Harvey Goldsmith

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, welcome back to the Barbs podcast. My yesterday
is truly a legend of the live music war Concer promoter,
Events promoter, Harvey Goldsmith, Harvey, Hi, Bob, thank you very
much for having me. I'm kind of looking forward to
this discussion. Okay, let's start out with the type of

(00:29):
jure when our shows coming back. Well, yeah, that's been
quite interesting. Were suddenly in England in the UK seeing
some light at the end of the tunnel and we
had a whole discussion about it today. I had Minister
of Vaccines called me up yesterday to ask me what

(00:49):
the issues were with our industry because we were getting
nowhere with the government. It looks like country. So what
you may have read in the papers that life will
start probably end of August, beginning of September. We're hoping
that there maybe one or two smaller open air events,
but the notion of reading and leads fifty capacity plus

(01:14):
and all that, I'd be quite amazed if they happen
this year. But we are hoping that indoor events and
the smaller outdoor events that happened late summer and then
indoor events will kick off in September. That's what we're
hoping for. Okay, Glastonbury canceled, but reading and leads they
still see that they're going to go on, and that's

(01:36):
what I was just intervacing. Didn't actually say they were
going to go on. They said that they the headliners
are still booked. They didn't actually say yes, we're happening
because they can't. The earliest that any if everything goes
well and smoothly, the earliest we are going to know
whether we can have, you know, a back to normal

(01:59):
is June. That's the very earliest. What is the significance
of June because what's happening The government have announced four
different stages of activity to get back to normal. And
while that's going on, there is more rapid testing being developing,
the vaccines being rolled out, there's now three vaccines available, etcetera, etcetera.

(02:24):
But the government are thinking, should everything be good and
we don't find another variant that the infection rate is
going down, the death rate is going down, the hospitalization
rate is going down. So consequently, if various schools are
going back March the eight, the next move is that

(02:49):
people couldn't start mixing together up to six people. The
next movie is that retail will open, gym's were open.
You've got to actually get a haircut for the first time,
not that you and I need it, but nevertheless everybody
else does, um and sold and so forth. And then
they're going made they're going to allow socially distant shows,

(03:12):
which for us they work um and up to a
thousand people. And then in June, if all goes well
and there's no increase in infection rates, etcetera, then the
government is saying they're going to open the doors to
get back to normal. But we don't think that is

(03:34):
enough time from June to get everything together because they've
still got to work out the protocols for opening up shows,
which haven't been sorted out yet. They've got to test them,
they've got to evaluate them, they've got to cost them,
and then we've got to work out the balance between
vaccines are rapid testing, because the rapid testing by five

(03:56):
minute tests are not don't show a long enough results
as yet, so they're still developing those. They've got to
look at the results of the vaccine. So we think
that we may have some smaller up to maybe fifteen
thousand capacity towards the end of the summer August onwards.

(04:16):
But I can't personally see a reading and the leads
at fifty capacity, or even the Big Hide Park shows
happening this summer because I just don't think there's enough
time to get it all sorted out. Okay, let's just
assume we'll use September one, that you can put on
arena shows in September one if you're the promoter A.

(04:39):
What are the issues of insurance? Well, that's I was
going to come onto that. There are three key issues.
One is what are the protocols which we just talked
about vaccines cleanin US, dealing with ventilation if it's indoors
social distancing testing. The next thing isn't sure currants unless

(05:01):
the government can help either force the insurance industry or
do what we've asked them to do is to create
a bond which we will subscribe to UM. And there's
if there's no insurance, there's no shows, there's no festivals,
and there's no tours because it's too risky. At the moment,
you cannot get cover for COVID anywhere in the world.

(05:26):
The final thing is an issue of US leaving the
e C. And there are two issues there. One is visas. Currently,
you have to get a different visa for every country.
It's a walking nightmare. You're gonna have to have fifty
seven different passports because you have to send them in.
They're going to be stamped and blah blah blah. The

(05:47):
second thing is something which you've never heard of. It's
called cabotage. Cabotage was a system devised by geniuses at
the e C many years ago to stop Russian truck
drivers dumping in Europe. And what kabotage means is if
you take a truck, load it up with sound, light,

(06:10):
staging and backline in London, taking on a ferry to
Paris to do your first show, you can unload it,
you can load it back up, you can drive it
to the next gig, and then you have to stop,
send the trucks back with the driver, and then you've

(06:31):
got to find other trucks to start again, and then
every other go you've got to keep doing it because
you're only allowed one drop off, one load up. So
that's going to completely screw European tours. They are they
understand it now, the government they it was an omission apparently,
but they are starting to talk to the e C

(06:54):
about sorting that out. They've still got to deal with
the insurance, which is a major global issue, and they've
also got to deal with the protocols. That's why I
think Summer's end of summer is the earliest. Okay, based
on prior conversations with you, you were very pro Brexit. Yes,

(07:14):
how do you feel about Brexit? Now? They're still pro it.
It doesn't because you know they've discovered that there must
I'm told there were fourteen thousand statutes to go through,
and I am as much as I think it's staff
where we've got to, I accept that they're going to

(07:35):
be issues that just fall out of the trees that
haven't been dealt with, because that's the way the nature
of the beast. Anybody that's got any sense will know
that these things were not meant for our business. They
weren't there to to stop our business from taking place,
or to stop European artists coming to England or and

(07:56):
trucks and so on. So it'll get sorted out. It's
only if the will is there, the way will be found. Okay.
Just for those people who are not necessarily from the
UK or at verse can you please tell us why
you personally approa brexit um. It goes back to the

(08:16):
time when the EU was formed. There is a difference
between the EU, the European Union, and the e C.
The EU was principally formed after the war as a
way to stop another war and to get countries, all

(08:37):
of whom were in a complete disaster state, to come together,
to work together and to to start to redevelop their
countries and to trade with each other. The prime reason
was to sort out a trading relationship, which was fine
as it developed and more and more countries came on board.

(08:58):
A layer of bureaucracy C came about and the e
C Commissioners, who are unelected were then put into place.
They have one agenda and one agenda only, and that
is to have one federal state of Europe, and every
other member state and every person that lives in the

(09:20):
e C is paying for these people fortunes. All they
want is a one federal state. Whereas every citizen of
every country in Europe wants to be a citizen of
that country, whether it's the UK or whether it's Germany
or France or whatever. They don't want to be in
one federal state. They do want to trade with each other,

(09:44):
and there's this mix up and unfortunately, because they're not elected,
they're starting to become, if you like, semigods. So they
only eat at the best restaurants. Lunch goes on forever.
If you and have lunch, they will talk to you.
You can't get business done. They dictate the rules. They

(10:06):
suddenly decide, well, you can't have Yorkshire puddings, or you
can't have British sausages, or our cheddar cheese is no
good because they're bored, and so on. I spent a
year going out. There is a representative for the UK
to deal with an outfit called the EC is divided
up into divisions, and this was called DG ten, which

(10:28):
is a cultural division. It just to be clear for
those who don't know. For those who don't know, EC
is the European Commission, yeah, and d G ten is
the Cultural Office. They told us they had one billion
euros to spend on developing music across Europe and they
wanted to They have representatives from eight or nine countries coming.

(10:50):
I went over to represent England. I went there six times.
They told us they had a billion euros to unlock
the key of the cupboard that's got the money in
it is absolutely impossible. But they said, so you go there,
you have lunch, which is other waste of time. You
have dinner, you have a hotel, they run you around

(11:12):
in limousines, you have lunch again, dinner. Can't unlock the
keys to the money. And what happens at the end
of the days. Instead of this money going which is
what we all wanted, was to go to on the ground,
street level encouragement for people to get into music, new artists,
new bands, some form of competition, touring around Europe with

(11:35):
new artists and new cultural ideas. All that happened was
the money went to the b p I the money
which is the record industry. The money went to the
PRS which is the performing rights people. The money went,
money went to the TV associations and the film associations.
Are not one single penny went down the grassroots music.

(11:59):
And it's a joke, okay, just since you're so educated.
Shifting the focus a little bit, uh, in terms of
Brexit on banking, certainly the city in London was the
epicenter certainly for the continent. Uh. And now something for
the well one could argue in New York City, but
let's not argue that, Okay, but you know things are

(12:22):
moving uh. Universal is going to go public in Amsterdam.
In addition their issues of shipping, there's issues of getting
e uh like construction of cars, getting parts from other
countries and sometimes the parts have to go back and forth,
making the focus larger. You still think Brexit's gonna work

(12:44):
itself out, Um, yes, because Brexit because they you it's
got too big and you have the difficulty of propping
out most of the countries. There's economy. Um is difficult
to put it bluntly, where the central banks are proper

(13:07):
having a prop up. We're contributing and we unfortunately in
the UK or on its citizens. So when when there's
a rule that comes up which the French farmers don't like,
they don't do it. But when the rule comes up
to Britain, the British farmers government, god, and we hate this,
but we'll have to do it. So we've already always complied.

(13:28):
But the French do whatever they want to do, and
so on and so forth. So it just doesn't work
for us. There will be hiccups. We've only been out
of the EU and the EC since January the third
December thirty one. If we're in February, it's going to
take six months before it sorts itself out. We will

(13:50):
have a thriving trading relationship with Europe, but we will
be able to row our own boats, principally in on
the League Eagle system we'll have. We will be back
in control of our legal system. We will be back
in control of trade. We can decide if we want
to trade with Australia or America or New Zealand or Timbucto.

(14:13):
We can trade with it. We don't have to ask
the e C. We will forge a very good, workable
trading relationship with the EU, and they need us and
we need them. So it will happen, and it'll within
and by this time next year you're going, what was
all the row about? We'll just get on with it.
There will be a few things that clearly aren't the same.

(14:35):
There are issues of joint companies and joint ventures like
the European Space Agency, like Eurotunnel, like and so on
and so forth, um, but they'll get sorted out as well.
We need our own car industry. We need to be
able to build electric cars in the UK with our
own batteries and our own battery system. We can't be

(14:58):
just depend on and everything in Europe. We have to
forge our own independence. And maybe how farmers will get
better and we'll be on easing really good English lab
which gets exported around the world. Maybe our fish will
start to um to regrow and and all of the
fisheries will start to get bigger again because they're over fish.

