Michael Jackson’s Tour Rider Calls For Disabled Children
MICHAEL Jackson is coming to London to perform and the Sun delivers the headline:
Jacko’s disabled kid hunt
Well, they are easier to catch. Or drop…
Lia Nicholls has more
MICHAEL JACKSON is looking for a child who is missing limbs or in a wheelchair to appear on stage with him at his O2 gigs.
This is to make him look caring? To elicit the ultimate response in any post Britain’s Got Talent audience: crying? To enable him to look as lithe and fun as ever as he dances around them pointing and laughing?
An email from promoter AEG Live was sent to London casting agencies asking for a kid for a film. But a source said it’s a decoy to stop tour secrets leaking.
It’s the tour rider. The list of wants and don’t wants, epitomised by Eddie Van Halen’s contract that stipulated that a bowl of M&Ms sweets be made available in their dressing room – with all the brown ones removed.
When challenged, David Lee Roth claimed it was a gauge to a test promoter’s attention to every line of their contract.
From clean boxer shorts (Jane’s Addiction), mistletoe and wine (Cliff Richard) to Iggy Pop’s rider which ran for 18 pages and included a rant about a “fat, bearded hippy”, a threat to chop the recipient into “a hundred pieces” and the idea for a reality TV show called “Dead Dog Island”.
Even our celebrity politicians are at it. In ‘Working with Liam Byrne’, the cabinet minister’s rider ordered:
“I’m addicted to coffee. I like a cappuccino when I come in, an espresso at 3pm and soup at 12.30-1pm.”
So now Jackson’s call for disabled children is a test. But, still, run if you can, children. Run!
Posted: 18th, June 2009 | In: Celebrities Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
