
Speaker 1: I was putting together all Man fIF Man's tours and
Speaker 1: looking after him, and together with Keith Popka, who was
Speaker 1: a Seeker who you may remember, the band called the Seekers.
Speaker 1: Of course, of course we formed the New Seekers under
Speaker 1: his direction, and then we did that Coca Cola song
Speaker 1: and I'd like to teach the world to sing, which
Speaker 1: was a originally a you know, a melodigue uh song
Speaker 1: and so on. So I was learning about management and
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, Man fIF Man used to
Speaker 1: drive me nuts. He would find if I if I
Speaker 1: was five minutes late in the office, he'd fun up
Speaker 1: at ten o'clock at the dot and if I was
Speaker 1: late the night before and came in at quarter past ten,
Speaker 1: he starts screaming at me, where have you been? So
Speaker 1: I thought, I don't want to do this. I hated it.
Speaker 1: Time rolls on. I'm working with The Who. We're doing
Speaker 1: a tour and we're in Glasgow. Glasgow had one venue
Speaker 1: called Green's Playhouse. It's an infamous, unbelievable venue that then
Speaker 1: became the Apollo. It was the best venue on the planet.
Speaker 1: You've never seen audience reactions and so on that went
Speaker 1: on in this place. I had The Who playing there
Speaker 1: for two nights and the manager of Green's Playhouse got
Speaker 1: hold of me and said, I want you to come
Speaker 1: and see a comedian. And I said, well, I can't
Speaker 1: leave the hoo because you never know what's going to
Speaker 1: happen with them. You go out the door for five
Speaker 1: minutes and they're killing each other, it will be fine.
Speaker 1: So we stuck out and we went to up the road,
Speaker 1: literally five minutes up to the road of the King's Theater,
Speaker 1: and there was a comedian on stage called Billy Connolly,
Speaker 1: and Billy Connolly spoke in this broad Glaswegian accent. The
Speaker 1: place was they were hanging off the walls in there.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what he was saying. It was
Speaker 1: this is a foreign language. All I know is I
Speaker 1: couldn't stop laughing because everybody was pissing themselves. So the
Speaker 1: manager of the playhouse has come back and meet Billy
Speaker 1: to who were on to eleven and this is ten o'clock.
Speaker 1: I went backstage. I was introduced to Billy. Billy said,
Speaker 1: I I've just been told that you you you've got
Speaker 1: the WHO on. I said, yeah, yeah, I worked with
Speaker 1: WHO all over the UK. He said, there my heroes.
Speaker 1: Can I come and see them? I said, we'll get
Speaker 1: dressed there on for another forty fifty minutes. I hope
Speaker 1: come and see them. Staying, you know, come back staying
Speaker 1: on the side of the stage. So I brought him back,
Speaker 1: came on the side of the stage. We started talking.
Speaker 1: He said to me, I want you to look after me.
Speaker 1: I said, what do you mean? He said, I want
Speaker 1: to come to England. I said, but nobody understands what
Speaker 1: you're talking about in English. He said, I could speak
Speaker 1: English anyway. We talked he um I then UM introduced
Speaker 1: him to a TV host called Michael Parkinson. You may
Speaker 1: have heard of and he had a TV show a
Speaker 1: bit like you know your Tonight Show, and I got
Speaker 1: him on that show, and he went on that show
Speaker 1: once and suddenly became an instant. Here. Now I am
Speaker 1: managing Billy Connolly. I'm managing Billy Connolly Um, which I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do, but I'm managing him. As a
Speaker 1: result of that, there was a very good TV series
Speaker 1: called Not the Nine o'clock News, which was Rowan, Rowan, Atkinson, Griffreith, Jones,
Speaker 1: Mel Smith Um and a girl called Pamela Stevenson. They
Speaker 1: then came to me and said, look, we've seen what
Speaker 1: you've done with Billy. Billy was now a hit all
Speaker 1: over the UK and whatever. We all have the individual managements,
Speaker 1: but nobody's looking after the show. Can you manage the
Speaker 1: show for us? So I said, I'll do that on
Speaker 1: the basis that I don't want to manage any of you,
Speaker 1: because then I can't act for all of you. So
Speaker 1: I looked after the show called Not the nine o'clock News.
Speaker 1: The deal was they would do it as long as
Speaker 1: they're going to be funny. When they felt they weren't
Speaker 1: going to be any funny anymore themselves, they would not
Speaker 1: pick up an option to do another series. The only
Speaker 1: did three series. Came to the end of the series,
Speaker 1: to the penultimate show, they decided that was it. I said,
Speaker 1: you've never had a guest on the show. It was
Speaker 1: a number one rating show on TV for comedy. I said,
Speaker 1: you never had a guest on the shows the penultimate show,
Speaker 1: why didn't you put Billy on? This is great? I
Speaker 1: then made a terrible error. I introduced Billy Connolly to
Speaker 1: Pamela Stevenson, who was a very beautiful lady, and Billy,
Speaker 1: who was happily married to kids wife in Scotland and
Speaker 1: all good suddenly takes a liking at rehearsal to Pamela Stevenson.
Speaker 1: They recalled the show and Billy disappears for two days. Thereafter,
Speaker 1: for a year, Billy and Pamela are hiding in a
Speaker 1: news house that I had in the West End. His
Speaker 1: wife is Guy Loupy or whatever I'm going I don't
Speaker 1: want to do this. I love promoting, I don't want
Speaker 1: to do management. At the end of it, Pamela came over,
Speaker 1: sat on my lap flash Deraisles and said, you've got
Speaker 1: to manage me. I said, no, no, no no, I don't
Speaker 1: want to do that because it won't work. She said, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: I ended up managing Pamela and Billy, and I said,
Speaker 1: this is the deal Monday to Friday. Asked me with
Speaker 1: you in London or whatever you need doing. But every
Speaker 1: weekend I'm going out on the road with Billy. Is
Speaker 1: that okay? So Friday I'm not here. Pamela Thursday night
Speaker 1: would call up week after weeks, I've got to see
Speaker 1: you tomorrow. I gotta see It was one of those. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I put Pamela into a show called The Pirates of
Speaker 1: Pen's Ants and it was a big hit of Theodore
Speaker 1: or Jury Lane. Billy was on the road. I'm going
Speaker 1: out to see Billy for the weekend, Pamela insisted. I
Speaker 1: stayed in London. It was driving me nuts. The next
Speaker 1: thing that happened is I get a phone call um
Speaker 1: from producers in America who wanted Pamela to do an
Speaker 1: American TV series. She ended up doing two movies and
Speaker 1: and she was going to do a series called Dynasty.
Speaker 1: You may remember that, of course, and we pronounced it
Speaker 1: dynasty here. She was going to be the female leading Dynasty.
Speaker 1: They wanted someone quirky, and had an English accident, even
Speaker 1: though she was she's actually from New zic Eland, but Australia. Whatever,
Speaker 1: she didn't want to do it, so eventually we uh
Speaker 1: and I suggested that I suggested as you talked to
Speaker 1: Joan Collins, which they didn't anyway, So I ended up
Speaker 1: managing Pamela and Billy, and I hated every minute of
Speaker 1: it because it was only a matter of time before
Speaker 1: it was going to break up, because Pamela decided that
Speaker 1: she wanted all my time and Billy decided he wanted
Speaker 1: all my time. I couldn't do it. And I remember
Speaker 1: going to see my lawyer and I wrote down on
Speaker 1: a piece of paper. I said, put it in your
Speaker 1: safe how long this is going to last? And I
Speaker 1: said under a year, I'm going to be out of here.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, under a year we broke up. And
Speaker 1: I didn't. I said, I'm not managing either. We roll
Speaker 1: on to seventy five. I'm minding my own business. I
Speaker 1: had split from my partnership with John and Tony Smith,
Speaker 1: which was that they were the real big Day, were
Speaker 1: the biggest rock promoters in England. I had a partnership
Speaker 1: with them called John Smith Entertainments, John and under chain
Speaker 1: of clubs. Um Tony was managing a bank called Genesis
Speaker 1: very young, trying to help them out. My other partner,
Speaker 1: there's another partner called Michael aldis managing a bank called Family,
Speaker 1: and all I wanted to do is promote very happily.