(15:21):
We can control it. We will have our own car
industry because we have to, and we will control our
own clothing and all the rest of it. And we'll
have a great trading relationship with our friends in Europe
and they'll love it. But we don't want to be
part of that mess. Okay, let's go back to what's

(15:41):
going to happen in the four Speak to how much
pent up demand there will be and be will ticket
prices sustain or as a result of a year staying
at home, are people harbled and not able to pay
the prices they used to? Okay, here's the city squation.
There were hundreds, if not thousands, of concerts um Plan

(16:09):
for two thousand and twenty. Every single one of those
was postponed to two thousand and twenty one. All of
those concerts that were planned for the first half, quarter
one and quarter two of twenty one have now been
moved to quarter one and quarter two of twenty two.
Plus a lot of people who are like unsure about

(16:33):
um indoor shows coming back in quarter three have also
moved into twenty two. So we have a situation of gridlock.
The venues are suffering because they're having a whole dates
in twenty one and twenty two and they don't know
which ones are going to work. Currently. You cannot get
a date in a venue for love nor money. That's

(16:55):
point one. The interesting thing is that the ticket rebase
people getting there asking for their money back is probably
less than five percent across the board. I had a
whole discussion with with one of my fellow promoters this afternoon,
and um, we've got I've got a whole series of

(17:18):
shows with Andre Pacelli coming up. Um, we've moved it
from twenty to twenty one, and we may have to
move it to twenty two depending on what happens. We've
refunded out of twenty eight thousand tickets, we've refunded a
hundred and fifty eight and so on as you go
through this week and last week. As a result of

(17:40):
actually this week really as a result of the Mayor's
the gut the Prime Minister's an announcement, thousands of tickets
were sold. There's huge pent up demand for concerts. There
is a confidence issue, but there is no there is
no um let up of people wanting to go. So

(18:04):
there is an issue of confidence. Some factors are not
quite sure and they want to be dead sure before
they actually go. But nobody's giving up their tickets, which
is really quite fascinating. So for example, I start my
September off with Jimmy Buffett. My Jimmy Buffett shows sold
out in about four seconds, and when we moved them

(18:28):
from twenty to twenty one, nobody back an eyelid. Were
actually refunded twelve tickets. That was it. And if I
have to move into twenty two because they're early September,
it'll be the same. So what we've discovered is that
obviously the younger you get, the more pent up demand
there is. There is a little bit reticence of reticence.

(18:51):
I probably the forty five plus age group, but they
just want the confidence to know they've had a vaccine,
there's a proper testing environment. What's the issue we have.
Do you have to wear masks or not masks? And
how are the venues if they're indoors, going to be
sanitized with better ventilation and so on and so forth
once they know that they're going to come back in droves.

(19:14):
So ticket prices can't go up at the moment because
there's nowhere to go up to because all the concerts
of books are all twenties inventory that's the same globally,
same in America, same all over the world. All the
inventory for twenties now moved to twenty one. And that's
the situation it's going to be before probably to the

(19:36):
middle of twenty two, before a new life starts. Whether
ticket prices starts to increase a lot, I don't know um,
But at the moment they can't because they're fixed. So
you can't have a differential from ticket somebody that bought
a ticket in nineteen or early twenty for constant in

(19:56):
twenty that are now going to happen late twenty one,
and you've got to say a thousand tickets left because
you haven't sold them all. You can't suddenly put them
out and double the price. But the issue who pays
the course of the sanitization, the ventilation and the extra
insurance that's going to be gobbled up between the promoters

(20:19):
and the artists, And quite honestly, the artists gonna have
to come to the table the same as the promoters are.
So the old days of the agents hanging out so
they squeeze your nuts off and there's nothing left are over.
They're going to have to be more open to be
able to allow shows to happen. They have to be

(20:41):
aware that if there's an insurance issue, whatever it ends
up being, if shows a counsel at the last, very
last minute because of COVID and it's overcover for it, um,
everybody's gonna have to dip into their pockets to deal
with it. So it's shared risk and then life or work.
So I think there will be some shift changes for

(21:01):
the better, if I may add, but of course they
won't last very long because the grief factor then sticks
in them. We'll go back to the the rolling. Okay,
So the business has changed dramatically from when you got
in in the seventies. Are so if that time essentially
after it leads up when it was but the guarantees

(21:23):
were low. Now the guarantees are incredibly high. And do
you see that changing. No, the guarantees will still be
the same because there's too much demand. There's too much
competition between promoters in each marketplace who don't want to
give in, who have to have those acts that they're
going to pay through the nose for them. And all
the agents sit down, they're just playing tennis. They look

(21:46):
at this one and then they go what about you?
And they look at that one and he says this,
and then they go back this one and says he
says this. That's the nature of the animal. Okay, which
brings up the issue of consolidation, which is five years
old that year. What is your viewpoint because you're a
total independent, he mean, were you ever offered to join

(22:07):
either age or a live nation And what is your
viewpoint about them? And how do you compete with them today? Okay? Um,
I don't compete with them, is the answer. I do
different things. I work on events and shows all over
the world. I work with my own kind of level
of artists that I want to work with bit Hand Summer,

(22:28):
who I kind of created be it Um. But Celli
the artists that I want. You know that I do.
I do events all over the world, and I work
on more on a different side of the business than
I used to. So I'm not that there is no
way that I can compete with the ages or the
Live Nation, and I don't want to have fun enough.

(22:50):
I work with both of them as well when it
when necessary, so I concentrate. I do enough. I do
my events, which I get paid for. I work kin
in an immersive theater world. I work in other areas
of activity uh, and I work in on creating events
all over the world, which I do very nicely. Out

(23:11):
of when I started, it was different. Um. I got
to the point where I actually used to go in
the office to figure out who I was that day?
Was I Elton John? Was I Paul McCartney, Was I
led Zeppelin? Was I Queen? And if I went out
with Queen, Elton John would find me out and say,
where the hell are you? You're with that Freddie again.
So I went out with Elton John. He Freddie would

(23:33):
call up and say, I'm not working with you again
because you're out with Elton John. And that that was
my life. I used to go in and say who
am I today? It was nuts six seven shows a
day all over the world. Um, I've done that, had
the paint, I've had the most fantastic life, which I
thoroughly enjoyed. But it sence the consolidation. It doesn't matter

(23:56):
now interest just to let me tell you about the
consolidation is a very interesting situation. That's where I was going.
As you know, America. The whole promoter pattern in America
was created by Frank Barcelona. Frank Barcelona, for those that
don't know, run an agency called Premier Talent. Premier Talent

(24:18):
was had the best of the best of the British acts,
which is how I came to know Frank. He and
I became unbelievably close friends. I'm still friendly with his
wife and his daughter. Um. And Frank showed the way.
Frank really opened the doors to how music should work

(24:38):
in America. And what he did is he picked a
promoter in every main city and every main connurbation and
said that's your city. I'm going to work with you
and you're going to get every show I have, which
is great. That worked very nicely because there was some
competition in the middle, and then there was a come

(25:00):
nicolled Concerts West, which UM through Jerry Weintrobe had the
rights to deal with Elvis Presley, and then they started
to do national tours. And there was a hundred pound
gorilla called Bill Graham who lived in San Francisco who
kind of did what he liked up to a point.
So that was the marketplace and it all worked really well.

(25:24):
When uh Mitch Slazer and Ron Delsner came across UM,
this very interesting chap who started a company called sf
X and wanted to buy up promoters. He only wanted
to buy up promoters that had a solid base either
they had some value, which was a venue. So that's

(25:46):
how it started. He started buying up promoters that had venues,
mainly amphitheaters. Some had clubs, but most of them were amphitheaters,
and he started to build a network. When that started
to happen, you could see the consolidation of SFX turned
into Clear Channel. Clear Channel then became Live Nation, and

(26:08):
we know where it is. So we now have this
big brute called Live Nation that is across the whole
of the entertainment industry and is a global player. God
bless them they have God knows seven thousand employees and
blah blah blah blah, good luck to them. A g

(26:29):
came about because phil and Shoots wanted to build an
arena business and he came to me because he wanted
to buy Wembley Stadium and he wanted some help. But
he wanted wem To Stadium and Wembley Arena, and unbekownst
to him, I was sitting on a government committee um

(26:50):
looking at the future of Wembley Stadium and there was
a piece of land that had to be compulsory purchased,
which means you couldn't talk about it because it just
literally turned up with a Britain say I'm sorry, I'm
buying this piece of land and then there's a fair
market whatever. So he said to me, would would I
help him buy Wembley Stadium And I said absolutely, no

(27:13):
wirries at all, except unfalsely, you can't. He said, yes, okay,
and I've got to check in my pocket and I've
got a cupboard for you know, briefcase for the contracts.
It's not going to happen, and it didn't. I was
also working with the government trying to find the future
for this thing called the Dome, which was built for
the Millennium Exhibition and anyway, so I took a fill there.

(27:38):
He was fuling when he found out he couldn't buy Wembley,
which he couldn't, and he thought about it. He wanted
a base in London, and we talked it through and
I introduced into the government and blah blah, blah blah.
He ended up buying the Dome, which is now the
O two. And I said to him at the time,
when everybody said it's a disaster, I said, this is

(28:00):
turning a lemon into a melon. And if you can
create a venue that both the audience like front of
house and the artists like back of house, it could
be in the middle of a field, in the desert
or in the desert, people will go to it. If
Madonna's playing there or the Rolling Stones are playing there,

(28:21):
they will go. But you better makee damn sure that
you have satisfied both the audience and made it good
and convenient for them and the artists. So they like
going there because they'll tell everybody else to go there.
It's exactly what happened. Phil is a genius because he
gets the best of the best. He built the O two.

