The Wall
Stories from the music road
I am standing on a stage in the closed Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece.
I am holding a mic and presumably getting ready to speak. There is an audience here I’ve been told, unclear on the number of people but definitely in the thousands.
There’s a spotlight blinding me or thankfully protecting me from the crowd.
The incomprehensible audience ramble is fizzing out as they notice me on the stage and turn their anticipation towards me. I cognitively understand I’m supposed to start speaking here shortly but I am on the verge of panic.
I feel a little like floating in space.
There’s nobody near me, I can’t see the floor, it’s all dark and the audience is waiting, holding masks I can’t see, I can’t see anything except this light…
One upon a time, there was a major show going back out on tour after many years of inertia. There was a lot of excitement in the global music industry about it because this time around they were filming it and making a new movie/documentary.
I was on again off again with the local production company but I got a call the week they announced the gig and I decided I would be able to put my personal drama aside and work the season.
Besides, being wanted was a turn on for early 20s yours truly.
The Wall show took place in Greece in July 2011 at the closed air Olympic Stadium for 3 days, with 35,000 attendees each day. During the show and in between show days, the film crew (an entirely different production crew) would be filming bits and pieces. Having a whole additional crew made everything more complicated on our end but we are here to make the show happen. There is of course the “load in-set up-do the thing-load out” drill, but there are days that things need to be set up in order to do some filming and there are days that have double the amount of work because of the shows and the filming. This also means a combination of crews, meals, meal times, transportation needs, etc. It’s a pretty complicated production with essentially double the amount of moving parts. At least it’s a smaller show, so we don’t have to worry too much about crowd control. I have other stories about the crowds in Greece (we are dramatic after all) but this crowd belongs to a very different demographic which is way more manageable.
However - the show requires that attendees don’t bring phones or cameras into the venue at all and that they should not be smoking. In Greece, the no smoking laws have sort of gone into effect but nobody enforces them because you can’t really tell Greeks what to do.
Leading up to the show days, we had major push back from the audience and even Roger Waters himself recorded and shared a video where he was asking the audience of Greece to comply with the requests for the sake of the film. He has spent a lot of time in Greece and he speaks some Greek too, so he shared as much as he was feeling in his broken Greek to appeal to the audience.
Full interview where Roger Waters explains, among other things, why he chose Greece to film the show.
I must say, most people complied, mainly because they were respectful of the art project. But it took months of phone calls and marketing to convince the Greeks that they’ll be OK without their phones for the few hours it takes to get to the show, watch the show and get back home.
This is the early 2010’s mind you, in a country about to go into a great recession and part of eastern Europe, where pop culture trends take some time to be adopted. This is also in the early days of iPhones though most people in Greece didn’t even have smart phones. There was no Uber, no filming anyway, no location tracking, none of that. When I say it took phone calls to convince people, I mean it. They would call the office line every day and we would calmly talk them off the ledge and remind them of the 90s and the early 2000s when they were at the very least teenagers roaming the streets of Athens using payphones.
The shows in Greece were the last shows of that particular tour leg and you should know, it makes a difference how the touring crew acts. If the shows are the beginning of the leg, tensions are running high and everyone is super stressed out and demanding. By the time the tour has reached the end, the kinks are all worked out and everyone is doing what they know how to do best without stepping on each other’s toes. They’re also super lax with many things. It’s similar to senioritis which carries its own blessings and curses with it.
Going into load it for this show, we had just ended a 3-day festival in the woods, went home and packed, then went directly into load in for The Wall.
The way stadium shows go is pretty straightforward and generally easier than others because the infrastructure is there. You go in, set up the production offices, the crew spaces, dressing rooms, the catering, the stage area, etc. You set up the office in a way that also serves as a living area. You make sure there’s Ethernet for all of you because WiFi can be very unreliable, you set up the fold-out bed and the couch and 4 or 5 desks so everyone has their work area. Every time you set up an office it’s mostly the same as it is back at home base. You can’t bring the large copier but you can bring the small printer, you can’t bring your knick knacks but you have to bring the entire tower-and-monitor for your PC. Again, this is pre-laptop era, pre-smart tech.
Remember.
