The Opening Ax: The Old Man Muses over a Career with Them
By Nook Schoenfeld
Preface: With the passing of Tony, the lead singer/bassist of the Outfield recently, I started to reminisce about a lifetime of opening acts. I had that band open up on two different tours, for two different headliners, on two consecutive summers in the 80’s. We had a roadie band that sang X-rated renditions of the song “Josie” and completely butchered it. The Outfield didn’t like it one bit, complaining bitterly to deaf ears. Tough luck you teabags, you got the opening ax. By Nook Schoenfeld
Life on the road as an opening act is not easy, and often enough roadies for the headliner don’t make it any easier. We pick on you, leave you five minutes to sound check before doors and generally leave you with the 3rd person on the lighting crew to make sure you look like an amateur. End of tour pranks on the opening act make for legendary stories.
But I have also banked my career on working with such minor league talent and riding the train upwards with them. Of course we have all accumulated a few war stories that stand out about our experiences working with these acts. Allow me to expel a few of them here if you have a few minutes. Excuse me, I seem to do some time jumping as I reminisce.
1983: The first opening act I ever saw blow away the headliner was on a Billy Squier tour. A bunch of kids from the UK were in America for the first time. I watched in awe as this band really crushed it for a rookie act with just one album. They simply blew away Squier and he certainly knew it. I cannot remember the name of the crew member running the lights for them, but I bet they wished they had stayed in touch and taken a full time position with that act. The band called themselves Def Leppard.
If I’m out as lighting director for a tour I usually try to have one of my lighting crew members do the lights for the opening act. It’s threefold in reasoning.
1: Someone gets some much needed lighting experience behind a console.
2: A crew member gets a little tax free spending cash
3: I get that nap (I’ve always been a working LD)
But this doesn’t always work out. Sometimes the crew wants nothing to do with the opener. Sometimes the bands specifically approach me and ask for help. Sometimes the manager of the act I am currently lighting is also managing the opening act and wants me to make them look good, just not as good as the headliners. Sometimes I have an opening act that tours on their own as well and their LD can’t do the tour, so they call me for help. This can be very lucrative.
Double Dipping: A term used by roadies who can make a little extra coin by doing side jobs, such as working with the opening act. I will never top my own luck in the following scenario.
2011: I reside in Minneapolis. The most famous lighting designer in our city is actually an Australian (now a citizen mind you). I had never met Paul “Arlo” Guthrie before moving there. One day he called me and we agreed to have lunch. Arlo has a lot of acts he cares for and one he had been looking after for many years was Sheryl Crow. He was bummed that she was going to open for Kid Rock all summer and he would be unable to join me on tour due to prior commitments. Would I be able to cover her til he could make it out there later in the summer? I laughed as I had lit Sheryl when she was the Eagles opening act back in 94. For free.
Sheryl is family to Kid Rock, so I agreed in an instant. Over lunch I told Arlo they could just throw me $100 a night til he could get out there. He laughed me off. “You’re gonna love this. We actually have some gigs on your days off. So you would need to travel with our party on certain off days. So we insist on paying you the full 3k a week salary.” That turned into some serious “double dipping”. The extra money I accumulated that summer paid for all new Anderson windows in my house.
Messing with the Kid
1993: I took a gig with a hot young artist named Lenny Kravitz, selling out arenas in Europe. Robert Plant had just finished as our opening act and we had a brand new opening act named Blind Melon come on board. The fourth tech on the crew was a guy named Mike Stellone. I let him run the lights for this band, as he had once been a club band LD and was excited about the project. On that particular tour I was running the movers on a Whole Hog 1 and we had an AVO that LD Jon Pollak used for all the conventional fixtures. Every afternoon after focus I would set Mike up for his opening act looks and he would make sure he was focused and ready to go on his AVO before having dinner.
Now I’m one of those folks that really enjoys a good windup. So every evening after Mike left the AVO for catering, I would go edit a cue or two on his console to slightly alter a look. Subtle changes. I might take one red par and unpatch it prior to his set one day. I might add a bank of ACLs to a look where they were out of place. Needless to say my shenanigans drove Stellone nuts. He actually called AVO to complain about the software dropping lights out of cues and adding others. I refused to have a desk repair tech come out from London and accused him of operator error. The next morning I would fix all the cues I had corrupted the day before. Mike would come out later in the afternoon and shake his head. “It’s all working fine today. I cannot replicate the issues I had yesterday.”
