Barry Dickens of MAM Booking Agency asked me if I would like to be the Promoter Representative for a tour he was producing - the Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours' tour of the UK and Europe.
Of course, I didn't have to think twice - this was the break I was needing on my way to becoming a freelance tour manager! And what a great band to get a break with
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I hope you enjoy looking through the riders and itineraries for this tour. It is about detail from now on with more and more detail going into the information packs that get distributed to everyone on the tour. The tour itinerary itself gets the not too kind name of 'The Book of Lies' in the future, but at this stage at least, the basic information is getting drawn up and listed. I personally like the bands technical and personal riders. It's the first I'd come across them as I am a tour manager first and foremost, but on this tour, working as the promoters' man, (and as the Mac toured in the States a lot), they had theirs in some sort of order already. The technical rider for a band changes as the type of venue they play changes and it's really important to keep it up to date, and that is as true in the current day as it was back then.
An original Warner Bros Rumours Album promo sticker
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There were few security firms in this business of ours at this time. On this tour MAM hired Artists Services, headed by Don Murfitt to look after the safety of the bands and the audiences of the shows. We also used them for overnight security and had someone sit on stage during the night to make sure nothing got nicked when we were doing multiple shows! I worked for Don a few years later when he asked me to tour manage Adam Ant, who he managed.
Before the tour began there was the wedding of Jim Cregan and Linda Lewis to attend, a very nice do it was as well, having just got over the stag do a couple of days before!!
I also got to see Pink Floyd at Wembley Empire Pool doing their 'Animals' show, and that was another first with huge mobiles moving over the audience. Here is a great YouTube clip of the show a couple of weeks before I saw it, this time in Munich https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rtEEiWXbME and Snowy White on second guitar. Snowy had briefly been with us in Cockney Rebel and was such a lovely guy. The projection on that show was also amazing, on to a circular screen at the back of the stage.
I then got to see my hero Frank Zappa, in fact I think I went to both shows at the Hammersmith Odeon. The YouTube clip is I believe from the following year in February '78 which I attended as well.
I tell this story in more detail on audio, but on the first show I was asked to purchase 2 pairs of extra long black ballet tights by the tour manager John Courage, for Mr Mick Fleetwood. I was in the middle of Birmingham, at the Odeon thinking, 'f**k where do I get those from?!'
A company I became very fond of and hired for band gear transport a lot in those days was Ramport trucking, run by Roger Searle, the LD for The Who. They changed their name and were to become a section of ML Executives, the full service production company run from Shepperton Studios by the original crew of The Who. For a brief period they were called Ramport and I think this is one of a very rare documented itinerary that has their name.
Finally on the page to the left that shows the production company detail within the itinerary, I must comment on the transport company, Berryhurst Car Hire. Mike Levy, the owner started the company as a limo company in the entertainment business and became THE company to get a Limo in London from at this time. He created original personalised diaries around 1977 and started to give them away at Christmas, to his customers, a personalised diary every year. I have ones from 1977 to 1986, with my name embossed on the front, a nice touch if I say so myself, thank you Mike....
Tuesday April 26th 1977 I went to see the Eagles on their Hotel California tour at Wembley Empire Pool, I LOVED IT !!
When we were in London at the Rainbow Theatre, I invited the whole Fleetwood Mac crew to my flat in East Finchley for a party.... Most of the guys came along and we had an interesting evening. I think they just liked to be somewhere other than the gig or the hotel. I have always during my career looked forward to an outside 'invitation' to somewhere other than the tour environment. It makes you more grounded.
I'd like to point out a couple of guys I went on to work along side a few times after this tour. One is Mr Curry Grant from the Mac crew. Curry the LD, I worked along side again in the 80's when he became the LD for Supertramp. I have some great photos of Curry on that tour, he is the one with the drinking hat!! Billy Duffield and Simon Franklin from the UK lighting crew also became future touring colleagues and Billy became a good friend before the accident in '79 on the Kate Bush tour took him from us all.
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