Speaker 1: At the end of seventy five, Tony came through and
Speaker 1: said that Genesis really wanted me to manage in full
Speaker 1: time and didn't want me doing anything else. We split
Speaker 1: the business up. I took the promoting, Michael took Family,
Speaker 1: Tony took Genesis. He won by the way, and John
Speaker 1: wanted his father wanted to keep the clubs. The fast
Speaker 1: thing that happened to me was a tool within the
Speaker 1: skinnerd And the next thing that happened to me was
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones wanted to do a big show in London,
Speaker 1: and I said, let's play Earl's Cool. So we planned
Speaker 1: to do six nights in Ours Court, which turned out
Speaker 1: to be unbelievable in some respects and he's sound disaster
Speaker 1: in other respects because the sound was terrible in there.
Speaker 1: So I'm quite close with the Stones. I'd work with
Speaker 1: them quite a bit, done a lot of shows of them.
Speaker 1: So on Bill Wyman then funds me up getting a
Speaker 1: seventy six. He said to me, do you know Van Morrison? Said?
Speaker 1: I love Van Morrison. I said, you know them, we're
Speaker 1: just incredible. Where is he? He said, well, he's been rehabbing.
Speaker 1: He's just come out. He's looking for a manager. Would
Speaker 1: you go and meet with him? And by the way,
Speaker 1: don't talk about alcohol or anything like that. He doesn't
Speaker 1: do coffee. He's come out of rehab. He's a bit nervous.
Speaker 1: Will you go and meet with Van Morrison and help
Speaker 1: him find a manager? I said sure, So I got
Speaker 1: he's my hero, so I gotn't beat meet Van Morrison.
Speaker 1: And we started talking. And I had prepared on a
Speaker 1: piece of paper a list of eighteen managers, everybody from
Speaker 1: Irving to build Curvishly to Peter Right to all the
Speaker 1: great managers of the day. Um even Steve o'rourkey was
Speaker 1: managing Pick Floyd. And he said, everybody keeps talking about
Speaker 1: all of them. He said, but I want someone different.
Speaker 1: We talked and talked. He was drinking orange juice. It
Speaker 1: was a bit awkward. It's not an easy bloke to
Speaker 1: talk to. But he said to me, look, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go away and think about it. Could we meet again?
Speaker 1: I said, I'm here, I'm just waiting by the phone.
Speaker 1: I go and meet with him the following week because
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, all I wanted to
Speaker 1: do is once he got his band together, was tour him.
Speaker 1: That was my interest. He said to me, Um, I
Speaker 1: thought about it. I've made my mind up. I want
Speaker 1: you to be my manager and I went, no, manager
Speaker 1: of a promoter. He said, I've decided. Look what you
Speaker 1: need to do is you need to have And I said,
Speaker 1: you don't work enough. I mean, you know, even in
Speaker 1: your hey day, you'd never worked that much. He's and
Speaker 1: I said that, how do I do management of promoting
Speaker 1: on this level? Because this is another level? Um. She said, look,
Speaker 1: you work with Black Sabbath. Why didn't you manage Black
Speaker 1: Sabbath because they will be the work course and you
Speaker 1: can manage me and that would be it. And I said, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not giving up promoting anyway. I kind of deal
Speaker 1: with Van where we He insisted on having a contract,
Speaker 1: which I didn't really want, and all the contract was
Speaker 1: was what happened if it didn't work, which pervades to
Speaker 1: this day because I still get royalties from projects we did.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, and I um, Van and I go on
Speaker 1: like a house on fire. Van wanted to come to
Speaker 1: to England. The truth was, I think he was in
Speaker 1: love with my wife because he used to a phoner
Speaker 1: six thirty six o'clock l a time and um uh
Speaker 1: and it's two thirty in the morning here, which might
Speaker 1: even imagine my wife what she felt. Anyway, she got
Speaker 1: into it. They used to talk for hours there. I
Speaker 1: never got a word in edgeways. But anyway I looked
Speaker 1: after Van, I got in together and then we we
Speaker 1: He decided he wanted to do an album, so he go.
Speaker 1: We go to l A, we go to s I
Speaker 1: R and um. There's another lunatic in one studio called
Speaker 1: Catch Stevens, who I also worked with, and there's Van
Speaker 1: at the other end, and there are a stream of
Speaker 1: musicians because Catch Stevens is putting a band together to
Speaker 1: his last two of the Magic Cats are which fortunately
Speaker 1: I promoted, and Van Morris is trying to put a
Speaker 1: band together. And these musicians are going, they're going into
Speaker 1: the Van Guah's going. No, they're going to Catch Stevens.
Speaker 1: He's going. Now they're coming round again. They're coming back,
Speaker 1: and it's like it's loot am I going for God say,
Speaker 1: you've seen so many musicians, you've got to pick him out.
Speaker 1: Somewhere in the middle of all this, Matt rebanac Dr
Speaker 1: John pitches up and Van says, this is my man.
Speaker 1: So we've got a guy had a rehab and we've
Speaker 1: got a method home person together trying to make music.
Speaker 1: It was extraordinary and it just used to crap and
Speaker 1: made me laugh. So we started to get together. They
Speaker 1: started to create and they are the most beautiful people.
Speaker 1: And Mac is unfortunately he's not with us anymore. He
Speaker 1: was just divine and he actually kept he kind of
Speaker 1: kept Van on the straight of narrow, even though he
Speaker 1: was on a methodome program. You can figure that one out.
Speaker 1: And so he started to record and record a recording.
Speaker 1: He had this book. He has a book of songs
Speaker 1: and at any time of the day and night he
Speaker 1: could pull out twenty five new songs just sitting in
Speaker 1: this book. He pull him out, he recalled him he
Speaker 1: throw away. Didn't like it. He did like it. We
Speaker 1: ended up with an album. The first album was called
Speaker 1: a Period of Transition and Van said, I'm coming to England.
Speaker 1: I said, fantastic. He comes to England. I find him
Speaker 1: a house next door actually where Jimmy Page now lives,
Speaker 1: and um, he's rent a house for him. He's coming over.
Speaker 1: He's going to live in England. He's here literally a day,
Speaker 1: and he decided he didn't want to live in England.
Speaker 1: He's going back to America. So he goes back to America.
Speaker 1: Is now in Westchester, and I'm having a commute to
Speaker 1: l A every three weeks to spend time with him.
Speaker 1: We drove me nuts and then the end said. I said, Van,
Speaker 1: I love you dearly. I can't handle this. I signed
Speaker 1: up Bill Graham. I said, boo, you've got to help
Speaker 1: me out here. I got Van Morrison managing. Who can
Speaker 1: I get to manage? If we honed in on Bill Siddons,
Speaker 1: who had managed Fanning previously, and Bill said he'd help,
Speaker 1: but there's no way he could do it again. I said,
Speaker 1: I'll stay with it. I can't do this anymore. And
Speaker 1: we kind of passed the company, and funny enough, we
Speaker 1: didn't fall out. It wasn't bad. I think we had
Speaker 1: one fight the whole time we were together. I loved
Speaker 1: doing it, but I looked at upon it as a project.