In addition to coming off of a 3-day festival (more on festivals later) and me handling all transportation, we are facing the challenge of having a completely different show taking place at a completely different venue. Not ideal but sometimes it happens when tour dates align that way. The show days for The Wall are July 8, 9 and 12th, with load in starting on July 4th. There are filming dates sprinkled in between. The previous festival was from July 1st through the 3rd and the OTHER band show is on July 6th. So, on the 4th of July I am in charge of festival bands and crews departing the country to their next destination, crews coming in for The Wall show, getting settled and checked in to their hotels, making sure they can get back and forth to the venue, that the timelines are correct, that the staggered crew and talent arrivals are all set, plus everything needed for this entirely separate show, plus of course any hospitality and production needs that arise.
My life is like so:
July 4th
7:30am - Van at Hotel to transfer Band 1 to Airport
8:30am - Van at Hotel to transfer Band 2 to Airport
9:00am - The Wall Crew Arrival - transfer to hotel
10:00am - Load in begins at Olympic Stadium - trucks arrive, unload, set up all production offices
10:00am - Breakdown and load out of all festival equipment from Festival Ground In The Woods
12:00pm - Lunch delivered for all
12:00pm - Van at Hotel to transfer Band 3 to Airport
12:15pm - Argue with driver and tour manager because nobody is where they’re supposed to be
3:00pm - Talent arrival
July 5th
6:00am Band arrival Transfer to Hotel
9:00am Load in stage equipment for OTHER show at Festival Ground In The Woods
11:30am Realize we took some stuff to the Olympic Stadium on accident
12pm Manage bringing the equipment from the Olympic Stadium to Festival Ground In The Woods
Load in a bunch of gear into Olympic Stadium
11:00pm Start filming tests for the Wall - overnight (SURPRISE!!)
1:00am - 7:00am Sit on couch in production office. Take short naps while sitting upright under fluorescent lights. Answer phone each time it rings and handle respective crisis.
July 6th
7:00am See off overnight film crew to hotel
7:30am Ensure breakfast is up and running
7:45am Pick up crew from hotel bring to Olympic Stadium
8:00am Welcome band crew
9:00am Secretly order surprise birthday cake for owner’s daughter
9:00am Pick up OTHER crew from hotel bring to Festival Ground In The Woods
12:00pm Pick up surprise cake. Return to Olympic Stadium. Hide in catering area.
1:00pm Get myself from Olympic Stadium to OTHER Band Hotel
1:30pm Pick up OTHER from Hotel to bring to Festival Ground In The Woods. Listen to Roy Orbinson with lead singer of OTHER band singing along.
3:00pm Pick up The Wall Band from Hotel to Olympic Stadium
3:00pm Go from Festival Ground In The Woods to Olympic Stadium
3:30pm En Route: Find licensed English-speaking chiropractor to come to venue and adjust band members
6:00pm Surprise Cake!!
6:15pm Get to Festival Ground In The Woods; deal with everything
10pm Show at Festival Ground In The Woods
8:00pm Pick up crew from Olympic Stadium to Hotel
1:00am Pick up OTHER Band from Festival Ground In The Woods to Hotel
2:00am Drop off OTHER band at hotel
2:15am Manage the huge argument that breaks out between the van driver and Lead Singer because the former refuses to drive the groupie home per the latter’s request
2:30am Go from Hotel to Olympic Stadium
3:00am Have dinner with the rest of the team at Olympic Stadium
? Sleep?
etc
In case you had any delusions that working in the music industry is classy, cool, exciting, and you’re just hanging out with cool people, partying and whatnot - it is not. Please refer to the above schedule and know that it’s only an outline of what we all went through at the time.
It was this show that taught me I actually can survive on close to no sleep for up to 3 days. I honestly am not sure how those load in days went. They were all a blur.
The one challenge about being on the last shows of the tour is that people think they’ve asked for things they actually haven’t. In this case, the most striking incident was when the film crew asked us where the overnight staff was. “What overnight staff?” “You know. The staff we asked to have during the overnight filming.” “What overnight filming?” “The one in the production timeline” (aka the one we never told you about).
So, yours truly and a few of my most reliable staff had to stay up all night and cater to the crew’s needs in order to make it happen. So much of the job description is “make it happen”, I don’t even question anymore why this needs to happen. It just does. And the reality is, when you are asking questions, you’re slowing down the process.
To add to the never-ending magic and drama, there is a pretty famous song that when originally recorded it included a children’s choir (you know the one). Naturally, the artist wants to have a local children’s choir at each show to perform that part. I have the amazing idea to reach out to a very famous dance school, the owner of which is a renowned choreographer and one of the judges on “So you think you can dance” Greece edition. He’s stoked to do it, he will be using one of the classes he already has in place and he’s dreaming about having both his sons be in it.
