Not Candy Colorblind

 

“Absolutely NO brown M&Ms”

You would only have seen this demand if you’d read to page 40 of rock band Van Halen’s 53-page rider. A rider is a contract between the band and the venue and lays out everything from how to set up the stage to what snacks to put backstage.

Most bands in the 80’s, Roth said, would have riders the size of pamphlets, about six pages long. Not Van Halen.

Van Halen’s showmanship, along with great music, combined to make them one of the most popular bands of the 80’s and 90’s.

A lot went into making their show stand out, and it was important that all the details from load bearing capacity of the stage to how electrical was set up to physical space around the entire show, was set up just so.

Detail after detail filled the pages of their rider. When it got to the “Munchies” section of the rider, the band wrote specifics about which meals would be served to them on which days.

And oh yes, M&M’s, of course. But clearly stated in the rider was when it came to the candy-coated chocolate, they were to have ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN M&M’s.

Roth laughed when he recalled this years later, saying that people assumed they were messing with people and being that picky because they could be. The band let people think it was all part of the mystique.

The real reason no brown M&M’s

Roth explained that because their band was doing things in their show that other bands weren’t, they had a higher need for attention to detail so that the stage and light fixtures could carry the load.