Download a PDF - PLSN.com

FEATURE
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS
speaking French Canadians how the complicated
introduction with lasers needed to go when
he was summoned to Dio’s dressing room. Feeling
that the task at hand was more important, he
kept working on the show. Dio didn’t see it that
way and fired him.
“I flew home thinking I would never work in
this business again.”
That fear turned out to be fallacious. Rich
Fisher, tour manager
of Mötley Crüe,
would give him his
next opportunity.
“During the 1980s
I worked with a
lot of heavy metal
bands,” he says. “We
did crazy things —
like playing all 50
states with Metallica.”
And every
band was trying to
top the others. “If
Iron Maiden had
800 PAR cans we
had to have 850.”
The 1990s came, and Berry continued to
spend an enormous amount of time on some of
the top-selling tours of the day, including Mötley
Crüe’s Theatre of Pain, followed by Girls Girls Girls.
“It was a very creative time,” he says and recalls
when they had Crüe drummer Tommy Lee spinning
around with his drums during a performance.
“We used a forklift and hydraulics, did
it for about $85,000, and safety concerns were
zilch! That effect would cost over a million dollars
today. We’d just open the curtain, push it out
there and then pray it worked!”
Berry also worked with Roger Davis, another
legendary manager whom Berry refers to as the
“King of the Divas” for his landmark work with
Cher, Tina Turner and Janet Jackson. Berry was
part of many of those phenomenal tours.
You Can Get What You Want
Keith Richards, Jake Berry and Ron Woods at Jake’s 50th birtday party
in 2002, during the Rolling Stones’ Forty Licks tour.
plsn
Once when Berry had a rare open spot in his
schedule and he called Jeffrey looking for work.
Jeffrey said that they were trying to find a drum
tech for Berlin. “I can do that!” Berry said. Despite
his lack of experience in that area, Berry came
aboard and learned quickly. Typical of Berry, he
had a great time doing it. He also has equally
fond memories of touring for Frankie Goes to
Hollywood during the same period.
In 1993, Canadian concert promoter (and
now chairman of Live Nation) Michael Cohl
called Berry and told him the Rolling Stones
were looking for a new production manager for
the Steel Wheels tour. Being a fan since he was a
teenager, this was an opportunity to “meet the
people you idolized as a kid.”
“Next thing I know, I was standing in a room
at the Four Seasons in London looking out the
window, and then I just froze — I knew Mick
[Jagger] had walked into the room without
even seeing him. Suddenly I was a little kid from
Devon again.” That meeting went well, as did
one with drummer Charlie Watts (“the gentleman
of Rock ‘n’ Roll”). “When I went in to meet
Keith, he was playing pool with [tennis star]
John McEnroe. He asked who I worked with and
when I said AC/DC, he replied, ‘That’s my favorite
band. I love Angus. You’re hired.’”
For Berry it was a like jumping to the major
leagues. “It was a whole new spectrum of touring.”
Working on this tour and then the Voodoo
Lounge tour allowed him to work with lighting
designer Patrick Woodroffe.
“There is no one more passionate, committed,
or able than Jake Berry to lift a huge production
up onto his shoulders and then set off on
tour for a year,” Woodroffe explains. “Although I
have seen him in many frightening situations,
Scenic designer Mark Fisher calls Berry “very noisy
and certainly mad, which helps in this business.”
both intellectual and physical, he has never appeared
afraid. He makes decisive decisions that
seem to sweep everyone along in his wake.” He
adds with a laugh: “And we do both have the
shared experience of having being threatened
by Keith Richards. With Jake, it involved a knife,
and me, a gun. But we both managed to survive
with our dignity and cojones intact!”
Berry adds that it gave him a chance to
Ian Jeffrey tells the tale of the
AC/DC gig where Berry hired a
helicopter to dry a wet stage.
work with “the greatest set designer of all time,”
Mark Fisher. Fisher, who since 1994 has done
many live events with Berry, recognized that
when Berry joined the Stones he was indeed
“the new kid.” “It was important that we got on
well with him because he was the new kid on
the block,” he says. “And Jake is very good with
dealing with stars and made himself at home
very quickly.”
Berry quickly analyzed the workings of the
organization. Jagger and Watts typically provided
the creative direction a tour would take,
while Richards concerned himself almost exclusively
with the sound. “You couldn’t have an
element on the stage that would [hinder] the
sound,” he says.” Fisher and Woodroffe would
start the process of design and go back and
forth with the band until they had something
they were all excited about.
Yet Berry got off to a rocky start. Early in
preparing for the tour, “I remember the rehearsals
for Voodoo Lounge, and a heavy Jumbotron
screen fell,” Berry recalls. In notifying the band
of the setback, word failed to get to Richards,
and a tough confrontation ensued. “They were
honest words,” he says. “I had just taken another
production manager’s place and Keith wanted
to know how he could trust me after that.” Berry
took his lumps and went off and proved himself.
Today there’s an original artwork by Richards
hanging in Berry’s house which came with a
note that states simply: “He who came through
— Love, Keith.”
In 2002 the
Stones again
summoned him
for the Forty
Licks tour, which
was memorable
for being the
tour in which
Berry turned 50.
The day before
his birthday,
the band was
preparing for a
show in Munich.
LD Patrick Woodroffe says “there’s no Berry was informed
that Jag-
one more passionate, committed and
able” than Berry.
ger wanted to
see him in his dressing room. It was a sobering
request, as Berry points out that if one is ever
summoned to a rock star’s dressing room, it is
not to have lavish praised heaped upon oneself.
When Berry got to Jagger, he led him to
where a party was in full swing — a party for
Berry. He did a double take as he spotted his
mom, sitting between Richards and Ronnie
Wood. “It was total class,” he said. And speaking
of class, tour manager Alan Dunn treated Berry
and the gang by dressing in drag.
What would happen next is an embarrassment
of riches. A meeting with Paul McGuiness
led to an invitation to join another of rock’s royal
families, U2. Berry flew to Dublin, sat down with
the band, and soon he was working on their tours.
Berry would become an important member of
that family, too. When health-conscious Bono
heard he wasn’t feeling well, he demanded Berry
be sent to the Mayo Clinic. Berry asked Bono if he
had a choice and was firmly told no. Soon Berry
was in Rochester, Minn., getting a long overdue,
thorough checkup.
continued on page 49
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.com/instant-info
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.com/instant-info
40 PLSN OCTOBER 2009