(28:44):
He opened it and for the day it opened it
became the number one venue in the world, and it's
never got off that perch ever, So there was a
business there. Phil's problem was that he was deeply concerned
that as clear channel will building up their business, they
were also controlling venues management, and they were and promoters,

(29:07):
and he was worried that if they build up sufficient venues,
they were just block going to the A G venues.
So alongside it, against his better judgment, I might add,
he built up a promoting side and suddenly with the
meet with Mr Irving as off in the middle of
it all. And it was Irving that introduced me to Field,

(29:29):
by the way, so I have no problems with Irving personally,
but right whatever, just to go into Irving from his
viewpoint on this or I'm speaking for Irving, he wanted
Fill to build a promotion business so he could play
the two off each other benefiting. That's that's that's his pocisition.
That's fair enough. But what happened was he did better

(29:53):
the acts. But what it's set up was a deep
competition between A G and Live Nation, and they were
each outbidding each other, which meant that if you were
a an independent promoter in America or indeed some of
the great cities of Europe, you just didn't have a
chance because they had unlimited pockets. They had lots of backing,

(30:15):
and they had unlimited pockets. So therefore you couldn't compete.
So that build up and what happened, what's happened is
that it's now like dealing with a country. You're dealing
with civil servants, because that's what they are. They're not
really creative people. They do a bloody good job. I

(30:36):
have no complaints about either company whatsoever, but they do
it to a level. And so the business, in my opinions,
has suffered very badly because you need that Mumma and Papa.
You need that independent guy. You need that man, the
Bill Grahams of the world. You need the Rondelsters who

(30:57):
got sucked into obviously into into five Nation and so on.
And you need the Larry maggie Is who had a
different way of doing things. And the only two that
stuck it out was An'tie and Jerry now Um Jerry
in Chicago in America, and they're the only I think
they're the only two independents left. And Um I never forget.

(31:21):
There was a time when Frank Barcelona phoned me up.
He was having problems for you too, and he asked
for some help. And then he says to me, listen,
you are going to stick with me on on this
whole Live Nation business or SFX business. At the time,
I said sure, and he said, I'm going to get
Don Law on the phone, and Don is going to

(31:41):
you know, he's really adamant. He's not going to work
with them or anything like that. I want you, really,
let's work together and make sure they don't pick off
the best of the best in other territories. I'm gonna
fine whether this conversation or great. Now. Less than three
months later I pick up. I can't remember. It was
all board and variety of one of the others, Like

(32:03):
I see that Larry's side that don't sold his business
to lot to SFX, and I phone Barcelona up. He
was in tears. So I don't understand it. And I
think what happened was it just got to the point
where everybody just started to roll over. There was a
check waiting for them. It was a bit of security.
Their view was I'm going to sign a three to

(32:23):
five year contract and I'm out of there, and so
on and so forth. But of course Live Nation grew
as a business and it is. It is an incredible
business when you think about it for what it does.
And a G became a slightly different business because they
really control more arenas than anybody else in the world,

(32:45):
and particularly with the latest deal with it with SMG,
they are the biggest arena operators in the world and
um between them they controlled the market. So how do
you want to compete with them on a tour? You can't.
Whereas before there were global tours, but most of them
were regional tours, so you would I would have my region,

(33:08):
and Bill Graham would have his region and the Australians,
Michael Goodinski would have his regions Australasia and he would
handle that and so on and so forth. Suddenly, um,
these big companies were pitching and say we're going to
buy you globally, We're going to buy a merchandizing So
I had my merchandizing company. Unfortunately I sold to Michael Cole,

(33:31):
but that was good, so I got there for that.
But um uh, suddenly they were in every facet of it,
and they were doing different deals in essence, they were
doing treasury deals because they were pitching advances and guarantees
to the artists based on forward ticket sales. And then
when they started, when they became the ticketing company as well,

(33:53):
they had all aspects of it. So the whole business changed,
but it lost, in my opinion, a lot of creator
of a t okay looking forward maybe beyond our lifetimes,
is this the end for the consolidation or is there

(34:14):
going to be a twist that changes. There's always a twist.
If you look through history of every major business, every industry,
there's always been consolidation and then suddenly a new raft
of independence come out of it with a slightly different
way of doing things and life starts again. It's constantly involving.

(34:35):
There is nothing new under the sun because it's just
keeps going around in cycles, and we're at one particular
facet of the of the cycle. I'm not saying that
the live nations or ages are going to go anywhere,
because they're not. But there will be new promoters who
come out want to do it differently, and there will
be a raft of new style of artists who will

(34:58):
stick with the new young promoters, which is what I hope,
because that's what it should be. Okay. I don't want
to go too deeply into ticketing, but we have to
mention it conventionally. If you don't own the building, all
the money is in the ticketing. Okay. Then there's the
issue of the stones flex price. What is the future

(35:19):
of this? My views are known everywhere. Um. One, I
hate with a passion the secondary ticket market. Two I
hate with a passion or the box office charges, the
over the tables, the under the tables, the premium deals, that, this,
that that the other. I think we've forgotten that we're

(35:40):
here to satisfy fans demand to go and see their heroes.
We melt them. We don't have a duty of care
to the fans at all. And it never ceases to
amaze me how much the Sands fans will suck up
to it. I I don't get it. Um I'm from
the different school and from the old school, where I

(36:00):
feel if the tickets twenty five quid, Okay, it costs
a bit for convenience of buying the ticket and whatever,
but it should be sold as close to twenty five
pounds as possible. I can't see any justification for a
twenty five or thirty five pounds ticket at the top
end being sold for two hundred and fifty pounds or
five dollars. It doesn't make any sense. There's no logic

(36:23):
to it at all. We've created a tool which I
think is unsavory. There are too many strange deals that
go on. Still, the secondary market has to stop. We've
managed to deal with that with vir Go Go through
the UK to stop that conglomerate deal coming to into fruition.

(36:46):
It's not right and I think to some extent um
all the bad side of ticketing will carry on, but
it shouldn't. It really is. It just doesn't work. And
what happens is every bad habit that we learned that
comes from our fellow brothers in America to the rest
of the world feeds through to the rest of the

(37:08):
world and it's not good. So that the same thing
is happening, as you know in theater with premium tickets
in theater where for the privilege if you'll arrive in
a city you want to go to the theater and
you want to get see a show, um and their
tickets available for the privilege of you going on that night.
They'll try at you five times as much as the

(37:28):
phase value, which is outrageous, and I think there will
be eventually a reaction towards it, and I think tickets
will to some extent stabilized. I think there will be
easier systems to control the reseller tickets so that we
can get the prices stabilized. And I think out of

(37:49):
um technology that will happen. And I hope that it
settles down to become a real market and not the
false market. It is, okay, what do we know? Demand
outstripped supply in many cases, certainly for all these hard acts.
Are you saying we should establish a system or hopefully

(38:11):
we get a system such that the act sets the
price and that is the price everybody pays, or do
we have to adjust it, adjust the price of tickets
to their true market value. Probably a bit of both,
because some acts will want to set the price. There
are a lot of acts. We have this thing called

(38:32):
the Fanfare Alliance, which is fighting the secondary market in England.
There's a lot of acts that signed up to it.
There's a lot of acts that haven't. So there is
a greed factor that's always there. At the end of
the day. What's changed of course, is the fact that
the old dinosaur acts that we all grow up with

(38:54):
um have they've reached their peak, and they are peaking,
and they're getting to the point where they're going to
start diminishing because they can't carry on for much longer,
So that marketplace will go. What happens thereafter is going
to be really interesting, because even though the new acts
and the dance acts and the hip acts and the

(39:14):
pop acts or whatever are charging humongous prices, it's only
off the back of what they're rolling Stones charge or
YouTube charges or Madonna charges or Fleetwi Mac charges is whatever.
When they're gone, I think we'll see a completely different horizon. Now,
obviously we're in a different era with the Internet, were
experiences or everything. Do you believe the sunset of the

(39:39):
dinosaurs will impact the business at all? Where there will
always be a new generation of acts that people hunger
to see. Yeah, why not? I don't see any reason
why not. When I first started, it was all the
cooness you know, it was Frank sin Archer and it
was Johnny Ray and all these kind of people. When
I first I went to see the Stones and the

(40:03):
who I thought it was the best thing since Slice
Bread I was weaned on jazz. We had to decide
notionally in the UK whether you're a Beatles fan and
that pop era or whether you were a Stones and
a Who fan. You didn't very few people were both.
You were one or the other. I kind of went

(40:24):
with the Stones and the Who. I didn't have any
problem with the Beatles, but that's that was my music.
It was that that heat, that intensity, and that grew
up and grew up and grew and grew, and every
week there was a new act coming out. It was
I've never seen anything like it. That middle sixties onwards
for ten years was the greatest upheaval of music we've

(40:49):
ever and culture really that we've ever seen, because for
the first time ever, young people demanded a say in
society was previous to that scene or not. They wanted
to do it their way, they wanted to do it differently.
They went out of their way to say, we don't
care what our parents did, this is what we want.
It was their revolution and so on and so forth.

(41:11):
So there were artists coming out. I didn't know what
to do. It was like picking cherries off the tree
every week as somebody else coming up and we get
a phone call. I've got this bank called jethro Toe.
I got this bank called ten years after, I got
this bank called the Move. I got this bank called
the Action, and so even what to do. So we
were really lucky. Um. I don't know if that will

(41:34):
ever happen again. But what I do know is as
you come to the end of an era, there's always
a fuzzy period and then suddenly something brand new comes out.
There's a whole new engagement, there's a new activity, there's
new people getting involved in it. They will bring the excitement,
they'll make it happen, and we're going forever. Music's inside us.

(41:57):
We love it. The biggest problem we've got with COVID
and why there's so much pent up demand is purely
and simply because as humans were tribal, we love being
together sharing experiences and there's nothing better. They're going to
see a concert at the time with Jimmy Hendrix or
someone like that. We're going to see a concert even

(42:19):
you know your favorite pop band, but it's Beyonce or
whatever it is you want to see. Being with thousands
of other people, just completely consumed by the entertainment that's
in front of you. You can't beat it. And that's
what's held up. Okay, So in the UK there's been
a lot of scuttle but about the death of the
club business. What is going on there and what can

(42:41):
he what can take place in the future city. It's
not really, it's just a physical situation that, um, there
hasn't been any any live entertainment since the beginning of
March two thousand and twenty. And but yet if you
own a club or indeed a venue, you that's still
paying rent to the landlord, you're still paying business rates,

(43:04):
you might get some alleviation which is city taxes, you're
still paying your overheads and so on. But you're empty,
so you can't any money. So that's that's what you
call scuttle. But it's not scuttle. But it's just a
fact of life. Now. I'm really referencing before COVID, okay,
in a lot of communities for noise restrictions or valuably

(43:27):
and the number of clubs was decreasing. I'm not talking
about whether it's the two. However, I helped formed an
organization called the Empty i A which is the Nighttime
Association of Venues and slowly but surely we've got around
all of the local authorities insistence on controlling noise, pollution,

(43:52):
controlling late hours, the police, the numbers, and all that
Harrison we're getting. We were getting round that and doing
really well, and actually clubs were reopening and new clubs
were opening up. It goes back many, many years. Two
local authorities suddenly trying to stop young people from enjoying themselves,

(44:14):
and they're realizing, as they do in every city, that
the nighttime economy, which is people going out and enjoying themselves,
whether it's restaurants, bars, clubs, music in bars, music in clubs,
that's what keeps is the soul and the heart of
the city. So they have to let that happen. So

(44:36):
it's just again it's an evolving situation. But you were right.
There was a period of time when clubs were closing
up because the licensing laws were so ridiculous. But they
were coming around and slowly but surely, counselors were realizing
the damage that was being done to their own cities.
So they were starting the wize up again. Okay, why

(44:58):
does britty music out punch its wheat and why does
all the innovation come Oh, there's not innovation in America
but consistently. I mean, and the forties you had people,
you know, with a little opportunity, fewer diversions. But even
at this late date there's a level of innovation in
the UK. You don't see another country except maybe Canada.