Speaker 1: Off Fan went, He stayed in l A. He gone
Speaker 1: with his life slowly, but surely. We had some I
Speaker 1: can't even tell you some of the things that happened
Speaker 1: to us in and our experiences together that we used
Speaker 1: to laugh about. But he is a tough guard, a genius.
Speaker 1: Roll On, roll On. The Rolling Stones are going into hiasis.
Speaker 1: Mick Jagger decides he can't work with them anymore. He
Speaker 1: wants to time off, He wants to do a solo project.
Speaker 1: Who gets the call to manage Mick Jagger? Me and
Speaker 1: I go and here we go again, another lunacic I've
Speaker 1: got to deal with. So I helped Mick get his
Speaker 1: whole solo thing together. I knew it wasn't gonna be
Speaker 1: for long. It was a project, and he wanted to
Speaker 1: work with Jeff Beck, and I got in together with
Speaker 1: Jeff Beck. He put this great band together. We we
Speaker 1: I put a tour together, We created everything. It was
Speaker 1: a new album. It was. We had this amazing set,
Speaker 1: the show, everything that met wanted. The only problem was
Speaker 1: Jeff Beck refused point blank to play any of the
Speaker 1: Keith Richards parts and didn't want to do Rolling Stone's
Speaker 1: music and Mick knew that he couldn't tool without doing it.
Speaker 1: The night before the press conference to announce the whole thing,
Speaker 1: Jeff phoned up and said, I'm not doing this, I'm
Speaker 1: out and um that got really different cool and it
Speaker 1: kind of came to a sticky end. So that's the
Speaker 1: Mick Jagger management saga. Meantime, the Pink Floyd are doing brilliantly.
Speaker 1: Another one of my favorite bands to work with them.
Speaker 1: I went out to dinner one night with Roger Waters
Speaker 1: and he he told me this whole story had in
Speaker 1: his mind about a show with a wall in it,
Speaker 1: and what do you wanted to do was build up
Speaker 1: the wall during the show and then explode it at
Speaker 1: the end of the show. And they said, I'm in
Speaker 1: I love it, and we talked. He does the wall,
Speaker 1: he falls out with Dave gilmu and the rest of
Speaker 1: the band. He decided he doesn't want to work with
Speaker 1: them anymore. Who gets the call to look after him?
Speaker 1: Me side outcome from Billy connor Ley to Van Morrison
Speaker 1: to Mick Jagger. I'm now managing Roger Waters. This Roger
Speaker 1: Waters wants to do a solo album pros and cons
Speaker 1: of hit hiking. He we put this whole project together.
Speaker 1: He ends up through two solo albums and in um,
Speaker 1: it's all ready to go, and he wants to do
Speaker 1: something in London, but he wants to start in New York.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why I wanted to do it, he did.
Speaker 1: We decided to do it at Radio City and get
Speaker 1: the deal done with Radio City because he was very complicated,
Speaker 1: because he insisted on having a holographic head um suspended
Speaker 1: from the ceiling of Radio City where all the sound
Speaker 1: was directed to to give out this three sixty sound,
Speaker 1: which is way ahead of its time. We notched up
Speaker 1: the biggest union bill at Radio City on Record two.
Speaker 1: This shows all planned ready to go. I then get
Speaker 1: a phone call from Wham's manager, another band, George Michael
Speaker 1: that I'm dealing with and Simon Napier Bell and says
Speaker 1: Harvey said, um, Um, I've got why. I'm a tour
Speaker 1: of China. I said what he said, Whe's going to
Speaker 1: go to Chinese So we're gonna do two shows is
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong and then we're going to China. I said.
Speaker 1: The only problem is I can't go to China, so
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to go and look after the band
Speaker 1: and take care of the tour. Plump. The phone goes dead.
Speaker 1: I'm going, Oh my god, I'm going to New York
Speaker 1: to launch Roger Walters first solo project with his mad
Speaker 1: holographic head. And now I'm going to go to China.
Speaker 1: So I go through New York via Tokyo to Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: where I meet with Simon has said, it's all good,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. The all China youth asiancy are
Speaker 1: doing the tour and you're going to China, see you later. Bye.
Speaker 1: And then just before I left to go to New
Speaker 1: York to meat to a broad I get a phone
Speaker 1: call for Bob Geldof, who says, you've seen what's happened
Speaker 1: in Africa. You know about the record because you've been there,
Speaker 1: You've been aware of it. We've got to do a
Speaker 1: concert and you've got to do this shirt at Wembley.
Speaker 1: I said, no, no, no, I can't do that. I'm
Speaker 1: looking after Roger Waters and I'm now quasi managing Wham.
Speaker 1: I've got to get out to China from New York.
Speaker 1: I can't even think about A concert was called Live Aid.
Speaker 1: All happened between March and July when Live Aid happened.
Speaker 1: That same period, Roger did his Tory, came back, and
Speaker 1: then he had this mad idea of doing an opera,
Speaker 1: and he's not an easy guy to deal with. And
Speaker 1: I got less and less inclined to do it. And
Speaker 1: I thought, I enjoy promoting. They am I doing managing acts? Okay,
Speaker 1: I have to start you from one point here. Roger
Speaker 1: has made a number of Ian Ti Israel pro Palestinian comments. Correct,
Speaker 1: how do you feel the about that? Into what degree
Speaker 1: have you experienced ante semitism in your career? I have
Speaker 1: experienced anti semitism. Interestingly enough, I was taking Jeff back
Speaker 1: to Israel to play because he wanted to go. Roger
Speaker 1: got to him and did everything in his power to
Speaker 1: persuade him, not ago, including his funny furry friends in
Speaker 1: the Palestinian group who bombarded Van with emails and messages
Speaker 1: and sent death threats to me. And I got to
Speaker 1: the point with Jeff. I said, look, Jeff, if you
Speaker 1: don't want to go, I'm you know, please, I'll cancel it.
Speaker 1: But actually think about it. He said, do they like
Speaker 1: my music in Israel? I said, they love your music?
Speaker 1: He shows us sold out? He said, in that case,
Speaker 1: I'm going. He said, while I'm there, can I play
Speaker 1: in Palestine? I said, I'm fine with it. If you
Speaker 1: want to play. I've put the feelers out and we'll
Speaker 1: see what we could do. They didn't want to know.
Speaker 1: But Roger did everything in his power to try and
Speaker 1: stop Jeff going, and has done with many other acts.
Speaker 1: He was got at by a group of UM smart
Speaker 1: ask people, very clever pr people, and he's still got
Speaker 1: that and quite frankly, I find it's despicable because he
Speaker 1: actually doesn't know what he's talking about and he doesn't listen.
Speaker 1: And that's unfortunate because he won't hear the truth it
Speaker 1: doesn't exist. And he's still he is the leader of
Speaker 1: all leaders trying to stop every act going to play
Speaker 1: in Israel, which is really unfortunate. And as when all
Speaker 1: that happened, UM and David Gilmer wanted to go back
Speaker 1: on the road. I to make a decision. David said
Speaker 1: to me, if you're working with Roger, you can't work
Speaker 1: with me. If you want to work with me, you
Speaker 1: can't work with Roger. I said, it's not even a debate.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, David, and I'll still at so that's
Speaker 1: how that happened. So that was Roger Waters. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you you leave Waters and you know you do coming. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The WAB tool ended up being a massive success. George
Speaker 1: Michael hated every minute of it. Everybody else loved it.
Speaker 1: It was opened the doors of China. It was extra
Speaker 1: It was quite extraordinary. I'd already opened the doors with
Speaker 1: Elton John because I took in the Russia for the
Speaker 1: first time, went in the middle of the communist era,
Speaker 1: and this was a point in China where they were
Speaker 1: still wearing mouth suits and whatever. Anyway, we came back.
