The Rolling Stones can’t get no satisfaction – without white lilies, a billiards table, and a satellite TV to watch cricket, that is.
Gone are the days of the wild preshow parties for the legendary British rockers, instead replaced by backstage demands more age-appropriate for rock’s elder statesmen.
The most jarring request, in fact, just might be that the local promoter arrange for cricket to be shown in Mick Jagger’s dressing room, according to a copy of the group’s tour rider, which was obtained by The Smoking Gun Web site.
Though Jagger will apparently bring his own TV and VCR, “Cricket … is the channel we need most of all,” stresses the eight-page list of requests, which is being used for the band’s current “A Bigger Bang” tour and its stop at the Super Bowl halftime show next month.
The rider also gives a glimpse into the personalities of the famed foursome by their choice of nicknames for their individual dressing rooms:
Frontman Jagger, who requests a 25-foot-long by 10-foot-wide running room to warm up in, calls his “Workout,” while former jazz drummer Charlie Watts christened his “The Cotton Club,” after the historic Harlem venue.
The band’s bad boys also display a sense of humor: rhythm guitarist Ronnie Wood, a former boozer, calls his “Recovery,” while hard-living lead guitarist Keith Richards names his “Camp X-Ray,” after the infamous U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
But Richards may be mellowing in his old age – he, Wood and Watts all want $45 vases of white Casablanca lily arrangements with weeping eucalyptus. Jagger, however, does not want any flowers.
And while the band’s rider makes it clear the group wants space for a table to play snooker – a version of billiards – it will bring its own.
Though it is the self-proclaimed “World’s Greatest Rock “n’ Roll Band,” the Stones’ rider seems modest compared to those of Van Halen, which famously demanded that all brown M&Ms be removed from a bowl of candy, and pop star Christina Aguilera, who requested a smorgasbord of organic foods and Flintstones vitamins.
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Rolling Stones
AP-NY-01-19-06 0946EST
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