Revealed: the world’s craziest band riders

We all know that musicians can be a demanding lot, and many make outrageous demands of venues and promoters when they agree to play a show. These so-called riders usually add a heap of refreshments to requirements (booze, fags and exotic cheeses normally feature) but, surely, no list of demands has ever been as hilarious as that of Iggy Pop & The Stooges.

Posted at www.thesmokinggun.com, the rider is an intentionally daft stream of consciousness that will have you laughing out loud; right down to the description of guitars that should be made to sound, “Clear and bright like the sound of jackboots on wet cobblestones.” Stooges roadie Jos Grain is apparently the author of the rider, suggesting that a life of lugging round Ron Asheton´s Marshalls is possibly a waste of his talents… Read it here.

Still, the Smoking Gun´s archive of rider demands and live contracts is a fun place to dip into. It´s here that you´ll learn that:

- any promoter who spells the Foo Fighters name wrong will have to pay them $100 (quite tempting, if you desperately wanted to write Poo Fighters, really).

- Foo Fighters don´t EVER want cauliflower with their pitta bread, humous and dips, 'cos “cauliflower blows!” On the other hand, “Dave loves stinky cheese”.

- Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora must have a bottle of Pinot Grigio - “opened and recorked” - in his onstage cooler.

- if The Rolling Stones MUST have trailers as dressing rooms (at stadiums and such), then the tuning trailer must be at least 44´ x 10´ and have an “extremely clean” bathroom and a shower. Yes, that´s the tuning room.

- Metallica´s rider is 24 (TWENTY FOUR!) pages long. And it is “very important that bacon be available at every meal and during the day.” Mmm. Bacon. V-e-r-y important.

More rider fun from www.thesmokinggun.com