(45:20):
Why do you think that is? I don't know. Interestingly enough, Um,
in England we like quirky things. So when this um
revolution started in the early sixties and different forms of music. Liverpool,

(45:43):
which is now the home of the equivalent of the
Rock and Roll Museum called the British Music Experience, is
based in Liverpool, which is the UNESCO Home of Music.
By the way, um, this whole eruption of pop music
came about through a little club called Cabin, and out
of it came dozens of bands. Then Manchester got involved

(46:05):
and then it came down to London. London was going
in a different direction of music because in London we
had things called crystal sets with a little tiny boxes
with a crystal in it, with a long while that
hung out the window. We could listen to pop music
on a station called Radio Luxemburg. And then we had
Pirate Radio starting and that infused people to say, were

(46:29):
they were listening to jazz, they were listening to blues,
they were listening to early rock from American said we
could do this, and so they started to create and
do it. So we've always been innovative. But we love quirkiness,
and it's really interesting that we love quirkiness from somewhere else.
So Michael Jackson was a thousand times bigger in England

(46:52):
than he was in America for a period of time,
Madonna was Bruce Springsteen broke in England much bigger than
he did in America, faster and so on. So we
like the quirkiness. America is a huge it's a continent,
and what the Bridge didn't really understand was, with very

(47:12):
few exceptions, that if you want to break in America
and become big there, every state is another country. Whereas
where a tiny little country where you can go from
You can literally go from Manchester to London and do
two gigs. You know, you could do an early gig
in Manchester and a late gig in London. You can't
really do that in America because of the distance and

(47:33):
so on. So we have this I'm not sure really
maybe it maybe we have inside is some kind of
symptom that we are with the lost people, that we
have to prove a point. I don't know, but so
much creativity has come out of the UK. It is
mind blowing, going back to the British evasion right at

(47:54):
the beginning and all the way through to today, the
innovation of punk, the innovation of glam rock, the David Bones,
that Mark Boland's, all of those artists, all of Brits,
but they all made their made it out of it
in the main out of America. When they came back
to the UK, they were heroes. So it's quite interesting.

(48:17):
And what happened was at the beginning, a lot of
those early bands and even the progressive rock bands that
I grew up with, Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer
and even Genesis, they got to a point here where
they were doing okay. They then went to America, and
when we read about them in Melody Maker and Sounds

(48:38):
the music papers, because that was our bible of how
well they were doing in America, when they came back
to the UK they were ten times bigger, and the
vice versa happens. Okay, I want to talk about your
experience in management. You are me and Jeff back for
a while. You've got him a lot of high profile gigs,

(49:00):
Bill acknowledge and well, I believe he is the best
of all the rock guitars. Then it ended, So talk
a little bit about your management career, dealing with talent,
how you approached it, why it ended, etcetera. Huh, I've
managed a lot of people right now. I've just used
exact to tell us how you got into management. I mean,

(49:20):
because you're a promoter. Yeah, Well, I always wanted to
be a promoter. Um. It used to be joined the
Navy and see the world. That was the slogan, and
for me it was be a promoter and see the
world because I went around the world promoting right up
from the beginning. I started going to Australia in the
early seventies with people like Black Sabbath and so on.

(49:42):
I never ever dreamt or wanted to be in management.
It started as follows. Um, when I left college, um
or university, I wanted to be I wanted to be
a pharmacist for various reasons. The course I wanted to
do I couldn't do. I got very upset about it.
I went to a particular university in the south coast

(50:04):
of Brighton, and um, I thought it was gonna be
a great social life and there wasn't. And I persuaded
the student union to open a club called Club sixty six.
That was the start of my life. I then got
very upset because the course I wanted to do was
canceled and I ended up doing a course I didn't
want to do, and I got fed up with it

(50:25):
and I went to America. I went to America. I
saw what was going on in America. I got a
great hound bus ticket. I went from one side of
America to the other, ended up in hate Ashbury. Hang on,
I'll finish this and you'll I'll get it. No, no, no, no, no.
What year was sixty six? I started? My club was
called Club sixty six. I went to a student union meeting,

(50:47):
which is like your fraternities, and I listen to them
talking about the rugby club, the cricket club, the chess club,
the bridge club, blah blah blah blah, And I said,
where's the social life? And they said, what do you mean?
I see, where's the entertain This is a town known
for fun parties, entertainment. There isn't any. They said, well,
we've just talked about it all. I said, that's not entertainment,
it's hard work. So they said, what you didn't we

(51:10):
should do? I said that I think we should open
the club. So they kind of looked at me and said,
who are you. I said, I'm from pharmacy. That was
the course I was studying. They said, we've never seen
a pharmacy repped before because it's such a condense course.
It was hard work anyway, So the president Union said,
a right clever dick, open a club. So I said, okay,

(51:32):
screw you, I'm going to open the club. So open
the club called Club sixty six for students. It wasn't
literally an instant success, and it was at the point.
One of the earliest acts idea was the Moody Blues,
and next Fleet with Mac and then it went from
there onward Family Taste and someone. It just went on

(51:54):
and on. We I was so lucky to be at
the right place at the right time, so all of
this style it off. And then I decided I wanted
to learn a bit more. I got fed up with
this whole university thing of having to do this theoretical
degree that I didn't want to do. And I got
shipped on an exchange course to America. I went to America.

(52:15):
I stuck the course out for one semester. I've had
enough of this. My aunt lived in you. I'm interested.
Where was that course taught the University of Toledo in
Ohio somewhere. Everybody goes to, Okay, you've got there for
one semester, and then I go back to It was
in the summer. It was the summer semester, got or

(52:36):
whatever however you call it. I go back to New York.
It's boiling hot. It's June or end of June, July
and um. I stayed with my aunt for a week,
and I saw an ad in the paper that said
greyhound bus tickets. If you're an international student, you get
nine nine days for which is just about what I had.

(52:59):
I had the greatest time in my life going from
one side of America to the other on a greyhound bus.
I saw more cities then than I've ever seen since.
I saw more that was going on than I've ever
seen since. I ended up going over Golden Gate Bridge
to go to the downtown wine in San Francisco, and
I heard this noise, saw this massive people and I thought,

(53:22):
what the hell is this? Go to the wide said
what's going on? Somewhere near the Golden Gate bridgeless so
as a concert. I shot down there and I saw
the Grateful Dead and quit Silver Messenger service. I thought,
this is fantastic. I went. I literally were my way backstage.
They loved my accent. I met the Grateful Dead. I

(53:43):
became friends with them for thirty five years thereafter, and
it's started my pathway to realize that music's where I
wanted to be. The thing that got me, very simply
was that all over San Francisco were the most unbelievable
looking posters advertising shows of artists I had never heard of.

(54:06):
But all I knew is those posters were so good
I had to go and see the show because they
sucked me in. So um, I did a deal with
Bill Graham and chat Helms. Chat Helms had Family Dog
and Rand the Avalon Ballroom. Bill Graham had the film
More and had his film More Posters to represent them.

(54:29):
I came back to England and I co started a
company called Big Old Posters. Let me start for us,
let me stop your hard you say you're not gonna
forget your what'd your father do for a living? My
father was a tailor. My mother was a millionaire, made hats. Okay,
they work for themselves. Yeah, so we're you know, what
made you such an entrepreneur? No idea, No idea? I mean,

(54:54):
were you the type of kid before you went to
when you were in secondary school? Did you deliver papers?
Were always hustle money or I'll tell you, you know,
you just fell into this. You might laugh. But my
training came from being in the Scouts. I became a
Scout because that's what everybody did. I then got into
it and became a Queen Scout, which was a big deal,

(55:17):
and I learned a huge amount of managing people from
the Scouts. That's the only place I ever got it from,
because it didn't come from my parents and didn't starting
a business. You started the club, you started the poster business.
Did you just look in the mirror and say, hey,
I think I can do this, or it was just instinctive,
I see an idea, I'm doing it. It was a challenge.

(55:38):
I love challenges. Anyway, I'm going to get into the
management because I don't want to drag out. This is
very very interesting digression as a space of life. So
we started with the big Oh was in existence, but
it was really very arty. I joined up with a
guy called Peter Ledibar. We started Big Old Posters. I

(56:00):
rolled in this contract and said, I've got this contract
to sell Avalon and Family dog posters from America. And
it was people like Stanley Mouse and all those great
artists um all over Europe and the this is this
is where you love. And this guy who had already
who was a printer, who started the business, said to me,

(56:22):
very funny, you're the fourth person that's come in this summer.
Bill big Bill as he was, had told everybody they
could have the exclusive because he didn't even think about
it anyway. We started this company, we built it up.
We were signing acts after acts, and the two things
we did was we supported two underground magazines. One was

(56:47):
called International Times and one was called Oz Magazine. Both
of them are the legendary papers they were. They were
They were being pubs at the same time as magazines
in America called Screw and Suck, you remember all that stuff.
They were always sure of money, they were always in trouble.

