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Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..Home > Blogs > Book Nook > Archives > 2009 > June > 29 > Entry
Eddie Van Halen was a nice guy…
After Michael Jackson died I was reading some of the tributes. A guy I know back in Des Moines wrote something about one of Michael’s songs that had a fabulous guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen. Billie Jean I think?
Anyway, I hadn’t thought about Eddie Van Halen in years. Then today I saw something about Eddie getting re-married. It mentioned that his ex-wife, Valerie Bertinelli attended the ceremony.
That’s when it hit me. I thought, that Eddie Van Halen is still a nice guy. I met him once a long time ago. Knowing that Valerie was welcomed at the nuptials made me certain that Eddie is still a decent fella. Fame hasn’t wrecked that.
I met him briefly in the early 80’s when Van Halen was a huge concert draw before singer David Lee Roth left the group. I’m thinking that it was 1982?
Van Halen was playing at an arena in Omaha. I was working with a guy who was doing the backstage catering. We had a heck of a time fulfilling that contract. The “rider” as they called it was a laundry list of stuff that we were supposed to provide for Van Halen and their crew.
It was nightmare finding all that stuff. We drove around Des Moines in a van picking up supplies and checking them off the list.
A few years before that Van Halen had achieved some measure of notoriety for trashing a dressing room. It seems that the caterers that night failed to take care of one minor detail in the contract rider, they didn’t go through the M&M’s and remove all of the brown ones. When the boys in the band detected some brown ones in their snacks they used that as a pretext to trash the place.
Our rider specified: no brown M&M’s. We knew they weren’t kidding. That made my boss a bit paranoid about obtaining all the supplies that were being demanded.
We found all the numerous varieties of exotic booze. It turned out that the hard liquor was mostly for the roadies, mainly grizzled Nam vets who looked like they hadn’t slept lately. The Liebfraumilch was for Eddie.
We were able to locate the inflatable dolls they requested. I’m not making this stuff up!
The thing that had us baffled was the request for two dozen Coney Island Whitefish. In those pre-Google days we were stumped. As we drove around we asked everybody we met and nobody knew what we were talking about.
Finally, we went into another adult bookstore. We had been to several already while looking for inflatable dolls. The woman behind the counter appeared to be well past retirement age. We asked her, excuse us ma’am but are you familiar with Coney Island Whitefish? She cackled and took a long draw on her unfiltered smoke.
She said “boys, I haven’t heard that term in 40 years! Coney Island Whitefish are rubbers! They’re an old term for condoms, the only kind of ‘fish’ that ever used to wash up on Coney Island.”
We thanked her and checked the last thing off our list. When we got into Omaha the head of the sound crew went down our list and verified that every single item was available. When he reached the listing for Coney Island Whitefish we pulled out the boxes of condoms. He seemed somewhat disappointed that we had figured that one out. No brown M&M’s. Lots of condoms. Dolls. We figured we were all set.
The opening act were some guys who called themselves The Granati Brothers. There was was no reference in Van Halen’s rider to them. No provisions to provide them with food, drink, shelter. Nothing. Like they didn’t exist. We were bound to follow the contract. No deviations were allowed.
As the Granati Brothers were playing Eddie Van Halen was wandering around backstage. He was wearing ripped up sneakers and a big grin. He clutched a bottle of wine. I was washing up the dishes after serving dinner to the roadies.
We were getting ready to pack up the food. The Granati Brothers had finished their set. Eddie Van Halen approached me. He had the three Granati Brothers with him. Eddie didn’t order me around. He came up to me and in the most charming way he practically begged me to make up some plates of food for the Granati Brothers. He did this discreetly. None of the Van Halen crew or band witnessed his act of kindness and compassion. He genuinely just wanted to get them fed and he knew they were not going to eat otherwise.
Nice guy. Apparently, he still is.
One night in Omaha long ago…
Vick Mickunas
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment | Categories: clearing the cobwebs
Comments
By Blowfly
June 30, 2009 3:15 PM | Link to this
Vick I think you might have left out part of the story, at least I recall some other parts (but I might have made those up :). Rock Star riders are further proof that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great story, reminds me of the bottlerockets, flying plants, rigged record promotions, and host of other good clean fun.By Alice
June 30, 2009 12:56 PM | Link to this
smokinggun.com keeps a database of riders for all sorts of celebrities/overindulged babies. I am not surprised by your description but I am surprised that these children are actually able to exercise basic life functions like getting married and having children after demanding the removal of brown m&ms. On the other hand, they don’t tend to have successful records in that “life” area either.By vick
June 30, 2009 10:30 AM | Link to this
Yeah Mike, it was BEAT IT! Thanks, I knew I could count on you guys to set the facts straight. And BOH, that’s a great point about David Lee Roth. The M&Ms were certainly a way for the band to quickly judge if things were being done according to their criteria. I had some contact with Roth at that concert, too. Not a warm guy like Eddie was…By boh
June 30, 2009 7:11 AM | Link to this
According to David Lee Roth, the brown M&M thing was mostly to make sure their requirements were read. he said if they did get brown M & Ms, they knew something would go wrong because the important details likely would be missed, too.By Mike
June 30, 2009 12:15 AM | Link to this
hey Vic, it was Beat It,not Billie Jean. Love your blog.By vick
June 29, 2009 11:29 PM | Link to this
Thanks, LMJ for the book reference. I can always count on you! I have not read that one but the M&M thing was definitely a genuine quirk for Van Halen…By lmj
June 29, 2009 11:13 PM | Link to this
Bertinelli’s book mentions the brown M&Ms and the room trashing, etc. A lot about Van Halen in that book, of course.