Speaker 1: I did Live Aid and the whole world change because
Speaker 1: suddenly out of Live Aid all the good things happened,
Speaker 1: all the money that we raised, the whole coming together,
Speaker 1: the fact that the rock music community with the first
Speaker 1: people to stand up and be counted, and all the
Speaker 1: rest of it. The bad side of it was it
Speaker 1: invented the cult of celebrity, particularly in the UK, which
Speaker 1: they went all over the world. Suddenly artists were famous
Speaker 1: for being famous for being celebrities, and the newspapers that
Speaker 1: would only ever print a story about a rock musician
Speaker 1: if they were either getting divorced or busted, that was
Speaker 1: the only time they'd ever write about them. Suddenly saw
Speaker 1: them as a result of live aid of selling papers,
Speaker 1: and they just grabbed it. And then this whole celebrity
Speaker 1: cult came out. It's kind of changed out all of
Speaker 1: our perception of music completely because we became entertainment and
Speaker 1: so on. And then, by the way, I forgot one
Speaker 1: other person that I got suddenly involved with, and that's
Speaker 1: a chap called Luciano Pavarossi, who um strangely enough, I
Speaker 1: was going to put Bruce Springsteen refused, point blank, ever
Speaker 1: to do open air shows. Ever, I didn't want to know.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand them, couldn't see the logic, and didn't
Speaker 1: want to know. A friend of mine who was a
Speaker 1: TV producer wanted to do a document a film and
Speaker 1: artist playing at Red Rocks Endeavor and he's British and
Speaker 1: somehow the other he got to Bruce Springsteen and said,
Speaker 1: I want you to do this TV show, but I
Speaker 1: want to do it in this place called Red Rock
Speaker 1: because it's spectacular. Will you do it? Bruce Springsteen agreed
Speaker 1: and suddenly loved playing open air. I had booked six
Speaker 1: lights at Earls Coot for Bruce Springsteen. I had already
Speaker 1: paid half a million pounds, which is quite a lot
Speaker 1: of money, which was a nonrefundable deposit. And I get
Speaker 1: a phone call for John Lando and says, Harvey, Bruce
Speaker 1: had such a great time at Red Rocks. He wants
Speaker 1: to play Wembley Stadium. And I'm going no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: We booked well school, I paid for it. He says, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: Bruce wants to play Webb him. I had Bruce Springsteen
Speaker 1: playing Wembley Stadium for three nights, the night after UM,
Speaker 1: the week after Live Aid, and I got stuck with
Speaker 1: his half a million pounds deposit because I had a
Speaker 1: four wall ten nights that I was cooled so he
Speaker 1: could build the arena. It's a horrible place, but nevertheless
Speaker 1: the biggest place in England. I then got my office
Speaker 1: to sit about and say, I've got to find an
Speaker 1: act to fill it. We got to the point we're
Speaker 1: doing We're going to do a jumble sale, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do mass military bands, we're going to do a car
Speaker 1: boot sale, anything to get my money back. In the end,
Speaker 1: we couldn't find anything. But one of the guys in
Speaker 1: my office said, I've just read about this opera singer
Speaker 1: called Luciano Pavarossi, and I go, oh, yes, And they
Speaker 1: said he's about to do his first ever arena concert
Speaker 1: and apparent it sold out in seconds. I said, get him.
Speaker 1: They made the vocals, they couldn't get anywhere. Eventually, I'm
Speaker 1: now so desperate, and I didn't as much as I
Speaker 1: knew about classical music, because I knew a lot about it,
Speaker 1: but I didn't in the detail of how it really were.
Speaker 1: I got hold of his manager, Chap called Herbert Breslyn,
Speaker 1: and I said, I'd like um to bring the minestro
Speaker 1: Pavarossi to London to play Els Cool and he said
Speaker 1: who are you? And I told him who I was.
Speaker 1: He said, why am I talking to your rock promote?
Speaker 1: So we don't deal with people like that, and so anyway,
Speaker 1: this dragged on and dragged on and dragged on. I've
Speaker 1: now lost my dates and earls Cool. They won't give
Speaker 1: me my money back. I'm completely stuff and I'm fed up.
Speaker 1: But I suddenly get a phone call from Herbert Breslyn, who,
Speaker 1: unbeknowns to me, Pavarotti was having a row with the
Speaker 1: Royal Opera House. And he said I'm coming to London.
Speaker 1: He said, I don't know why, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: come and talk to you. Anyway, I ended up doing
Speaker 1: a deal with him and I brought Pavorossi over to London.
Speaker 1: It ended up the following year playing at Wembley Arena,
Speaker 1: and it was fantastic and we became lifelong friends. And
Speaker 1: eventually he worked with a chap called Tibor Rudas. He
Speaker 1: came after that, who threw Results International, which is a
Speaker 1: casino company, bought his rights for concerts year and year.
Speaker 1: When that ended, he came to me and I ended
Speaker 1: up managing Pavorossi said he died really so that was
Speaker 1: that was the most extraordinary experience. I mean, if ever
Speaker 1: somebody talks to you about a global rock star, they
Speaker 1: don't know what they're talking about. This is a man
Speaker 1: that could sell ten thousand tickets in tim Buck two
Speaker 1: on a Wednesday night, that could sell out a concert
Speaker 1: in Announce, that could play not of Mexico City, meeting
Speaker 1: somewhere in Mexico. Then it took us a day and
Speaker 1: a half to actually find where there was an arena
Speaker 1: that they kind of built. There were fifty thousand people
Speaker 1: there where we played in countries that were just you
Speaker 1: wouldn't even think about. That was a global rock star, extraordinary.
Speaker 1: I had the best time in my life with him.
Speaker 1: For what was motivating Parvarati to do all these gigs?
Speaker 1: He loved, He loved playing to audiences. He felt, he
Speaker 1: looked he was at the top of his game within
Speaker 1: the opera opera circle, which is very closeted. The opera
Speaker 1: cycle is very closeted. It's very carefully nurtured. You don't
Speaker 1: go outside it. And signed and so forth. He did
Speaker 1: all that he got the first one for money and
Speaker 1: two for big audiences. Um. He had read about his
Speaker 1: predecessors and how well they did, and some of them were,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the great opera stars could draw
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand people open air just to say hello.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was extraordinary. Caruso was his hero, and
Speaker 1: Caruso was the biggest rock star ever. And Pavarossi loved
Speaker 1: playing to thousands of thousands of people. And he and
Speaker 1: I just became best mates. We became buddies, we became button.
Speaker 1: I managed him and we went we went to places
Speaker 1: we have to go and see the doctor. Watched the
Speaker 1: documentary that Ron Howard produced You'll see it. It's extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Um So that was Pavarossi. He died unfortunately. I did
Speaker 1: this amazing memorial for him in the city of Petra,
Speaker 1: which is this five thousand year old city in the
Speaker 1: desert in Jordan. It was extraordinary and everybody came to
Speaker 1: perform with him. Roll on. I'm in New York, minding
Speaker 1: my own business. I literally ride in my hotel room.
Speaker 1: I get a phone call from a friend of mine.
Speaker 1: He said, um, I want to have you got a minute.
Speaker 1: I said, well, I've just checked in and he said, well,
Speaker 1: somebody wants to talk to you. Who is it? Jeff Beck? Oh? Hello, Jeff? Oh?
Speaker 1: You who? He said? Where are you? I said, New York?