(57:11):
OZ Magazine were busted for obscenity and they were drug
bust or whatever. And because I had this, people knew
a little bit that I was in music doing something.
Every time I was busy trying to build this poster
of business up, this is to me, could you do
a concert because we've got to raise some money to
pay the lawyers. Next week, he put on a concert

(57:33):
and it works. We could have enough money. So I
was always being drawn back into doing concerts, and then
eventually I was asked do a big concert, a big
fundraiser for OZ to raise money to pay the barristers
to fight this obscenity case, which they would have gone
to prison if they'd lost. And I put on a
show called Christmas on Earth, which was with the animals,

(57:57):
Jimmy Hendrix, Pink Floyd and whatever a place called Olympia,
and it was a huge success. So I thought this
is good and um, eventually I decided I've not made
for the post of business, but music keeps drawing me in.
I then went to see my brother in law, who
was a lawyer, and I said to him, look, I

(58:20):
don't know anything about the music business. Really, I'd like
to learn. Do you know anybody who's in management or
in promoting and he said, actually I represent Man frew Man,
and um, why don't I introduce you to his manager,
which he did. I then went to work for Man
frew Man's manager, guy called David Joseph, who was an

(58:41):
Australian TV producer who produced the series and individuals. Yeah.
He produced the most successful Pops series ever called Hey Hey,
It's Saturday. He was managing Man frew Man. He was
living in Australia producing this series six seven months of
a year. I only met him four times in the

(59:02):
ten months I worked for him. During that period of time,
I was putting together all Man fIF Man's tours and
looking after him, and together with Keith Popka, who was
a Seeker who you may remember, the band called the Seekers.
Of course, of course we formed the New Seekers under
his direction, and then we did that Coca Cola song

(59:23):
and I'd like to teach the world to sing, which
was a originally a you know, a melodigue uh song
and so on. So I was learning about management and
to be honest with you, Man fIF Man used to
drive me nuts. He would find if I if I
was five minutes late in the office, he'd fun up

(59:44):
at ten o'clock at the dot and if I was
late the night before and came in at quarter past ten,
he starts screaming at me, where have you been? So
I thought, I don't want to do this. I hated it.
Time rolls on. I'm working with The Who. We're doing
a tour and we're in Glasgow. Glasgow had one venue
called Green's Playhouse. It's an infamous, unbelievable venue that then

(01:00:10):
became the Apollo. It was the best venue on the planet.
You've never seen audience reactions and so on that went
on in this place. I had The Who playing there
for two nights and the manager of Green's Playhouse got
hold of me and said, I want you to come

(01:00:30):
and see a comedian. And I said, well, I can't
leave the hoo because you never know what's going to
happen with them. You go out the door for five
minutes and they're killing each other, it will be fine.
So we stuck out and we went to up the road,
literally five minutes up to the road of the King's Theater,
and there was a comedian on stage called Billy Connolly,

(01:00:52):
and Billy Connolly spoke in this broad Glaswegian accent. The
place was they were hanging off the walls in there.
I have no idea what he was saying. It was
this is a foreign language. All I know is I
couldn't stop laughing because everybody was pissing themselves. So the

(01:01:14):
manager of the playhouse has come back and meet Billy
to who were on to eleven and this is ten o'clock.
I went backstage. I was introduced to Billy. Billy said,
I I've just been told that you you you've got
the WHO on. I said, yeah, yeah, I worked with
WHO all over the UK. He said, there my heroes.

(01:01:34):
Can I come and see them? I said, we'll get
dressed there on for another forty fifty minutes. I hope
come and see them. Staying, you know, come back staying
on the side of the stage. So I brought him back,
came on the side of the stage. We started talking.
He said to me, I want you to look after me.
I said, what do you mean? He said, I want

(01:01:54):
to come to England. I said, but nobody understands what
you're talking about in English. He said, I could speak
English anyway. We talked he um I then UM introduced
him to a TV host called Michael Parkinson. You may
have heard of and he had a TV show a

(01:02:16):
bit like you know your Tonight Show, and I got
him on that show, and he went on that show
once and suddenly became an instant. Here. Now I am
managing Billy Connolly. I'm managing Billy Connolly Um, which I
didn't want to do, but I'm managing him. As a
result of that, there was a very good TV series

(01:02:40):
called Not the Nine o'clock News, which was Rowan, Rowan, Atkinson, Griffreith, Jones,
Mel Smith Um and a girl called Pamela Stevenson. They
then came to me and said, look, we've seen what
you've done with Billy. Billy was now a hit all
over the UK and whatever. We all have the individual managements,

(01:03:03):
but nobody's looking after the show. Can you manage the
show for us? So I said, I'll do that on
the basis that I don't want to manage any of you,
because then I can't act for all of you. So
I looked after the show called Not the nine o'clock News.
The deal was they would do it as long as
they're going to be funny. When they felt they weren't

(01:03:24):
going to be any funny anymore themselves, they would not
pick up an option to do another series. The only
did three series. Came to the end of the series,
to the penultimate show, they decided that was it. I said,
you've never had a guest on the show. It was
a number one rating show on TV for comedy. I said,
you never had a guest on the shows the penultimate show,

(01:03:46):
why didn't you put Billy on? This is great? I
then made a terrible error. I introduced Billy Connolly to
Pamela Stevenson, who was a very beautiful lady, and Billy,
who was happily married to kids wife in Scotland and
all good suddenly takes a liking at rehearsal to Pamela Stevenson.

(01:04:11):
They recalled the show and Billy disappears for two days. Thereafter,
for a year, Billy and Pamela are hiding in a
news house that I had in the West End. His
wife is Guy Loupy or whatever I'm going I don't
want to do this. I love promoting, I don't want
to do management. At the end of it, Pamela came over,

(01:04:34):
sat on my lap flash Deraisles and said, you've got
to manage me. I said, no, no, no no, I don't
want to do that because it won't work. She said, yes, yes, yes.
I ended up managing Pamela and Billy, and I said,
this is the deal Monday to Friday. Asked me with
you in London or whatever you need doing. But every
weekend I'm going out on the road with Billy. Is

(01:04:57):
that okay? So Friday I'm not here. Pamela Thursday night
would call up week after weeks, I've got to see
you tomorrow. I gotta see It was one of those. Anyway,
I put Pamela into a show called The Pirates of
Pen's Ants and it was a big hit of Theodore
or Jury Lane. Billy was on the road. I'm going

(01:05:20):
out to see Billy for the weekend, Pamela insisted. I
stayed in London. It was driving me nuts. The next
thing that happened is I get a phone call um
from producers in America who wanted Pamela to do an
American TV series. She ended up doing two movies and

(01:05:40):
and she was going to do a series called Dynasty.
You may remember that, of course, and we pronounced it
dynasty here. She was going to be the female leading Dynasty.
They wanted someone quirky, and had an English accident, even
though she was she's actually from New zic Eland, but Australia. Whatever,

(01:06:02):
she didn't want to do it, so eventually we uh
and I suggested that I suggested as you talked to
Joan Collins, which they didn't anyway, So I ended up
managing Pamela and Billy, and I hated every minute of
it because it was only a matter of time before

(01:06:24):
it was going to break up, because Pamela decided that
she wanted all my time and Billy decided he wanted
all my time. I couldn't do it. And I remember
going to see my lawyer and I wrote down on
a piece of paper. I said, put it in your
safe how long this is going to last? And I
said under a year, I'm going to be out of here.
And sure enough, under a year we broke up. And

(01:06:47):
I didn't. I said, I'm not managing either. We roll
on to seventy five. I'm minding my own business. I
had split from my partnership with John and Tony Smith,
which was that they were the real big Day, were
the biggest rock promoters in England. I had a partnership
with them called John Smith Entertainments, John and under chain

(01:07:10):
of clubs. Um Tony was managing a bank called Genesis
very young, trying to help them out. My other partner,
there's another partner called Michael aldis managing a bank called Family,
and all I wanted to do is promote very happily.
At the end of seventy five, Tony came through and
said that Genesis really wanted me to manage in full

(01:07:33):
time and didn't want me doing anything else. We split
the business up. I took the promoting, Michael took Family,
Tony took Genesis. He won by the way, and John
wanted his father wanted to keep the clubs. The fast
thing that happened to me was a tool within the
skinnerd And the next thing that happened to me was
the Rolling Stones wanted to do a big show in London,

(01:07:56):
and I said, let's play Earl's Cool. So we planned
to do six nights in Ours Court, which turned out
to be unbelievable in some respects and he's sound disaster
in other respects because the sound was terrible in there.
So I'm quite close with the Stones. I'd work with

(01:08:17):
them quite a bit, done a lot of shows of them.
So on Bill Wyman then funds me up getting a
seventy six. He said to me, do you know Van Morrison? Said?
I love Van Morrison. I said, you know them, we're
just incredible. Where is he? He said, well, he's been rehabbing.

(01:08:38):
He's just come out. He's looking for a manager. Would
you go and meet with him? And by the way,
don't talk about alcohol or anything like that. He doesn't
do coffee. He's come out of rehab. He's a bit nervous.
Will you go and meet with Van Morrison and help
him find a manager? I said sure, So I got
he's my hero, so I gotn't beat meet Van Morrison.

(01:09:01):
And we started talking. And I had prepared on a
piece of paper a list of eighteen managers, everybody from
Irving to build Curvishly to Peter Right to all the
great managers of the day. Um even Steve o'rourkey was
managing Pick Floyd. And he said, everybody keeps talking about
all of them. He said, but I want someone different.

(01:09:23):
We talked and talked. He was drinking orange juice. It
was a bit awkward. It's not an easy bloke to
talk to. But he said to me, look, I'm gonna
go away and think about it. Could we meet again?
I said, I'm here, I'm just waiting by the phone.
I go and meet with him the following week because
at the end of the day, all I wanted to
do is once he got his band together, was tour him.

