The internet is awash with postings about the legendary tour riders from Iggy Pop and the Stooges. The lengthy, rambling, and utterly hilarious tome, written by tour manager Jos Grain, tends to run over 20 pages, depending on the year and the tour. With the band out on the road for a few dates this year, we thought it’d be fun to highlight some of Grain’s comments on the band’s lighting requests:
“We do not have a lighting designer, or lighting person of any kind. We had a lighting designer once, but he went mad, so we shot him. It was the kindest thing. Now he’s a light of a different kind, one of God’s little Gobos in Dimmer Heaven. The point of all this nonsense is, of course, that we need someone to brighten up our day, and this is what we would like them to do, if it is at all possible using the whiz-bang technology that is the modern lighting system.”
“Oh, and a lighting person who could just set a scene at the beginning of a song, then sit on his hands until the start of the next song. I know that this seems like a tall order when most LDs suffer from some sort of nervous disorder that won’t permit their hands to stay still for longer than 8 milliseconds, but honestly, that’s what we would be happiest with. Maybe we could get somebody to sit next to the LD with a big stick, then if they looked like they were going to “do lighting” halfway through a number - WHAMMO!!! broken desk, broken fingers.”
“Sometimes we do gigs where the LD tries to sneak the spotlights on halfway through the show. Unfortunately, if that does happen, it then becomes encumbent upon me to find the LD after the show and eat his entire family.”
“I can promise you that our singer (Iggy Pop, by the way) will make it look like all your lights are attempting to jump off the front of the stage like a gang of par 64 lemmings. He’ll be all over the place, like a mad woman’s shit, so you don’t have worry about moving lights. Here’s a thought for you. Why not watch the band instead of trying to make patterns with the beams? Unless you can think of a way of writing “F*** OFF JOS” in beams across the stage….”
“This was written by someone who doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. I cannot tell a lie. Lights-wisely speaking, I’m an absolute arse-head. But I know what I like. And although nobody goes home whistling the lights, it’s also true that no one goes to gigs to stare at the f***ing P.A. stacks.”
For my money, the only thing better is the current Foo Fighters rider, where bacon is referred to as “God’s currency.”