This went on for several months til one day when my crew chief Rosie Greenawalt stumbled out to the console and caught me editing Stellone’s cues. He realized immediately and did a facepalm. The jig was up. Halfway thru Lenny’s set, during a slow part in a song I hear this low voice over the headphones. It was Mike Stellone with one simple line. “You mother f*cker.”
So I had to stop my prank. A couple weeks later Blind Melon’s hit single took off and they were heading back to America to headline their own tour. Stellone was torn. The band wanted to hire him directly, but he would be in a tough spot as he didn’t want to bail on me and the lighting company. I advised him to take the gig. I would deal with the lighting company being pissed off by promising they would be the vendor on their headline tour. It worked out well for everyone.
1997: Some years later the same Mike Stellone calls me up. “I’ve got this young band you’ve probably never heard of. Called 311. We have a hit single and are selling sheds. I need someone to look after them. Know anyone?” I thought about it. I had just spent three years straight working for antique rock legends and this tour wouldn’t start for two months. I very rarely get two days off in my business, let alone two months in Lake Tahoe, my home at the time. So I took the gig myself. The next week I was offered the director’s job for Tina Turner. The week after I was offered some other ancient rock god. I turned them both down (I am a man of my word when I take a gig) and spent the summer learning some grunge music from a band I had never heard. I’m not a fan of classic rock, this was something new.
Stellone was now the production manager and I was his LD. We had a different opening act every few weeks and I used it like a talent farm for Nooklites Design. $50 a night and I programmed a new song every day and nailed your show. And of course the opening act got to use the whole rig. No Doubt did a stint, Saving Ferris and some other young one hit wonders came along that escape my mind. Then we had a band called Goldfinger. To this day they may be my favorite opening act band. Ska music, a singer in a suit, and pure rocking tunes. I loved them. But Stellone treated them like dog shit, like the low life opening act in a white van that they were. He rode em hard.
That summer a certain song called “Fly” by Sugar Ray appeared and took over the radio. It was an addictive song. I got a call from Stellone, ‘Hey you ever hear of Sugar Ray? They’re opening up for 311 next leg. They have this manager from NYC named Chip Quigley that says he knows you.’ I did indeed know Chip. I called him and struck a deal as the band’s LD. I looked after them for many years after that.
1998: The next winter Sugar Ray found themselves headlining their own gigs. I designed some production and we got ready to hit the road. I slid Stellone in as PM as a payback. As we went into rehearsals I find out that Goldfinger is gonna open up on the tour. So I call their road manager to let them know I’m looking after Sugar Ray and would be glad to cover his act again this year. “Sure mate, that would be awesome. It will be a great tour. As long as we don’t have to deal with that asshole Stellone all summer.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him.
2001: I spent a good deal of time designing lighting for a lot of festival tours. I’d design the rig and help program it for LDs that came with the band. Of course this too turned into a farming opportunity for Nooklites Design. I have suffered through entire summers listening to Disturbed and Slipknot daily for the sake of cash and meeting/lighting all the bands, looking after them. Mind you I liked the headlining band members – all of em, just not by cup of music. But their openers would later become my headliners. Heck, John Reese’s acts alone have probably bought me a house.
Back In 2001 I got a call from Kevin Lyman saying he wanted to put out a tour with Jay Z and 311 together. I thought that was insane at first, but it turned out great. I was still looking after 311, but Jay Z had been off the road for a couple years, with no LD in mind. His PM (Hot Dog) asked me to send them a video of my work. I didn’t have a B-reel back then, but I had links to Beastie Boys and 311 shows I had worked on and sent them to the mgmt. In this case, the LD for the opening act became the LD for the headliner as well.
Now there’s also the case of being an opening act LD and impressing the headlining act so much that they fire their LD and hire you. I have never asked for this to happen but must admit that the two times it did occur it was warranted. I am friends with the two LDs I replaced to this day. On both occasions I turned down the gig as I thought it was a better political move and friends don’t steal gigs from friends. On one, a fellow LD walked out to FOH, shook my hand and wished me the best, telling me I had the gig if I wanted before the artist’s manager even offered it to me. He had had enough and was leaving, immediately.
2002: Long ago a fellow LD told me his theory about what lights on his rig he oughtta allow the opening act to use. Most LD’s tend to be stringent when making such decisions, but not Jon Pollak, “I let them have it all. If they can beat me on my own rig, they’re a better LD than I.” I believed and followed that formula until one specific night I will always remember.