When we meet with the tour choreographer for rehearsal, he says that we need children of a slightly older age so the choreographer’s one son won’t be able to be in the song. He’s bummed but responds well because he’s a performance pro and choreographer himself.
As the show day approaches, he calls me to ask me again if his youngest son can be in it, and that he can train him, etc. I respond by saying no unfortunately you heard the choreographer, it can’t happen. Bummed but still ok. The show day arrives and, though this is a blimp in the production timeline, this issue still arises. The children’s choir arrives, they’re all dressed up, and the lead local choreographer brings both his sons.
We tell him once again that won’t work and this grown ass professional man commences a hissy fit, the immaturity of which I hadn’t witnessed up to that point. “If both my sons aren’t in the show, I’m taking the whole choir and heading out”.
Yes my friends. That actually happened.
Between a rock and a hard place, pushed in this way, we have to do it. The show is fine, it goes off fine, but this is something that really could’ve been avoided by, say, a contract. Although, in my defense, the choreographer was being very elusive throughout this whole process and not signing the contract, which is surprisingly not uncommon in the events world where grown men have emotional meltdowns about practical things.
It’s really sad when you interact with people you have previously admired and they turn out to be total assholes. Although I didn’t say anything explicitly to him, I’ve told everyone I came across how petty that guy was. Don’t meet your heroes.
On the second show day, at around 7pm, after doors are open but before the whole crowd has arrived, the tour production manager walks in our office.
-Hey y’all. We need someone who speaks English and Greek, to get on the stage and guide people to do something for a scene. It won’t take long.
Both my bosses and both my coworkers all turn simultaneously to look at me. My bosses go the extra step and point towards me.
- What?! No! Why?
- Because you speak English well and anyway you’re a performer, my production manager says, smirking.
- Fine. Fucking fine.
- Great! Let’s go!
I go to the side of the giant stage with my heart pounding. Sure, I may have been on stages, performing, more than the average person. But in no way does that mean I’m comfortable or like being on a stage! My heart is in my mouth as I’m listening to the direction of the film lead.
“We gave each audience member a mask upon their entry to the arena. Now we need to film this part. We’re going to give you this mic and you’re going to get on the stage. We will have a spot light on you. You’ll need to attract the audience’s attention and guide them to hold their masks up in the air. Then, instruct them to move them slowly up and down, to create the vibe of a wave. Once I give the signal, you’re going to have to guide them to turn the mask to the red side and bring it in front of their face abruptly. Hopefully we’ll be able to get it in one take. Got it? Let’s go!”
I get on stage and the audience is curiously shushing themselves.
This is a few hours before the show actually starts so not everyone is here but there’s quite a large audience. I’ve never been more thankful for being lit up and on a stage because I discover in that moment that you really can’t see the audience from the stage. It feels like I am in a black vacuum.
I feel a little like floating in space.
There’s nobody near me, I can’t see the floor, it’s all dark and the audience is waiting, holding masks I can’t see, I can’t see anything except this light…
I start speaking through the mic in my hand and I’m having an out-of-body experience.
Although I hate speaking in front of people, somehow I can get my shit together enough to get through this bit. I somehow manage to guide this audience to do as the film crew directed and they got it in one take!
I guess they did this only in two locations from the entire global tour and the masks are being sold on Worthpoint, eBay, and Amazon now, that’s how special the incident was. I keep forgetting that all happened, but I’m glad I was part of that moment. There is almost no footage of all that but I found two pics the internet:
Listen, it was very creepy which was a wonderful effect for real.
When I get off the stage, and for the rest of the day, people are congratulating me left and right. I didn’t think what I did was a big deal but I guess others thought it was so I graciously just said thank you and kept going.
During the show days, everything goes off without a hitch, despite the choir threats and whatnot.
Greeks didn’t bring their phones, they mostly didn’t smoke, it was amazing. The other rare occurrence is that the production team was actually able to see the show! This never happens. Most of the times during the show you’re either running around dealing with an emergency or napping cause it’s the only time nothing is happening. But, because we had 3 show days plus the rehearsals and the filming, everyone on the team was able to attend some version of the shows for at least 20 minutes of uninterrupted time.
It was huge and awesome and very, very rare.