Meet the Legendary Tour Managers of The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Alice Cooper and More The

Publish date: 2024-05-19

PHOTOS: Meet the Legendary Tour Managers of The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Alice Cooper and More – The Hollywood Reporter

Top Tour Managers
Going through customs with Keith Richards, losing Barbra Streisand's flowers, watching Alice Cooper kill a shark in his bathtub: Legendary tour managers Patrick Stansfield, David Libert, Marty Hom, Gus Brandt and Stuart Ross swap war stories about ego soothing, corralling groupies and how exactly $100,000 in cash gets delivered.
STORY: On the Rock 'n' Roll Road: Tour Managers of Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Alice Cooper Share War Stories
Patrick Stansfield
Stansfield broke into the music industry as a stage manager for Bill Graham's FM Productions, where he helped the famed concert promoter launch and popularize the first rock arena tours. Before retiring in 2002, Stansfield tour-managed The Rolling Stones, Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
How is $100,000 in cash delivered while on the road? "I walked through U.S. customs with Keith Richards, coming back in from Australia into Honolulu," said Stansfield. "And I had my own briefcase and an extra suitcase that was filled with, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand dollars."
What’s in a Job?
Behind every music tour — from Beyonce's Vegas-styled extravaganzas to Phish's weed-and-'shroom-fueled odysseys — is an unsung individual who's equal parts field marshal, political fixer, armchair psychoanalyst and bag man. The tour manager on a major artist's outing is often responsible for shepherding more than 100 musicians, gaffers, carpenters, lighting technicians and accountants on voyages that span the globe and entire seasons. At the same time, they have to anticipate hundreds of demands from not-always-appreciative employers while keeping the entourage happy, safe and out of trouble.
David Libert
After starting out with '60s pop group The Happenings, which had four top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, Libert became a booker at the Willard Alexander Agency. He served as Alice Cooper's tour manager during the rocker's '70s breakthrough, and later founded Available Entertainment.
Alice Cooper
"I guess my favorite story is the Edgewater Inn in Seattle," said Libert. "You have to get the artist the rooms that overlook Puget Sound so they can fish off of the balcony … So Alice, just before we were about to go to a show, catches a shark…And he doesn't want to throw the shark back because he wants to get a taxidermist to stuff it, right? Well, what are we going to do with the shark in the meantime? He says, 'Fill the bathtub up with water. We'll pour a bunch of salt in it.' Of course it died. But as we were standing there with Alice, we're looking at the shark, and this shark in the bathtub, he's actually looking at us. I don't know what he's thinking but he's looking at me and Alice. That was a really bizarre moment."
Handling Logistics
Stansfield said he used "a Rand McNally Gazetteer … Remember that in this equation, the band's management had a somewhat different agenda in terms of routing … Management wants you to play where they've decided you're going to play. If you were to say, 'I can't guarantee you we can make that gig,' [promoter-turned-movie producer] Jerry Weintraub would say, 'Pat, I'm a rich man. I pay guys like you to figure this out.' Tap, tap, tap on the cigar. 'Don't tell me nothing except 'yes.' Now, get the f— out of my face.' "
Gus Brandt
Brandt began as a punk-rock promoter in his native Pensacola, Fla., before breaking into road managing with Down by Law and Pennywise. He began working with Foo Fighters in 1996, and has tour-managed them ever since. Along the way, he's worked with Eminem, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails and many others, and booked Pensacola's DeLuna Fest.
Foo Fighters
"What we do is such a rarified, weird, not noble thing," said Brandt. "Just having that sixth sense of knowing when Barbra [Streisand] is going to go off on you or when [Foo Fighters'] Dave [Grohl] is going to be upset about the way the cheese smells — not that he ever has, but just as an example."
Marty Hom
A 40-year industry veteran, Hom is the longtime tour manager of Barbra Streisand and Fleetwood Mac, and has also worked with Shakira, Bette Midler, Lionel Richie, The Eagles, Alicia Keys, Shania Twain and Janet Jackson. Hom was deposed by AEG as an expert witness in the Michael Jackson wrongful death lawsuit.
Staying Put
"You know what I think it is? I think we do it not only because we love it and we're passionate about it but I think there is a sense of camaraderie," said Hom, who has worked with Shakira. "It's like when you all go on the road together and you have this great team of people and you pull off a show and you kind of look at each other because everybody on that tour played a small part in accomplishing that show."
Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand
"When Barbra Streisand was playing Staples Center, it was like going to the Academy Awards," said Hom. "Everybody was there: Sidney Poitier, Elizabeth Taylor, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman — the creme de la creme of Hollywood. What happens is, they all send her flowers at Staples Center."
Fleetwood Mac
"I've been with Fleetwood Mac for 17 years, Barbra for 13 years," said Hom. "If you've toured with somebody long enough, they are your family. And you're kind of like the dad who takes care of them, and they depend on you. The younger artists are a little different in that they surround themselves with entourages now. They have assistants, they have managers who go on the road, publicists, they have people. The relationships are still good but they're not as personal because there are layers of people you have to go through."
Stuart Ross
Ross has tour-managed Tom Waits for more than 20 years, and was part of the team that launched Lollapalooza. He's also headed Goldenvoice/AEG's festival division and worked with acts like Metallica, George Michael and Weezer. He currently oversees touring and festivals at Red Light Management, and heads his own Music Tour Consulting agency.
Making Dates
"In the '60s, bands would have one or two people working for them, doing everything," said Ross. "I worked for The Doors doing equipment when I was 16, and they had one person on the road with them, Vince Treaner, and he picked up people regionally and we worked for free … [without cellphones,] if you were going from Anchorage [Alaska] to Xenia, Ohio, you looked up Anchorage and then you went down all of the names until you got to Xenia, and it would give you the mileage. And that's how we routed tours. We had no other way to do it.”