(01:09:44):
That was my interest. He said to me, Um, I
thought about it. I've made my mind up. I want
you to be my manager and I went, no, manager
of a promoter. He said, I've decided. Look what you
need to do is you need to have And I said,
you don't work enough. I mean, you know, even in

(01:10:06):
your hey day, you'd never worked that much. He's and
I said that, how do I do management of promoting
on this level? Because this is another level? Um. She said, look,
you work with Black Sabbath. Why didn't you manage Black
Sabbath because they will be the work course and you
can manage me and that would be it. And I said, no,
I'm not giving up promoting anyway. I kind of deal

(01:10:29):
with Van where we He insisted on having a contract,
which I didn't really want, and all the contract was
was what happened if it didn't work, which pervades to
this day because I still get royalties from projects we did.
Really yeah, and I um, Van and I go on

(01:10:51):
like a house on fire. Van wanted to come to
to England. The truth was, I think he was in
love with my wife because he used to a phoner
six thirty six o'clock l a time and um uh
and it's two thirty in the morning here, which might
even imagine my wife what she felt. Anyway, she got

(01:11:13):
into it. They used to talk for hours there. I
never got a word in edgeways. But anyway I looked
after Van, I got in together and then we we
He decided he wanted to do an album, so he go.
We go to l A, we go to s I
R and um. There's another lunatic in one studio called

(01:11:33):
Catch Stevens, who I also worked with, and there's Van
at the other end, and there are a stream of
musicians because Catch Stevens is putting a band together to
his last two of the Magic Cats are which fortunately
I promoted, and Van Morris is trying to put a
band together. And these musicians are going, they're going into
the Van Guah's going. No, they're going to Catch Stevens.

(01:11:55):
He's going. Now they're coming round again. They're coming back,
and it's like it's loot am I going for God say,
you've seen so many musicians, you've got to pick him out.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, Matt rebanac Dr
John pitches up and Van says, this is my man.

(01:12:15):
So we've got a guy had a rehab and we've
got a method home person together trying to make music.
It was extraordinary and it just used to crap and
made me laugh. So we started to get together. They
started to create and they are the most beautiful people.

(01:12:39):
And Mac is unfortunately he's not with us anymore. He
was just divine and he actually kept he kind of
kept Van on the straight of narrow, even though he
was on a methodome program. You can figure that one out.
And so he started to record and record a recording.
He had this book. He has a book of songs

(01:13:00):
and at any time of the day and night he
could pull out twenty five new songs just sitting in
this book. He pull him out, he recalled him he
throw away. Didn't like it. He did like it. We
ended up with an album. The first album was called
a Period of Transition and Van said, I'm coming to England.
I said, fantastic. He comes to England. I find him

(01:13:21):
a house next door actually where Jimmy Page now lives,
and um, he's rent a house for him. He's coming over.
He's going to live in England. He's here literally a day,
and he decided he didn't want to live in England.
He's going back to America. So he goes back to America.
Is now in Westchester, and I'm having a commute to

(01:13:45):
l A every three weeks to spend time with him.
We drove me nuts and then the end said. I said, Van,
I love you dearly. I can't handle this. I signed
up Bill Graham. I said, boo, you've got to help
me out here. I got Van Morrison managing. Who can
I get to manage? If we honed in on Bill Siddons,
who had managed Fanning previously, and Bill said he'd help,

(01:14:09):
but there's no way he could do it again. I said,
I'll stay with it. I can't do this anymore. And
we kind of passed the company, and funny enough, we
didn't fall out. It wasn't bad. I think we had
one fight the whole time we were together. I loved
doing it, but I looked at upon it as a project.
Off Fan went, He stayed in l A. He gone

(01:14:29):
with his life slowly, but surely. We had some I
can't even tell you some of the things that happened
to us in and our experiences together that we used
to laugh about. But he is a tough guard, a genius.
Roll On, roll On. The Rolling Stones are going into hiasis.

(01:14:50):
Mick Jagger decides he can't work with them anymore. He
wants to time off, He wants to do a solo project.
Who gets the call to manage Mick Jagger? Me and
I go and here we go again, another lunacic I've
got to deal with. So I helped Mick get his
whole solo thing together. I knew it wasn't gonna be

(01:15:11):
for long. It was a project, and he wanted to
work with Jeff Beck, and I got in together with
Jeff Beck. He put this great band together. We we
I put a tour together, We created everything. It was
a new album. It was. We had this amazing set,
the show, everything that met wanted. The only problem was

(01:15:35):
Jeff Beck refused point blank to play any of the
Keith Richards parts and didn't want to do Rolling Stone's
music and Mick knew that he couldn't tool without doing it.
The night before the press conference to announce the whole thing,
Jeff phoned up and said, I'm not doing this, I'm
out and um that got really different cool and it

(01:16:00):
kind of came to a sticky end. So that's the
Mick Jagger management saga. Meantime, the Pink Floyd are doing brilliantly.
Another one of my favorite bands to work with them.
I went out to dinner one night with Roger Waters
and he he told me this whole story had in
his mind about a show with a wall in it,

(01:16:23):
and what do you wanted to do was build up
the wall during the show and then explode it at
the end of the show. And they said, I'm in
I love it, and we talked. He does the wall,
he falls out with Dave gilmu and the rest of
the band. He decided he doesn't want to work with
them anymore. Who gets the call to look after him?

(01:16:43):
Me side outcome from Billy connor Ley to Van Morrison
to Mick Jagger. I'm now managing Roger Waters. This Roger
Waters wants to do a solo album pros and cons
of hit hiking. He we put this whole project together.

(01:17:04):
He ends up through two solo albums and in um,
it's all ready to go, and he wants to do
something in London, but he wants to start in New York.
I'm not sure why I wanted to do it, he did.
We decided to do it at Radio City and get
the deal done with Radio City because he was very complicated,

(01:17:26):
because he insisted on having a holographic head um suspended
from the ceiling of Radio City where all the sound
was directed to to give out this three sixty sound,
which is way ahead of its time. We notched up
the biggest union bill at Radio City on Record two.

(01:17:48):
This shows all planned ready to go. I then get
a phone call from Wham's manager, another band, George Michael
that I'm dealing with and Simon Napier Bell and says
Harvey said, um, Um, I've got why. I'm a tour
of China. I said what he said, Whe's going to

(01:18:09):
go to Chinese So we're gonna do two shows is
in Hong Kong and then we're going to China. I said.
The only problem is I can't go to China, so
you're gonna have to go and look after the band
and take care of the tour. Plump. The phone goes dead.
I'm going, Oh my god, I'm going to New York
to launch Roger Walters first solo project with his mad

(01:18:33):
holographic head. And now I'm going to go to China.
So I go through New York via Tokyo to Hong Kong,
where I meet with Simon has said, it's all good,
don't worry about it. The all China youth asiancy are
doing the tour and you're going to China, see you later. Bye.

(01:18:54):
And then just before I left to go to New
York to meat to a broad I get a phone
call for Bob Geldof, who says, you've seen what's happened
in Africa. You know about the record because you've been there,
You've been aware of it. We've got to do a
concert and you've got to do this shirt at Wembley.
I said, no, no, no, I can't do that. I'm

(01:19:15):
looking after Roger Waters and I'm now quasi managing Wham.
I've got to get out to China from New York.
I can't even think about A concert was called Live Aid.
All happened between March and July when Live Aid happened.
That same period, Roger did his Tory, came back, and
then he had this mad idea of doing an opera,

(01:19:36):
and he's not an easy guy to deal with. And
I got less and less inclined to do it. And
I thought, I enjoy promoting. They am I doing managing acts? Okay,
I have to start you from one point here. Roger
has made a number of Ian Ti Israel pro Palestinian comments. Correct,

(01:19:59):
how do you feel the about that? Into what degree
have you experienced ante semitism in your career? I have
experienced anti semitism. Interestingly enough, I was taking Jeff back
to Israel to play because he wanted to go. Roger
got to him and did everything in his power to
persuade him, not ago, including his funny furry friends in

(01:20:23):
the Palestinian group who bombarded Van with emails and messages
and sent death threats to me. And I got to
the point with Jeff. I said, look, Jeff, if you
don't want to go, I'm you know, please, I'll cancel it.
But actually think about it. He said, do they like

(01:20:44):
my music in Israel? I said, they love your music?
He shows us sold out? He said, in that case,
I'm going. He said, while I'm there, can I play
in Palestine? I said, I'm fine with it. If you
want to play. I've put the feelers out and we'll
see what we could do. They didn't want to know.
But Roger did everything in his power to try and

(01:21:06):
stop Jeff going, and has done with many other acts.
He was got at by a group of UM smart
ask people, very clever pr people, and he's still got
that and quite frankly, I find it's despicable because he
actually doesn't know what he's talking about and he doesn't listen.

(01:21:27):
And that's unfortunate because he won't hear the truth it
doesn't exist. And he's still he is the leader of
all leaders trying to stop every act going to play
in Israel, which is really unfortunate. And as when all
that happened, UM and David Gilmer wanted to go back
on the road. I to make a decision. David said

(01:21:48):
to me, if you're working with Roger, you can't work
with me. If you want to work with me, you
can't work with Roger. I said, it's not even a debate.
I'm with you, David, and I'll still at so that's
how that happened. So that was Roger Waters. Okay, so

(01:22:11):
you you leave Waters and you know you do coming. Yeah.
The WAB tool ended up being a massive success. George
Michael hated every minute of it. Everybody else loved it.
It was opened the doors of China. It was extra
It was quite extraordinary. I'd already opened the doors with
Elton John because I took in the Russia for the

(01:22:32):
first time, went in the middle of the communist era,
and this was a point in China where they were
still wearing mouth suits and whatever. Anyway, we came back.
I did Live Aid and the whole world change because
suddenly out of Live Aid all the good things happened,
all the money that we raised, the whole coming together,

(01:22:52):
the fact that the rock music community with the first
people to stand up and be counted, and all the
rest of it. The bad side of it was it
invented the cult of celebrity, particularly in the UK, which
they went all over the world. Suddenly artists were famous
for being famous for being celebrities, and the newspapers that

(01:23:16):
would only ever print a story about a rock musician
if they were either getting divorced or busted, that was
the only time they'd ever write about them. Suddenly saw
them as a result of live aid of selling papers,
and they just grabbed it. And then this whole celebrity
cult came out. It's kind of changed out all of

(01:23:36):
our perception of music completely because we became entertainment and
so on. And then, by the way, I forgot one
other person that I got suddenly involved with, and that's
a chap called Luciano Pavarossi, who um strangely enough, I
was going to put Bruce Springsteen refused, point blank, ever

(01:24:00):
to do open air shows. Ever, I didn't want to know.
I didn't understand them, couldn't see the logic, and didn't
want to know. A friend of mine who was a
TV producer wanted to do a document a film and
artist playing at Red Rocks Endeavor and he's British and