I had just finished tightening up my opening night cues for a Kid Rock tour at like 6:30 PM. day of show. In walks the opening act with their LD, kid by the name of Chris Reade. Young west coast kid with a spark in his eye and a great attitude, just waiting for his time slot. He has a couple of backline carts, all ghettoed up with bits of metal pipe and lights and strobes hung all over it that he wheels out and runs cable to. He is his own tech. He had little time to program and had brought along his own AVO console instead of a Hog2 (I think) so he just asked for the front truss and would run with his own lights that first gig. I sat with my Lighting Director for the tour – Red Gibson, to see what chops the kid had. After only two songs we looked at each other. Red says, ‘This fricking guy is really damn good Nook. You still wanna give him the whole rig?’ The scared reply went somewhere along the lines of, “Oh hell no, We’ll both be out of a job in a week if we do that.” Only opening act LD to ever kick my ass to this day. I stayed around an extra day or two and tightened up my own show.
1983: See Factor had a sling of shows with the band Squeeze, along with the Stray Cats as special guests. I had a love for alternative rock and this bill was all sorts of awesome to my 24 year old self. Being the new kid on the team I was assigned the AVO console for the third band on the bill that most had never heard of. There may have only been 1000 fans in the Nassau Coliseum seats that night when this band hit the stage and I made my professional LD debut. But I was tickled pink to light REM for a few shows on their first tour.
I certainly regret that I ignored some opening acts along the way, thought they were just so horrible and talentless that I couldn’t waste my time. I would set up a punt page and have one of my techs bump flash buttons along to the beat. Along the way I lost the opportunity to become the LD for acts that had none at the time – such as the Beastie Boys, the Black Crowes and the Foo Fighters. I still kick my own ass for ignoring a drummer that picked up a guitar and took center stage. In 1987 I thought the Beastie Boys opening for Madonna was the absolute worst show I had ever witnessed.
1997: Years later I found myself lighting a Beastie Boys Tour and grew to appreciate what I once mistook for nonsense. I have learned over time that I may not have been the best judge of hip hop music during my career. I had a lot of fun on that tour but it was also a lot of work. Six man light crew and we worked til doors opened quite often. We had some tough acts like A Tribe called Quest and Rancid as our opening acts and while the fans appreciated them, my crew and I didn’t. I had the right to walk away and just throw up a yellow wash. But I remembered my past and did the right thing. Mashing buttons on beat while someone brought me a plate of food from catering.
1982: The Yellow wash story. I recall my early years and times where I was working for the opening act. When I first got out of college I would take any gig. I found an opportunity mixing front of house audio (I got into lighting strictly to feed my starving self, but that’s another story) for Burning Spear, a Jamaican reggae act. We were going on tour for two months, first opening up for the Clash, then moving on to the Talking Heads. Me, being a 24 year old kid was thrilled with this. I showed up early while working for this opening act and helped everyone out. I loaded in lights for Synergy Lighting, (a company out of Kent, Ohio who was looking after a few acts,) stacked the Clair bros PA and became friends with the bands and crew. When both of those bands went out the next year I was on their lighting crew.
Side note: Bob See shook his head when he looked at me and told him that in his whole career as a lighting company owner, no band had ever called up and specified who they wanted as their third man on the crew. Let alone a sound guy being asked to do lights. (Thank u Dave Russell).
I remember my first date with Burning Spear opening up for the Clash. I was mixing FOH and we of course had no Lighting Director. A young woman from the crew (known as Patti Conners then, now known as Patti Thurston) told me she would do lights for $30 a night. I told her we had no budget for a lighting person at all. She shrugged and said, “Well bring up a look.” I grabbed one fader and brought it up. It was a yellow wash, and I said, “That’ll do.” She had a baffled look on her face and walked away. The band came on and I resumed mixing audio. Ten minutes later Patti was standing behind the console mashing faders for free. The next month we went out to open for the Talking Heads. Carol Dodds was their LD. Upon meeting me she said, “Don’t worry about the lights, Patti called me and told me you had no money. I got your back.” I still owe (and love) those lighting ladies.
2013: Kid Rock was the king of finding a good solid opening act and selling the cheap seats at a shed for $20. He banked on the idea that fans in the summer would be sitting around wondering what to do on a Thursday summer night, then one of em would say, “Ya know we can go see Kid Rock with ZZ Top and Foreigner tonight for $20.” And with that marketing ploy, we sold a lot of seats.