Speaker 1: He said when are you coming back? I said, I
Speaker 1: just got here. He said, well, I'd like to talk
Speaker 1: to you. Said okay, anyway, he said, look, he said,
Speaker 1: I'm getting fed up. He said, I know what I'm
Speaker 1: good at, I know how good I am. Nobody knows
Speaker 1: who I am, and I can't think of anybody else
Speaker 1: that can help me get back going. And that's how
Speaker 1: I got involved with Jeff. Really well, he did a
Speaker 1: phenomenal job and I will ask since that's the most
Speaker 1: recent client, how did it end? Not good? Originally because
Speaker 1: he didn't like He doesn't like Tory, he doesn't like
Speaker 1: working that hard. He used to do early forty concerts
Speaker 1: a year. I remember finding up C A A and
Speaker 1: I said to Rob, like, can you send me a
Speaker 1: list of recent shows at Jeff Beck's done? Because I
Speaker 1: just want to get my handle on it, because he's
Speaker 1: asked me to manage him. He said, sure, something over
Speaker 1: one sheet of paper, right, I said, where's the rest?
Speaker 1: He said, that's it. So he used to play a
Speaker 1: short tour of America, one shine in London and a
Speaker 1: tour of Japan. That was it. He raised enough money
Speaker 1: buy another classic car, get it shipped to London and
Speaker 1: get it to Guildford and get it and rebuild it.
Speaker 1: That was his life. But then he realized, So I said, hi, Lot,
Speaker 1: if you're prepared to work, I'll help you. If you
Speaker 1: don't want to work, there's nothing I can do. So
Speaker 1: I started managing Jeff. I got him excited. We really,
Speaker 1: I mean we went from playing very small venues to
Speaker 1: doing two nights of the Garden, two nights and in
Speaker 1: in in Toronto and in Montreal. We went to Japan.
Speaker 1: We sold out shows. You know, it was huge. We
Speaker 1: were doing math two shows at the O two and
Speaker 1: It's that and the other with Eric Clapson, but the
Speaker 1: two of them together. He was just on the up
Speaker 1: and he suddenly kicked back and said, why am I
Speaker 1: doing all these touring? So I said, I want to
Speaker 1: make music. So he disbanded his band and a great band.
Speaker 1: He disbanded his band. He wanted to get new musicians.
Speaker 1: He found a drama that he liked off YouTube who
Speaker 1: was a a drama used to just hang around Central
Speaker 1: a young girl hang around Central Park and used to
Speaker 1: you know, whatever, busk we got it. I had a
Speaker 1: gone to New York literally find this girl, which I did,
Speaker 1: brought the back. He started to put a band together.
Speaker 1: He went in the studio. He didn't like what he
Speaker 1: was doing and he started kicking back, blaming me because
Speaker 1: it wasn't right. He wanted to do some new music
Speaker 1: and he couldn't get it together and he was kicking out.
Speaker 1: Then he said, why am I making him work so much? Meantime,
Speaker 1: I'd introduced in Josh Stone, who is the most beautiful
Speaker 1: girl in the planet, who has a great soul, but
Speaker 1: another one that doesn't want success, and I ended up.
Speaker 1: But it's really strange relationship. Josh Stone and Jeff recorded
Speaker 1: a lot together and get on like a house on fire.
Speaker 1: Josh goes to America. She's in Nashville, UM recording an album.
Speaker 1: I suddenly get a text message out of the blue
Speaker 1: which says I have told everybody you are my manager.
Speaker 1: Please get rid of everybody else. Please deal with it.
Speaker 1: You are my manager. I did. I tried to call
Speaker 1: the number that was on the text message, it wouldn't answer,
Speaker 1: and I'm going this is a joke. Of course, I
Speaker 1: don't think any more of it. A couple of days later,
Speaker 1: I get a phone call from Josh said, did you
Speaker 1: get my text message? I said, yeah, I've been trying
Speaker 1: to ring you. She said, I've been locked in the studio.
Speaker 1: I need you to manage me. So it then got
Speaker 1: to a point where I managed, I'm managing Jeff back
Speaker 1: Big Jeff, and I'm managing little Jeff. Who's Josh Stone?
Speaker 1: Because Josh Stone went into the studio, produced an album,
Speaker 1: put a band together, gotta we put this whole tour
Speaker 1: around her. Ready to go, She goes to America to
Speaker 1: start promoting. Everybody's thrilled and it's all happening. She goes
Speaker 1: on The Today Show, The Morning Show and says, I
Speaker 1: don't really like to say album. I don't think you
Speaker 1: should buy it bad. She then carries on the tour
Speaker 1: she managed. She hasn't lost any ticket sales ass all.
Speaker 1: By the way, We then book we're booking a tour
Speaker 1: of South America because she's huge there and the idea
Speaker 1: was to warm up this new band she's put together,
Speaker 1: playing the new music, do all of these dates in
Speaker 1: America and then go from there, from Florida straight to
Speaker 1: South America, then end up in Brazil where she's drawing
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people. A nine I think it's nine days
Speaker 1: before we do to start the tour. She phones me
Speaker 1: up and says, I'm in Florida. I thought about it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to dump the band and start a new
Speaker 1: band for South America. What are you talking about? She said,
Speaker 1: that's what I want to do. I've got all the
Speaker 1: musicians worked out. We're gonna have a day and a
Speaker 1: half rehearsals and then we go straight. I said, but
Speaker 1: your home down, You're it's a whole machine. It's on fire.
Speaker 1: It works. How can you take the risk of going
Speaker 1: to your biggest market in the world with a brand
Speaker 1: new band that you don't even know if it's going
Speaker 1: to work, if it's going to take off. Jos Star said,
Speaker 1: just I can't do this. So I then it was
Speaker 1: then goodbye Jeff, goodbye Josh, and that was it. Management Okay.
Speaker 1: How do you keep your marriage together being so busy
Speaker 1: and traveling? Some that's it six months an average a
Speaker 1: year out of home on the road. So we're not
Speaker 1: at a time, but you know, over over the course
Speaker 1: of the year, most of my working life six months.
Speaker 1: Great marriage. We love each other. I've actually since the
Speaker 1: COVID thing, I have spent more time with my wife
Speaker 1: than I have since we're now. Um, we're coming up
Speaker 1: for fifty years of marriage and more time than ever
Speaker 1: since we've been married. Doesn't working or not? Kind of?
Speaker 1: You still talk to each other with each other so
Speaker 1: you literally have or you want to say something now,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, it's, uh, you know, it's we respect
Speaker 1: each other. She's a smashing lady. She understands where I'm
Speaker 1: going and gives me the space and I think quietly
Speaker 1: she kin kind of enjoys me being out the way
Speaker 1: she's got on with her life. And then when we
Speaker 1: come back together again. You know, we talk all the
Speaker 1: time when we were away, but I've spent my whole
Speaker 1: life traveling, except for the last twelve months we've been
Speaker 1: at home. Okay, we're talking about being a promoter. You know,
Speaker 1: a manager is a license to starve. A promoter is
Speaker 1: a way to instantly go broke. So you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know you've had some you know, was it
Speaker 1: in the early days the guarantees were so low? How
Speaker 1: did you stay in business? You must have guarantee. Excuse me,
Speaker 1: we didn't have guarantees. Okay, but still you can have
Speaker 1: a losing date. You could lose money. Whose money you're
Speaker 1: gonna lose? We never lost money, never, What was your
Speaker 1: first what was your first losing show? Then of course
Speaker 1: we lost money on some shows. But the way it
Speaker 1: was was that, um oh, my philosophy is very simple,
Speaker 1: and I decided it's very very early on. If I'm
Speaker 1: going to promote an act, I've got to like the music.
Speaker 1: That's number one. If I didn't like the music, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how big they were, I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: Number two, I have to like the artist as much
Speaker 1: as I could deal with the agent, the tour manager,
Speaker 1: the production manager, the lawyer, the accountant, and the manager.
