My flight with Van Halen!

A look back….

April 18, 1995

VAN HALEN

Allen County Memorial Coliseum

Ft. Wayne, IN

What can be said about Van Halen that we haven’t heard before? They came out of the gate in the late seventies and quickly ascended to selling tickets at the arena level. They even played a few stadiums. Their sound was unique, and their music was immediately popular, and they garnered heavy airplay on rock radio. As they grew they grew apart and David Lee Roth left to go solo and in comes Sammy Hagar which was a perfect match.

I must confess, I have never seen Van Halen with DL Roth, but I worked with Roth many times as a solo artist and he was great. I also worked many times with Sammy Hagar, and he too was great.

During the late 80’s and into the 90’s, We (Sunshine Promotions) booked many shows with Van Halen. The band always had a top touring road crew and a very large production. They carried their own custom-built stage called a rolling stage. Basically, the set up would begin early in the morning, the stage would be assembled on one end of the arena while all of the rigging which included the lighting and sound was assembled on the other end of the arena. Once the rigging / production was raised to trim they would then roll the stage into its position, thus the name rolling stage. During the dismantle this process would occur in reverse.

One of the items that was requested on a Van Halen rider was two 30-gallon trash cans with several liners. They did not want anything larger or smaller because a 30-gallon trash can is the perfect height…its similar in height of a men’s room urinal. These cans were placed under the stage and each band member had his own space under the stage. Since the band members drank quite a bit of water along with a few beers during the show, at times they had to pee during the performance, so that’s why there were two 30-gallon lined trash cans under the stage.

We had back-to-back shows with Van Halen on April 18 in Ft Wayne and the next day in Lexington, KY. The original plan for me to get to Lexington was to ride on one of the crew busses. I must say that I did not adapt well to riding overnight on a bus between shows. It was rare when this would come up and I did it about 10 times in my career. Each time I did not sleep which is not good. Just a few days before the Ft. Wayne show I was on the phone with the bands production manager Frank Stedler going through a few last details. Frank then mentioned that he brought on a few additional personnel and that meant there was no additional room for me on one of the busses which threw a curve at me. I was considering chartering a small plane to fly to Lexington. Just then I received a call from the bands tour manager Scotty Ross, whom I had worked with many times and I loved working with him. As we were talking he asked how I was getting to Lexington and I told him that I didn’t know. He said wait a second, let me look at something. Then he said “why don’t you fly with me and the band on our plane? We have a G2 jet and there is one empty seat between Ft. Wayne and Lexington.” I immediately accepted this invitation. It’s not professional for a promoter rep to leave during a load out but at times exceptions can be made and this was clearly an exception.

On the night of the show Scotty asked me to come into the dressing room and see the band. I had met the band members a few times and they all said hello. Sammy Hagar is very outgoing and extremely easy to get along with. Eddie and Alex Van Halen are rather shy and kept to themselves. Michael Anthony is the jokester. Michael asked me if I read the rider. This question is always difficult as you never know where this is going. I told him yes I read the rider. He then said “are you sure? Didn’t you see the part about NOT having glass coffee or end tables in our dressing room?” Just as he said that he grabbed a bottle of Heineken, opened it up and held it over the glass coffee table and then dropped it, breaking the glass! Michael then looked at me and said “oops!”

The band was great onstage and after the show they did a “runner” out of the building. A “runner” is exiting from the stage to the ground transportation such as a van, cars, or limos. In this case it was several limos and I jumped in the limo with Jon Martin and Michael Anthony and off we went to the airport. Michael was still cracking up over breaking the coffee table. We get to the airport and here is this slick looking Gulfstream G2 jet. It seated 12 passengers. Another long-time industry friend Bob Daitz worked for the band and he had arranged for a lot a barbeque food for the flight. I sat in a seat facing back across from Sammy Hagar. Sammy and I talked the entire time, and everybody inhaled the wonderful barbeque food. The band was very quiet. I remember Alex nodded off after he ate some food. My only other previous experience in flying with a band was a few years earlier when I flew with the band Motley Crue after a show. They weren’t quiet and we all put on a hell of a buzz during that flight!

We landed in Lexington approximately 45 minutes after we left Ft Wayne. There were several vans picking us up and we went to the Hyatt Regency which is attached to Rupp Arena. It was great to get in at a reasonable time, get some sleep and get up refreshed the next day.

During my time at Sunshine Promotions, we chartered many planes. Usually, they were single or twin-engine props. This was a convenient necessity. But it was never a jet, and it didn’t have one of the biggest rock bands of our lifetime!

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