(01:24:23):
somehow the other he got to Bruce Springsteen and said,
I want you to do this TV show, but I
want to do it in this place called Red Rock
because it's spectacular. Will you do it? Bruce Springsteen agreed
and suddenly loved playing open air. I had booked six
lights at Earls Coot for Bruce Springsteen. I had already

(01:24:44):
paid half a million pounds, which is quite a lot
of money, which was a nonrefundable deposit. And I get
a phone call for John Lando and says, Harvey, Bruce
had such a great time at Red Rocks. He wants
to play Wembley Stadium. And I'm going no, no, no, no.
We booked well school, I paid for it. He says, no, no, no, no,
Bruce wants to play Webb him. I had Bruce Springsteen

(01:25:08):
playing Wembley Stadium for three nights, the night after UM,
the week after Live Aid, and I got stuck with
his half a million pounds deposit because I had a
four wall ten nights that I was cooled so he
could build the arena. It's a horrible place, but nevertheless
the biggest place in England. I then got my office

(01:25:30):
to sit about and say, I've got to find an
act to fill it. We got to the point we're
doing We're going to do a jumble sale, we're gonna
do mass military bands, we're going to do a car
boot sale, anything to get my money back. In the end,
we couldn't find anything. But one of the guys in
my office said, I've just read about this opera singer

(01:25:51):
called Luciano Pavarossi, and I go, oh, yes, And they
said he's about to do his first ever arena concert
and apparent it sold out in seconds. I said, get him.
They made the vocals, they couldn't get anywhere. Eventually, I'm
now so desperate, and I didn't as much as I

(01:26:12):
knew about classical music, because I knew a lot about it,
but I didn't in the detail of how it really were.
I got hold of his manager, Chap called Herbert Breslyn,
and I said, I'd like um to bring the minestro
Pavarossi to London to play Els Cool and he said

(01:26:32):
who are you? And I told him who I was.
He said, why am I talking to your rock promote?
So we don't deal with people like that, and so anyway,
this dragged on and dragged on and dragged on. I've
now lost my dates and earls Cool. They won't give
me my money back. I'm completely stuff and I'm fed up.
But I suddenly get a phone call from Herbert Breslyn, who,

(01:26:54):
unbeknowns to me, Pavarotti was having a row with the
Royal Opera House. And he said I'm coming to London.
He said, I don't know why, but I'm going to
come and talk to you. Anyway, I ended up doing
a deal with him and I brought Pavorossi over to London.
It ended up the following year playing at Wembley Arena,

(01:27:14):
and it was fantastic and we became lifelong friends. And
eventually he worked with a chap called Tibor Rudas. He
came after that, who threw Results International, which is a
casino company, bought his rights for concerts year and year.
When that ended, he came to me and I ended

(01:27:35):
up managing Pavorossi said he died really so that was
that was the most extraordinary experience. I mean, if ever
somebody talks to you about a global rock star, they
don't know what they're talking about. This is a man
that could sell ten thousand tickets in tim Buck two
on a Wednesday night, that could sell out a concert

(01:27:57):
in Announce, that could play not of Mexico City, meeting
somewhere in Mexico. Then it took us a day and
a half to actually find where there was an arena
that they kind of built. There were fifty thousand people
there where we played in countries that were just you
wouldn't even think about. That was a global rock star, extraordinary.

(01:28:19):
I had the best time in my life with him.
For what was motivating Parvarati to do all these gigs?
He loved, He loved playing to audiences. He felt, he
looked he was at the top of his game within
the opera opera circle, which is very closeted. The opera
cycle is very closeted. It's very carefully nurtured. You don't

(01:28:44):
go outside it. And signed and so forth. He did
all that he got the first one for money and
two for big audiences. Um. He had read about his
predecessors and how well they did, and some of them were,
you know, some of the great opera stars could draw

(01:29:04):
two hundred thousand people open air just to say hello.
I mean, it was extraordinary. Caruso was his hero, and
Caruso was the biggest rock star ever. And Pavarossi loved
playing to thousands of thousands of people. And he and
I just became best mates. We became buddies, we became button.

(01:29:25):
I managed him and we went we went to places
we have to go and see the doctor. Watched the
documentary that Ron Howard produced You'll see it. It's extraordinary.
Um So that was Pavarossi. He died unfortunately. I did
this amazing memorial for him in the city of Petra,

(01:29:48):
which is this five thousand year old city in the
desert in Jordan. It was extraordinary and everybody came to
perform with him. Roll on. I'm in New York, minding
my own business. I literally ride in my hotel room.
I get a phone call from a friend of mine.
He said, um, I want to have you got a minute.

(01:30:10):
I said, well, I've just checked in and he said, well,
somebody wants to talk to you. Who is it? Jeff Beck? Oh? Hello, Jeff? Oh?
You who? He said? Where are you? I said, New York?
He said when are you coming back? I said, I
just got here. He said, well, I'd like to talk
to you. Said okay, anyway, he said, look, he said,

(01:30:31):
I'm getting fed up. He said, I know what I'm
good at, I know how good I am. Nobody knows
who I am, and I can't think of anybody else
that can help me get back going. And that's how
I got involved with Jeff. Really well, he did a
phenomenal job and I will ask since that's the most
recent client, how did it end? Not good? Originally because

(01:30:51):
he didn't like He doesn't like Tory, he doesn't like
working that hard. He used to do early forty concerts
a year. I remember finding up C A A and
I said to Rob, like, can you send me a
list of recent shows at Jeff Beck's done? Because I
just want to get my handle on it, because he's

(01:31:12):
asked me to manage him. He said, sure, something over
one sheet of paper, right, I said, where's the rest?
He said, that's it. So he used to play a
short tour of America, one shine in London and a
tour of Japan. That was it. He raised enough money
buy another classic car, get it shipped to London and
get it to Guildford and get it and rebuild it.

(01:31:33):
That was his life. But then he realized, So I said, hi, Lot,
if you're prepared to work, I'll help you. If you
don't want to work, there's nothing I can do. So
I started managing Jeff. I got him excited. We really,
I mean we went from playing very small venues to
doing two nights of the Garden, two nights and in

(01:31:54):
in in Toronto and in Montreal. We went to Japan.
We sold out shows. You know, it was huge. We
were doing math two shows at the O two and
It's that and the other with Eric Clapson, but the
two of them together. He was just on the up
and he suddenly kicked back and said, why am I
doing all these touring? So I said, I want to

(01:32:14):
make music. So he disbanded his band and a great band.
He disbanded his band. He wanted to get new musicians.
He found a drama that he liked off YouTube who
was a a drama used to just hang around Central
a young girl hang around Central Park and used to
you know, whatever, busk we got it. I had a

(01:32:36):
gone to New York literally find this girl, which I did,
brought the back. He started to put a band together.
He went in the studio. He didn't like what he
was doing and he started kicking back, blaming me because
it wasn't right. He wanted to do some new music
and he couldn't get it together and he was kicking out.
Then he said, why am I making him work so much? Meantime,

(01:32:59):
I'd introduced in Josh Stone, who is the most beautiful
girl in the planet, who has a great soul, but
another one that doesn't want success, and I ended up.
But it's really strange relationship. Josh Stone and Jeff recorded
a lot together and get on like a house on fire.

(01:33:19):
Josh goes to America. She's in Nashville, UM recording an album.
I suddenly get a text message out of the blue
which says I have told everybody you are my manager.
Please get rid of everybody else. Please deal with it.
You are my manager. I did. I tried to call

(01:33:40):
the number that was on the text message, it wouldn't answer,
and I'm going this is a joke. Of course, I
don't think any more of it. A couple of days later,
I get a phone call from Josh said, did you
get my text message? I said, yeah, I've been trying
to ring you. She said, I've been locked in the studio.
I need you to manage me. So it then got

(01:34:01):
to a point where I managed, I'm managing Jeff back
Big Jeff, and I'm managing little Jeff. Who's Josh Stone?
Because Josh Stone went into the studio, produced an album,
put a band together, gotta we put this whole tour
around her. Ready to go, She goes to America to

(01:34:21):
start promoting. Everybody's thrilled and it's all happening. She goes
on The Today Show, The Morning Show and says, I
don't really like to say album. I don't think you
should buy it bad. She then carries on the tour
she managed. She hasn't lost any ticket sales ass all.
By the way, We then book we're booking a tour

(01:34:44):
of South America because she's huge there and the idea
was to warm up this new band she's put together,
playing the new music, do all of these dates in
America and then go from there, from Florida straight to
South America, then end up in Brazil where she's drawing
fifty thousand people. A nine I think it's nine days

(01:35:10):
before we do to start the tour. She phones me
up and says, I'm in Florida. I thought about it.
I'm going to dump the band and start a new
band for South America. What are you talking about? She said,
that's what I want to do. I've got all the
musicians worked out. We're gonna have a day and a
half rehearsals and then we go straight. I said, but

(01:35:30):
your home down, You're it's a whole machine. It's on fire.
It works. How can you take the risk of going
to your biggest market in the world with a brand
new band that you don't even know if it's going
to work, if it's going to take off. Jos Star said,
just I can't do this. So I then it was
then goodbye Jeff, goodbye Josh, and that was it. Management Okay.

(01:35:56):
How do you keep your marriage together being so busy
and traveling? Some that's it six months an average a
year out of home on the road. So we're not
at a time, but you know, over over the course
of the year, most of my working life six months.
Great marriage. We love each other. I've actually since the

(01:36:18):
COVID thing, I have spent more time with my wife
than I have since we're now. Um, we're coming up
for fifty years of marriage and more time than ever
since we've been married. Doesn't working or not? Kind of?
You still talk to each other with each other so

(01:36:40):
you literally have or you want to say something now,
I'm gonna say, it's, uh, you know, it's we respect
each other. She's a smashing lady. She understands where I'm
going and gives me the space and I think quietly
she kin kind of enjoys me being out the way
she's got on with her life. And then when we

(01:37:01):
come back together again. You know, we talk all the
time when we were away, but I've spent my whole
life traveling, except for the last twelve months we've been
at home. Okay, we're talking about being a promoter. You know,
a manager is a license to starve. A promoter is
a way to instantly go broke. So you know, I'm

(01:37:21):
sure you know you've had some you know, was it
in the early days the guarantees were so low? How
did you stay in business? You must have guarantee. Excuse me,
we didn't have guarantees. Okay, but still you can have
a losing date. You could lose money. Whose money you're
gonna lose? We never lost money, never, What was your

(01:37:42):
first what was your first losing show? Then of course
we lost money on some shows. But the way it
was was that, um oh, my philosophy is very simple,
and I decided it's very very early on. If I'm
going to promote an act, I've got to like the music.