Speaker 1: If I can't have a one on one with the
Speaker 1: artists and understand what they're trying to do, where they
Speaker 1: want to go, what they want to do, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing it. So every act I've ever worked with in
Speaker 1: my life, i've worked with the artists, I don't I'm
Speaker 1: not decrying the role of the manager because I've been there.
Speaker 1: I'm not to tie in the role of the Asian.
Speaker 1: I have to have a relationship with the people I'm
Speaker 1: working with. So it goes way back from you know,
Speaker 1: with people like Emerson Laker, Palmer and Yes and so on.
Speaker 1: Right at the very early days. Um, I was there
Speaker 1: live manager, if you like, for all these acts. That's
Speaker 1: what I did. So we never lost money, and it
Speaker 1: was choosing the right acts because we always chose acts
Speaker 1: of work. Sometimes we didn't mate much. Occasionally we lost
Speaker 1: a bit, but it was we just managed it. It
Speaker 1: just rolled through until the days of when the agents
Speaker 1: started really pushing their acts in different directions and the
Speaker 1: big tours and all the rest of it. There was
Speaker 1: a band called Bread. Do you remember them? Of course
Speaker 1: they were the biggest loss I ever had. One year
Speaker 1: they sold out about fifteen shows, including three or four
Speaker 1: Albert Halls. They came back twelve months later they couldn't
Speaker 1: give the tickets away. I lost the fortune on that.
Speaker 1: Was it your money? It's always my money. I've never
Speaker 1: had anybody else's money. I did. I did a deal
Speaker 1: with Jerry Weintro to bring Bob Dylan over Um and
Speaker 1: then it's we did. It was cool. We did probably
Speaker 1: the best band he ever had ever. We did six
Speaker 1: nights Earls Cool sold out in heartbeat hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: thousand people. And then I persuaded him to do an
Speaker 1: open air show on an aerodrome called Black Bush. And
Speaker 1: what I did is I went up as to see
Speaker 1: Jerry Weintrobe, who I'm very lucky in my life. There
Speaker 1: are people that have guided me and befriended me. Frank
Speaker 1: Barcelona number one, Armorica number two, and Jerry Weintrobe number
Speaker 1: three in terms of that side of things. I got
Speaker 1: very friendly with Jerry. He really helped me out. I
Speaker 1: ended up guaranteeing Bob Dylan a million dollars to play
Speaker 1: this show. At Black Bush. No one at this is nine.
Speaker 1: No one had ever offered a million dollars surnact ever anyway, ever,
Speaker 1: And this is the strangest thing. I woke up one
Speaker 1: morning in London and I said, Bob Dylan. I read
Speaker 1: something about Bob Dylan. I said, he's gotta work, He's
Speaker 1: got to come over. How did Wine travel? And I
Speaker 1: went to go and see him here. I went to
Speaker 1: see him in a blah blah blah blah, and I
Speaker 1: went over with my German friend called Fritz Rao, who
Speaker 1: was the German promoter, quite a famous guy at the time.
Speaker 1: The pair of us went over there to persuade Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan do a tour, and we put Bob Dylan and
Speaker 1: Eric Clapton together. That was the tour that we did.
Speaker 1: And um, unbeknownst to us, Jerry and Bob had already
Speaker 1: decided they wanted to come. They were just sounding us
Speaker 1: out and see how far they could go with this.
Speaker 1: We're sitting him Jerry Wine Show's office on the Santa
Speaker 1: Monica and in the boardroom suddenly the door opens and
Speaker 1: then walks Bob Dylan. It was extraordinary. He sat down,
Speaker 1: We did the deal, shook hands, and off we went
Speaker 1: and I became quite friendly with Bob, if you could
Speaker 1: ever become friendly with him. But I offered after we
Speaker 1: did this run of shows, the and the Ards Court run,
Speaker 1: I offered him a million dollars to do this one
Speaker 1: show at Blackbush Aerodrome. If it had gone wrong, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been busted. They would have been all over.
Speaker 1: I mean there's no work and pay it. I managed
Speaker 1: to flam my way of paying the money over. But
Speaker 1: it sold out so quickly that it was in the bank.
Speaker 1: I mean it was just bullshit and bravado, That's what
Speaker 1: it was. Okay at this lead, d you have the
Speaker 1: best resume of any concert promoter. What keeps you going,
Speaker 1: what gets you excited? There's always a challenge. Um. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and fourteen, UM I got a I got
Speaker 1: a phone call to say that, UM, UM, would I
Speaker 1: look like to create an event for the premier of
Speaker 1: a film called Kung Fu Panda? And I thought this
Speaker 1: is a wind up, but nevertheless, um Kung Fu Panda
Speaker 1: was a big film and it was it was The
Speaker 1: music was by a chap called Hands Zimmer and I
Speaker 1: ended up putting an event together which really really worked
Speaker 1: in Princess Diana's brothers Stately Home. Quite extraordinary. I blew
Speaker 1: everybody away on that one. I met Hans Zimmer. We
Speaker 1: fell in love two thousand and fourteen. It then took
Speaker 1: me two years because I thought, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: let this one go. This guy's got to go on
Speaker 1: the road. And he's never done a concert of his
Speaker 1: own in his life ever, and um, you know, all
Speaker 1: he ever did. He was a keyboard player in Yes
Speaker 1: during video gires, the radio start, he's the keyboard player
Speaker 1: in it. And um, I just all these guys incredible.
Speaker 1: And I talked and talked at all and once I
Speaker 1: get the bit between my seat, I don't get up,
Speaker 1: give up till I get there. And eventually two thousand
Speaker 1: and sixteen I persuaded hands Zimmer to do a couple
Speaker 1: of concerts in London, which we did, but he wanted
Speaker 1: to do something really special, and he said, I want
Speaker 1: to do a concert where there is no There is
Speaker 1: a millimeter of film footage in the concert, but I
Speaker 1: want to allude to the music because that's what I do,
Speaker 1: and create a mood around each musical piece, which is
Speaker 1: what we did. Of course, the shows were incredible. It
Speaker 1: then took me another two years. I finally got it
Speaker 1: sorted out with him and we ended up doing a
Speaker 1: hundred concerts around the world, again based on thin Air.
Speaker 1: Most of the people I found up to talk about
Speaker 1: hands Zimmer didn't know what I was talking about at all.
Speaker 1: Most of the people when I created Lord of the
Speaker 1: Dance for Michael Flatley, I created it for when I
Speaker 1: phone people up and said, You're going to do an
Speaker 1: Irish dance show. They just about you about River Dance
Speaker 1: and they said, what are you talking about. I said,
Speaker 1: trust me, you've got to do it. So I had
Speaker 1: this reputation for doing the weird and the wonderful. And
Speaker 1: if I said it was good and it was great,
Speaker 1: most of the promoters that I work with bought into it.
Speaker 1: So everybody came in and got involved in it and
Speaker 1: it works. So that's my challenge. I loved the challenge.
Speaker 1: I love finding new ideas, new artists, new styles. I'm
Speaker 1: currently working with an immersive theater group and I'm on
Speaker 1: the board of a Dutch theater company that has a
Speaker 1: process called stage around which we have a theater in
Speaker 1: in in Um in Holland, and we have a Theater
Speaker 1: in Amsterdam in partnership with Tokyo Broadcasting. That just sold out,
Speaker 1: and we were in the middle of building four theaters
Speaker 1: re China at the moment, and we were going to
Speaker 1: build one in London in any Scene Bermingham and to
Speaker 1: do a new version of Starlight Express until COVID hit
Speaker 1: and everything stopped. But we'll get that done. So that's
Speaker 1: the fun through Pavarossi. Pavarossi phone me out one day
Speaker 1: and said, get on the plane. I need you here
Speaker 1: by lunchtime. It's eight o'clock in the morning fortunately in London.
