Entertainment For Lively Minds
The great myth of backstage
I spent Saturday afternoon last backstage at a small festival, working. I've worked backstage at shows a few times and there seems to be a great myth around backstage, perhaps a result of the rumours of debauchery on the road from times past, while the reality is somewhat different.
It strikes me that people who have designs on being backstage are like dogs chasing cars. They know it's what they want, aren't quite sure why they want it, and have no idea what to do if they ever got it. I saw several people attempting to barter for passes, in a couple of cases because of their admiration of a couple of artists who either hadn't arrived or had already left.
It's funny how the notion of backstage is one of glamour, as opposed to the more likely sight of three inches of a roadie's cleft as he lugs a monitor about. Frankly, backstage is just a bunch of people trying to do their jobs. It just seems odd that people think of it as a weird, mythical place where exciting things happen.
So what caused the great myth of backstage? Is it just a relic from the 70s? Or am I just backstage at the wrong gigs...
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No
sounds like what I've seen as well. Being a friend of a musician I've been backstage at a number of venues. From what I've seen at smaller venues/theatres, dressing rooms are usually tiny and shabby with people falling over one another, other people rushing about or humping equipment and bags around and very little in the way of eats or drinks. They probably really could do without any extra bodies around....
The backstage toilet at Cropredy is well posh...
it was an honour and a privilege to take a leak in it.
The backstage loos
Are the second best benefit of any backstage pass (the best being the free food and drink, naturally)
A festival is the worst possible place for backstage interest...
...because acts who play festivals hardly spend any time on the site at all. They are taken in an hour before their slot and they're off the site ten minutes after the end of it.
Gone are the days when the Beatles used to be smuggled into a venue and kept there for hours before showtime because it was the only place to keep them safe from fans.
It's not even an hour
I saw people on site for less than 30 minutes, their allotted slot included.
But the same stands at other shows I've been backstage at too, it was just a case in point.
on the other hand...
backstage at the Jazz Stage at Glastonbury is one of the nicest places to be for an hour or two, or at least it was the time I got invited there. Great bar, lots of nice people, good buzz in the tent. It wasn't the acts who made it interesting at all, in fact they only very occasionally wandered through. I suppose what you think of what you find there depends upon what you expected before you got there.
Don't people equate backstage
with 'the green room', rather than lurking in the wings behind the amps?
I only made it to a green room once, and that was at a Van Morrison gig in Dublin. We got to loiter within sight of the Man - frankly I was too scared to take up the offer of an introduction; chat to (or perhaps more accurately in my case fawn over) Marianne Faithfull; and watch as Damon Hill snubbed autograph requests from a couple of the children in the room - 'prat' was and is my assesment.
Marianne aside the most exciting thing was being asked by Paul Brady to hold his coat which, after he turned away with a patronising little bow, I threw behind a table. Phew! Rock'n'Roll!
It extends
to Formula One as well. I've been in the paddock on several occasions and there is a clear divide between the people who 'belong' there and the ones who have been invited in and seem to think it's some sort of glamourous place to be seen. It's usually signalled by the pass being very clearly displayed.
It's the same thing: it's just a place of work, there is no half naked James Hunt being fed champagne by a gaggle of half naked dolly bird, just some mechanics and press people running about with lots of work to do.
I can testify that the place to see half-naked dolly birds
fawning over James Hunt was in the third row of a Roger Waters gig in Earls Court in 1984 - I was sitting enviously in the row behind, having inexplicably received a free upgrade from the back stalls.
A lot is revealed
about the Massive demographic by the phrase 'half naked dolly birds'.
Is that Robin Askwith?
in disguise?
Is that Robin Askwith?
in disguise?
A phrase
used by fans of Sally Thomsett in 'Man About The House', and who consequently feel distinctly uncomfortable if required to watch 'The Railway Children' ... er ... I suspect.
I must be getting on but free beer
isn't that much of lure (and the food will crap). There was a works do the other day and I was being tempted by colleague to go with the promise of free beer. They looked puzzled when I asked how far would anyone go for 3-4 bottles of luke warm Becks and a curly sandwich.
I appreciate backstage is meant to be a cross between a harem and opium den and not a multi- agency workshop/ideas fair on flexible approaches to resource allocation and procurement but I suspect I would sadly end up talking to rock's equivalent of terminally dull traffic planner from Northhampton (Shed seven's keyboard tech?).
In Norway…
(where I was last weekend), free beer is a BIG lure for bands. It's that or pay £8 a pint. Cue much time spent backstage (because usually you can't take your free drinks out of the backstage area).
I present therefore
The actual backstage spread from an actual event. (iPhone camera for which I can only apologise)
Peppermint tea and lemons
I bet there's some honey around somewhere too. Bands these days are sooooo sensible.
In fact
There was only honey, no sugar at all. It was most distressing.
I'd say that was better than average…
… on the scale of my own experiences. The lemons are a nice touch.
I'm not saying it isn't nice
In fact the whole festival was very nice. But what I am saying is that anyone expecting dwarves carrying trays of cocaine would have been sorely disappointed.
Lots of plastic spoons, though, I see…
there's certainly an ample supply of spoons
for a meal consisting entirely of biscuits and crisps.
I wonder if the rider
demanded that all the custard creams be removed from the box of mixed biscuits?
No M&Ms?
.
The story
Behind the brown M&Ms is that it tells them whether the venue read their backstage requirements properly or just gave them what they give everyone else, isn't it?
I believe so. If they can solve that puzzle
there's a chance that the sound might be all right.
I expect everyone has seen this
But just in case...
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1004061iggypop1.html
Oh that's brilliant
I don't care if it's real or not, that is the finest piece of comedy writing I have seen.
Recently backstage at Graham Coxon gig
and heard the announcement 'ohh the Catherdral City is out!'. And no it wasn't some sort of rock n roll code