So this particular year the boss calls me, “Nook I got a special opening act this year and I’m asking you to look after them, their Production Manager doubles as their LD and well, he tells me he needs your help.” The band was Kool and the Gang. I thought the bill was insane. The first day they walked in to rehearse I walk up and introduced myself to the singer thinking he was probably in charge. “Hi, I’m Nook the lighting guy. Who should I talk to about any special lighting cues you need?” He and the band all spun around and looked upstage center at the shortest guy in the band, the bass player. All these years I just assumed the singer would be ‘Kool”. But no, it was Robert ‘Kool” Bell. He simply said, “When the band starts swinging (meaning dancing on stage) the lights should be too. When we stop, they stop.” These guys brought the funk. And damn if Kid Rock wasn’t right, all these hard drinking rednecks boogied to every one of their hits each night. Not sure I have ever seen a more comical site than 15,000 people with that dreaded white man’s disease known as “Lack of Rhythm” try to dance to the beat.
2008: Most opening acts are fine with you signing a handwritten receipt for the cash they pay you. I’d get paid and never hear from them again….., but then I did a country tour. This was a travelling festival with a strong headliner and a bunch of other bands without LDs. I remember taking care of a number of the good old boys and it was just fine. Cash in hand, double dipping in play. But then this one band member wanted to sit behind me in the afternoon to critique how I would be lighting their band’s performance. They played at 7 PM and finished as dusk set. So I welcomed this singer from Little Big Town as she sat behind me and gave me some color schemes and a few cues she wanted executed during the show. I was more than happy to oblige and programmed them flawlessly for her and she was happy. As she turned to leave I mentioned that if they wanted me to run their lights perfectly to her specifications it would cost them 50 clams a night…, or I’d gladly teach someone else to run their set.
The singer just walked away. Later their manager came up and offered me $25 per show. None of my crew wanted to lose their nap time for the low dollar offer so I took it and gave it my usual 110%. Looked great. After the tour ends I get an email from their accountant. “We need your social security number and proper spelling of your name. We only know you as Nook I’m afraid.” I realized this cheap management wanted to send me a 1099 for the likes of $350. First and only time in my career. I gave them a name and # and never heard from them again. Never did get that 1099. I really liked their music and would have loved to retain them as a client, but it wasn’t in the mix.
1983: Audio folks are more hammered than lighting crew as they have to sacrifice a crew member to run the monitors and well, they have a set change or two that negates any nap or catering time after sound check. But I kind of liked miking the stage when I was an audio dude. See Factor sent me out on a Dave Edmunds tour back in 1983. I really loved his band and that rockabilly vibe. Come the first gig I am informed that we have a blues band opening up that just released their first album. As low man on the totem pole I would be learning how to mix monitors for my first time. Mark Shane set up the console for me, wished me luck and headed off to catering. Dang that band was good and just real nice fellas. I had the best half hour of my life listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn and double Trouble play every night while I began my short lived stint as a monitor mixer.
1984: Now the opposite was true the next year when I went out on a Ratt tour. Rocky Holman ended up mixing their monitors, but I was handed the two opening acts, Twisted Sister and Dokken. My lord, Twisted Sister were average musicians playing shock rock. Nice guys, except for the lead singer; when he hit the stage his alter ego came out. He would turn into this raging lunatic and scream at me to turn the wedges up, then scream when they fed back. It really sucked to be me at that time.
Eventually we flew in George Schack to take over at the monitor desk. Now George was a guitar tech who had never really mixed monitors, but he had worked with Stephen Tyler for years and was extremely well versed in the art of dealing with tortured artists. So every day I would ring out the monitors and get them ready for sound check. Then we would park George behind the desk. Whenever Dee Snider came over to complain about something, I stayed out of eyesight behind a side fill. During the performance, whenever he wasn’t singing, George would towel him down like a prizefighter side stage, rub his shoulders while listening to him complain, then pat him on the butt like he was sending the Quarterback back into the game. George would then walk over to me and tell me what Dee requested and I would adjust the levels per spec then exit the lit area. This actually worked for the rest of the tour.
After that particular run I went back to my home in Huntington on Long island and was oh so happy to be done with metal for a while. A week later I walked out to my street to get the mail. I eye this black Thanks Am with the heavy metal gold wing decals on the hood come barreling down the road, slamming on its brakes as it to rest beside me. The window rolls down. “Dude, you live here?” It was Dee Snider. He had just bought a house three doors up from mine.
*** This story is taken from a series of essays entitled Old Man Musings, by Nook Schoenfeld. Magazine Editor, Author, Production Designer and onetime Monitor Man for live events.