Speaker 1: Get over to Modern Art and needs you here at lunchtime.
Speaker 1: I'm going why he said, just get here. I managed
Speaker 1: to get on a plane, I get some modern and
Speaker 1: I going to his house. We sit down and there's
Speaker 1: a chap sitting there with a very nice young lady.
Speaker 1: And he said, um, this is Andre Abricelli. This is
Speaker 1: Harvey Goldsmith. He's taking over doing looking after your shows.
Speaker 1: You've got to get rid of your management. Just buy
Speaker 1: them now. That's what my life was about. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've worked with him ever since. So okay. In terms
Speaker 1: of concert you know, once we get early seventies once
Speaker 1: again Peter Grant and led Zeppelin. Things changed because you
Speaker 1: knew they were going to be guaranteed sellouts. So in
Speaker 1: terms of promoting shows today, what publicity is necessary on
Speaker 1: a guaranteed sell out? If any? But more interestingly, how
Speaker 1: do you promote an act that is not going to
Speaker 1: guarantee sell out? It's a nightmare. Look, it was very
Speaker 1: simple promoting. This is my marketing is my forte. That's
Speaker 1: my thing. I'm marketing a product. That's why I wanted
Speaker 1: my pharmacy days was I was interested in perfumery and
Speaker 1: cosmetics and how they were marketed. I knew about estate
Speaker 1: order because when you see people walking around with those
Speaker 1: packages and see the ads, you knew where they were winners.
Speaker 1: Didn't matter what was inside, it was irrelevant. So marketing
Speaker 1: acts and those days of seeing what Bill Graham did
Speaker 1: with those film will posts us was what it's about.
Speaker 1: So marketing is everything and um that's really the key
Speaker 1: thriddles how to market it? So we had a formula.
Speaker 1: We had a London evening paper called Evening Standard who
Speaker 1: over the years I nurtured into having a big entertainment section.
Speaker 1: So we would take if we wanted to launching app.
Speaker 1: We've take an ad in the Evening Standard. We would
Speaker 1: do a week of radio promotion. We take an ad
Speaker 1: in the Music paper either Melody Make or Enemy or
Speaker 1: one of the of those, and we would do a
Speaker 1: Sunday supplement the Color magazine, a half page in that
Speaker 1: that would sell on average sevent of my inventory. Goodnight today,
Speaker 1: it is a walking nightmare. Everybody talks about social media
Speaker 1: and all his bollocks is bollocks. We are so wide today,
Speaker 1: there is so much available, and it is so hard
Speaker 1: to do the same job. So they either sell out
Speaker 1: most that shows sell out viral e The ads are
Speaker 1: just information about where you know when they're going on sale,
Speaker 1: what the date is, and the venue. They're irrelevant. If
Speaker 1: you want to take an app from scratch and work
Speaker 1: it through. It is a hundred times harder today than
Speaker 1: it was when I first started, that's for sure. Okay,
Speaker 1: And wrapping up, I know you get this question all
Speaker 1: the time, but I'm gonna ask you anyway. The two peaks,
Speaker 1: the two peaks of your career, two best shows for you,
Speaker 1: the moment you've got this is just transcendent for you personally.
Speaker 1: The best concert I ever saw it in my life,
Speaker 1: which I actually didn't promote was Van Morrison playing the
Speaker 1: Rainbow Theater in London without doubt still lives on if
Speaker 1: you get a chance two you could find it on
Speaker 1: on YouTube somewhere. The most extraordinary con for ever the
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan, Eric Claps and Joan Armor Trading concert at
Speaker 1: Blackbush was probably the best open air music concert, and
Speaker 1: the led Zeppelin reunion, which um was extraordinary. Okay, this
Speaker 1: spects a couple of the questions. How important is production?
Speaker 1: It turns to the fiance expected, is it necessary? Is
Speaker 1: it a waste as a detract from the music or
Speaker 1: is it necessary? Um? The whole idea of production, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure came out of England, those progressive acts like
Speaker 1: Yes and Emerson Lake and Palm and whatever. They were
Speaker 1: the forerunners and their genesis to have production, and then
Speaker 1: of course the Pink Floyd and so on, and then
Speaker 1: when the stunts got bigger and bigger, they believed that
Speaker 1: part of their myth of playing was to have some
Speaker 1: incredible production show. So I was used to, um, you know,
Speaker 1: playing Pink Floyd Crystal Palace Bowl, which is the first
Speaker 1: big open air show that I ever did the Garden
Speaker 1: Passes with you. I told that story for you about Leslie,
Speaker 1: Western Mountain, Pink Floyd, the faces and Mountain where Pink
Speaker 1: Floyd sunk into the lake, the monsters which came out
Speaker 1: of the lake, which just flew everybody away. To working
Speaker 1: with everything the Pink Floyd did, I couldn't get I
Speaker 1: just literally loved every second of it and help them
Speaker 1: put those productions together. Um, when Everson, Lake and Palmer
Speaker 1: did that Manticore, you know the album, I built the Manticore.
Speaker 1: They thought I was nuts, and that's what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: I built it. I love all those tricks. I love
Speaker 1: production where they're relevant. And then you go to Mariah Carey,
Speaker 1: who arrived at Wembley for a first sold out no problem.
Speaker 1: I think two nights or three nights. She had so
Speaker 1: much equipment we only managed to unload a truck and
Speaker 1: a half. There were three trucks sitting in the car park.
Speaker 1: We couldn't know we know what to do with them.
Speaker 1: And then with Barbra Streiser and I said, I said,
Speaker 1: but you don't need all this stuff. They want to
Speaker 1: see you. And with Prince, he took me. With Prince,
Speaker 1: we did fourty nights at Wembley. It took half a
Speaker 1: tour to get Prince to understand that he didn't need
Speaker 1: the elevator, and he didn't need the escalator, and he
Speaker 1: didn't need this an all he needed to stand on
Speaker 1: stage and play. He could blow anybody away in his sleep,
Speaker 1: which is what he did, of course after every show
Speaker 1: he did in a little club at night. That so
Speaker 1: there are acts where production is part of their ethos
Speaker 1: and works incredibly Pink Floyd, etcetera. And they are acts
Speaker 1: who feel they have to have it but don't actually
Speaker 1: need it, where it's a waste of time and money. Okay,
Speaker 1: this leads to the other thing, which you get asked
Speaker 1: all the time. I'm sure any and this is fantasy
Speaker 1: if it bleeds to the reality, greet any still alive
Speaker 1: act that you haven't worked with you would like to
Speaker 1: work with, or any project that you can envision that
Speaker 1: you would like to put up. Um project. I'm mentoring
Speaker 1: a group of the next generation and we're going to
Speaker 1: do a huge climate change concert lation at the end
Speaker 1: towards the end of the year. I co patures when
Speaker 1: my partner Kevin Wall Live Earth in two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: which was the forerunner, which we did with our goal,
Speaker 1: and we did that all over the world. We were
Speaker 1: ahead of the game. Today the future is dealing with
Speaker 1: the climate and the environment. You could see every day
Speaker 1: of the week what's happened in Texas. Last week we
Speaker 1: were ten degrees below zero or eighteen degrees below zero,
Speaker 1: and three days later we're eighteen degrees. But I went
Speaker 1: out this morning with a shirts, not even a jacket.
Speaker 1: That's nuts. Last seven days ago, I had so many
Speaker 1: layers on. I had two pairs of gloves on. Mine
Speaker 1: was so cold. It's extremes of climate what we're living with.
Speaker 1: That's the result of what they call climate change. So
Speaker 1: the next big event is a massive event about the environment.
Speaker 1: I want to do that. I'm gonna I want them.
Speaker 1: They're headed up. There were a great bunch of kids.
Speaker 1: They're not kids, but they're the next generation. They're passionate
Speaker 1: about it. I want to help mentor them through given
Speaker 1: the pathway to it and um what they want to
Speaker 1: create and what they're building, believe it or not, which
Speaker 1: is the best thing. It's got me sucked in with them.
Speaker 1: They're going to build an app called Hero, which means
Speaker 1: that every body can download that app and follow their
Speaker 1: pathway of what every individual can do to help beat
Speaker 1: the climate situation, not what governments have to do. So
Speaker 1: it's not about them. It's about what we can do
Speaker 1: and that I want to get that over the whole
Speaker 1: idea is to promote this app which is free, but
Speaker 1: everybody to download it with a whole series of pathways
Speaker 1: where each person could do their own thing about protecting
Speaker 1: the environment and their future, and it can be global.
Speaker 1: That's my next project. Okay, that does beg the question
Speaker 1: since you were there with the progenitors, the big ones
Speaker 1: like Live Aid, at this point in time, the massive concert,
Speaker 1: is that still valid and be Is it more about
Speaker 1: getting the message across the information and more about raising
Speaker 1: money or is that paradigm just exhausted. Well, everybody thinks
Speaker 1: it's exhausted, but actually at all and um, the paradigm
Speaker 1: is what the message you're giving out. When we did
Speaker 1: Live Aid, it was purely and simple. Four thousand miles
Speaker 1: down the road, people were starving and we in Europe
Speaker 1: were having arguments about what to do with fruit mountains
Speaker 1: and butter mountains that we couldn't give away. It was nuts.
Speaker 1: Live eight was a message to government to the G
Speaker 1: eight conference. That's what it was called Live eight to
Speaker 1: persuade them to put Africa on the agenda, which they did.
Speaker 1: So it depends on what you're trying to do. Our
Speaker 1: environmental show is not going to be about raising money.
Speaker 1: It's about promoting the app for people to use and
Speaker 1: to get involved themselves and what they can do if
Speaker 1: you want to raise money, are like shows I've done
Speaker 1: for the Red Cross and whatever, and you're blatant about
Speaker 1: raising money. Raise the money, it's not you can separate
Speaker 1: the two. Okay. I think finally, you are a commander
Speaker 1: of the British Empire. Did you see that coming? What
Speaker 1: does it mean to you? And what's your relationship? I
Speaker 1: understand you have some sort of relationship with the Royal family.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it coming at all. Actually, in fact,
Speaker 1: what happens is this brown envelope arrives and you think
Speaker 1: it's a bill from the tax people, that it's a
Speaker 1: letter saying you're commanded that. What it says is we
Speaker 1: are mindful of giving you this or not. If you
Speaker 1: are offered it, will you accept. That's how it works,
Speaker 1: so at that point you can actually turn it down.
Speaker 1: Very quietly, thank you very much, you're not getting it,
Speaker 1: or thank you very much. I was really surprised that
Speaker 1: I didn't know I was getting it, had no idea whatsoever,
Speaker 1: and I was thrilled. I've also got a I've got
Speaker 1: an honor from France as well, which which I like
Speaker 1: as well, which is which is an order of arts
Speaker 1: and letters which I got from the French government. And
Speaker 1: I've got a few other bits of pieces led around
Speaker 1: they look um. I spent eighteen years working with the
Speaker 1: Prince of Wales. I was the vice chairman of the
Speaker 1: Princess Trust for the first five years. I was their
Speaker 1: main you know, did all their fundraising. And you may
Speaker 1: recall the Princess Trust Rock Carlos or other stars Saga
Speaker 1: and another story. And I did a lot of work
Speaker 1: with them because the work they do is incredible. I
Speaker 1: worked with the Duke of Edinburgh on his awards ceremony.
Speaker 1: Fact I produced his seventieth birthday pass it wins the
Speaker 1: castle where the Queen wasn't invited and she was looking
Speaker 1: out the window going what the hell is going on
Speaker 1: down there? I I've done a lot for very different
Speaker 1: parts of or family whatever. I um six weeks before
Speaker 1: Princess Diana was killed. I actually went with her to Washington,
Speaker 1: um um, to meet with the American Red Cross to
Speaker 1: to a big Red Cross event, and she asked me
Speaker 1: to go with her, and I did. And you know,
Speaker 1: I knew it quite well, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: You know, it's what you do. I um. I don't
Speaker 1: really brag about it. It's just what I've done, and
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. Um. The the French honor
Speaker 1: was great. That was a real surprise I got. That
Speaker 1: was given to me at Medham and I had no
Speaker 1: idea about that either. And the other thing I've got
Speaker 1: is a Freeman of the City of London, which actually
Speaker 1: is really cool because once a year I can drive
Speaker 1: a flock of sheep over London Bridge and there ain't
Speaker 1: many people who could do that and I'm allowed to.
Speaker 1: It goes back to four hundred odds as the son
Speaker 1: of a tailor. To use the name of the Jack
Speaker 1: Bruce album. Do you ever pinch yourself and say, wow,
Speaker 1: look at this ride? I do where I made it?
Speaker 1: I do. I actually go around the world giving a
Speaker 1: talk um which is basically on luck, called luck and timing,
Speaker 1: because I believe That's what it's all about. It's all
Speaker 1: about luck and timing and being in the right place
Speaker 1: at the right time and having a stroker luck. But
Speaker 1: then the the finnessing of it is taking advantage of
Speaker 1: the situation. I never missed a trick, whether it's meeting president's,
Speaker 1: prime ministers, kings, queens, I've met them all all over
Speaker 1: the world. I've done the craziest I mean, if I
Speaker 1: told you some of the things that I've done. I
Speaker 1: spent one afternoon with Bob geldof paying Catch running up
Speaker 1: and down the corridors of the Right House. Go figure
Speaker 1: that one. You know, we are just I've just lucked in,
Speaker 1: just the weird and the wonderful. I got advited a Cuba.
Speaker 1: I did a deal for the Club Tropicana, which technically
Speaker 1: I still kind of co on the overseas rights for
Speaker 1: I met Fidell. I mean it was you can't do
Speaker 1: that unless you're a rock and roll you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: when when Queen did that song with with the Monster
Speaker 1: at Barcelona for the Barcelona Olympics. Here I am standing
Speaker 1: in a lineup with with all of Queen and monsterral
Speaker 1: at one end, and the King and Queen arrive at
Speaker 1: on the other side and everyone's standing look at each
Speaker 1: other and I literally get up. I walk. I could
Speaker 1: see there's nothing. Nobody knows what to do. I go
Speaker 1: king follow me. You can get away with Blue Murder.
Speaker 1: Extraordinary and working um with the Royal Kingdom of Jordan
Speaker 1: to produce the event in Petro where we produced in
Speaker 1: the desert, a weekend of events where we produced a
Speaker 1: show in Petra where the ancestry is. We have to
Speaker 1: look up, you have to walk down this corridor that's
Speaker 1: a meter wide, four hundred meters. We list it. There's
Speaker 1: no power. So we did this whole event with fourteen
Speaker 1: thousand candles, and then we did a dinner in the
Speaker 1: desert for five hundred people that people ten years later
Speaker 1: still talk about because it was extraordinary. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just fun. Do it, Okay, I think we've come to
Speaker 1: the end of the feeling. We've known we can go
Speaker 1: on for hours. You know, these stories are gold. Harvey,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for giving us your time. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'll enjoyed it until next time. This is barbed Las