(01:38:02):
That's number one. If I didn't like the music, it
doesn't matter how big they were, I couldn't do it.
Number two, I have to like the artist as much
as I could deal with the agent, the tour manager,
the production manager, the lawyer, the accountant, and the manager.
If I can't have a one on one with the

(01:38:23):
artists and understand what they're trying to do, where they
want to go, what they want to do, I'm not
doing it. So every act I've ever worked with in
my life, i've worked with the artists, I don't I'm
not decrying the role of the manager because I've been there.
I'm not to tie in the role of the Asian.
I have to have a relationship with the people I'm
working with. So it goes way back from you know,

(01:38:47):
with people like Emerson Laker, Palmer and Yes and so on.
Right at the very early days. Um, I was there
live manager, if you like, for all these acts. That's
what I did. So we never lost money, and it
was choosing the right acts because we always chose acts
of work. Sometimes we didn't mate much. Occasionally we lost

(01:39:08):
a bit, but it was we just managed it. It
just rolled through until the days of when the agents
started really pushing their acts in different directions and the
big tours and all the rest of it. There was
a band called Bread. Do you remember them? Of course
they were the biggest loss I ever had. One year

(01:39:29):
they sold out about fifteen shows, including three or four
Albert Halls. They came back twelve months later they couldn't
give the tickets away. I lost the fortune on that.
Was it your money? It's always my money. I've never
had anybody else's money. I did. I did a deal
with Jerry Weintro to bring Bob Dylan over Um and

(01:39:50):
then it's we did. It was cool. We did probably
the best band he ever had ever. We did six
nights Earls Cool sold out in heartbeat hundred and twenty
thousand people. And then I persuaded him to do an
open air show on an aerodrome called Black Bush. And

(01:40:12):
what I did is I went up as to see
Jerry Weintrobe, who I'm very lucky in my life. There
are people that have guided me and befriended me. Frank
Barcelona number one, Armorica number two, and Jerry Weintrobe number
three in terms of that side of things. I got
very friendly with Jerry. He really helped me out. I

(01:40:35):
ended up guaranteeing Bob Dylan a million dollars to play
this show. At Black Bush. No one at this is nine.
No one had ever offered a million dollars surnact ever anyway, ever,
And this is the strangest thing. I woke up one

(01:40:56):
morning in London and I said, Bob Dylan. I read
something about Bob Dylan. I said, he's gotta work, He's
got to come over. How did Wine travel? And I
went to go and see him here. I went to
see him in a blah blah blah blah, and I
went over with my German friend called Fritz Rao, who

(01:41:17):
was the German promoter, quite a famous guy at the time.
The pair of us went over there to persuade Bob
Dylan do a tour, and we put Bob Dylan and
Eric Clapton together. That was the tour that we did.
And um, unbeknownst to us, Jerry and Bob had already
decided they wanted to come. They were just sounding us

(01:41:38):
out and see how far they could go with this.
We're sitting him Jerry Wine Show's office on the Santa
Monica and in the boardroom suddenly the door opens and
then walks Bob Dylan. It was extraordinary. He sat down,
We did the deal, shook hands, and off we went
and I became quite friendly with Bob, if you could
ever become friendly with him. But I offered after we

(01:42:02):
did this run of shows, the and the Ards Court run,
I offered him a million dollars to do this one
show at Blackbush Aerodrome. If it had gone wrong, I
wouldn't have been busted. They would have been all over.
I mean there's no work and pay it. I managed
to flam my way of paying the money over. But
it sold out so quickly that it was in the bank.

(01:42:24):
I mean it was just bullshit and bravado, That's what
it was. Okay at this lead, d you have the
best resume of any concert promoter. What keeps you going,
what gets you excited? There's always a challenge. Um. In
two thousand and fourteen, UM I got a I got

(01:42:46):
a phone call to say that, UM, UM, would I
look like to create an event for the premier of
a film called Kung Fu Panda? And I thought this
is a wind up, but nevertheless, um Kung Fu Panda

(01:43:08):
was a big film and it was it was The
music was by a chap called Hands Zimmer and I
ended up putting an event together which really really worked
in Princess Diana's brothers Stately Home. Quite extraordinary. I blew
everybody away on that one. I met Hans Zimmer. We

(01:43:32):
fell in love two thousand and fourteen. It then took
me two years because I thought, I'm not going to
let this one go. This guy's got to go on
the road. And he's never done a concert of his
own in his life ever, and um, you know, all
he ever did. He was a keyboard player in Yes

(01:43:54):
during video gires, the radio start, he's the keyboard player
in it. And um, I just all these guys incredible.
And I talked and talked at all and once I
get the bit between my seat, I don't get up,
give up till I get there. And eventually two thousand
and sixteen I persuaded hands Zimmer to do a couple
of concerts in London, which we did, but he wanted

(01:44:16):
to do something really special, and he said, I want
to do a concert where there is no There is
a millimeter of film footage in the concert, but I
want to allude to the music because that's what I do,
and create a mood around each musical piece, which is
what we did. Of course, the shows were incredible. It

(01:44:36):
then took me another two years. I finally got it
sorted out with him and we ended up doing a
hundred concerts around the world, again based on thin Air.
Most of the people I found up to talk about
hands Zimmer didn't know what I was talking about at all.
Most of the people when I created Lord of the
Dance for Michael Flatley, I created it for when I

(01:45:01):
phone people up and said, You're going to do an
Irish dance show. They just about you about River Dance
and they said, what are you talking about. I said,
trust me, you've got to do it. So I had
this reputation for doing the weird and the wonderful. And
if I said it was good and it was great,
most of the promoters that I work with bought into it.
So everybody came in and got involved in it and

(01:45:23):
it works. So that's my challenge. I loved the challenge.
I love finding new ideas, new artists, new styles. I'm
currently working with an immersive theater group and I'm on
the board of a Dutch theater company that has a
process called stage around which we have a theater in
in in Um in Holland, and we have a Theater

(01:45:47):
in Amsterdam in partnership with Tokyo Broadcasting. That just sold out,
and we were in the middle of building four theaters
re China at the moment, and we were going to
build one in London in any Scene Bermingham and to
do a new version of Starlight Express until COVID hit
and everything stopped. But we'll get that done. So that's

(01:46:09):
the fun through Pavarossi. Pavarossi phone me out one day
and said, get on the plane. I need you here
by lunchtime. It's eight o'clock in the morning fortunately in London.
Get over to Modern Art and needs you here at lunchtime.
I'm going why he said, just get here. I managed
to get on a plane, I get some modern and

(01:46:30):
I going to his house. We sit down and there's
a chap sitting there with a very nice young lady.
And he said, um, this is Andre Abricelli. This is
Harvey Goldsmith. He's taking over doing looking after your shows.
You've got to get rid of your management. Just buy
them now. That's what my life was about. I don't know.

(01:46:53):
I've worked with him ever since. So okay. In terms
of concert you know, once we get early seventies once
again Peter Grant and led Zeppelin. Things changed because you
knew they were going to be guaranteed sellouts. So in
terms of promoting shows today, what publicity is necessary on
a guaranteed sell out? If any? But more interestingly, how

(01:47:16):
do you promote an act that is not going to
guarantee sell out? It's a nightmare. Look, it was very
simple promoting. This is my marketing is my forte. That's
my thing. I'm marketing a product. That's why I wanted
my pharmacy days was I was interested in perfumery and

(01:47:41):
cosmetics and how they were marketed. I knew about estate
order because when you see people walking around with those
packages and see the ads, you knew where they were winners.
Didn't matter what was inside, it was irrelevant. So marketing
acts and those days of seeing what Bill Graham did
with those film will posts us was what it's about.

(01:48:02):
So marketing is everything and um that's really the key
thriddles how to market it? So we had a formula.
We had a London evening paper called Evening Standard who
over the years I nurtured into having a big entertainment section.
So we would take if we wanted to launching app.
We've take an ad in the Evening Standard. We would

(01:48:26):
do a week of radio promotion. We take an ad
in the Music paper either Melody Make or Enemy or
one of the of those, and we would do a
Sunday supplement the Color magazine, a half page in that
that would sell on average sevent of my inventory. Goodnight today,

(01:48:47):
it is a walking nightmare. Everybody talks about social media
and all his bollocks is bollocks. We are so wide today,
there is so much available, and it is so hard
to do the same job. So they either sell out
most that shows sell out viral e The ads are
just information about where you know when they're going on sale,

(01:49:11):
what the date is, and the venue. They're irrelevant. If
you want to take an app from scratch and work
it through. It is a hundred times harder today than
it was when I first started, that's for sure. Okay,
And wrapping up, I know you get this question all
the time, but I'm gonna ask you anyway. The two peaks,

(01:49:31):
the two peaks of your career, two best shows for you,
the moment you've got this is just transcendent for you personally.
The best concert I ever saw it in my life,
which I actually didn't promote was Van Morrison playing the
Rainbow Theater in London without doubt still lives on if

(01:49:52):
you get a chance two you could find it on
on YouTube somewhere. The most extraordinary con for ever the
Bob Dylan, Eric Claps and Joan Armor Trading concert at
Blackbush was probably the best open air music concert, and
the led Zeppelin reunion, which um was extraordinary. Okay, this

(01:50:19):
spects a couple of the questions. How important is production?
It turns to the fiance expected, is it necessary? Is
it a waste as a detract from the music or
is it necessary? Um? The whole idea of production, I'm
pretty sure came out of England, those progressive acts like

(01:50:41):
Yes and Emerson Lake and Palm and whatever. They were
the forerunners and their genesis to have production, and then
of course the Pink Floyd and so on, and then
when the stunts got bigger and bigger, they believed that
part of their myth of playing was to have some
incredible production show. So I was used to, um, you know,

(01:51:06):
playing Pink Floyd Crystal Palace Bowl, which is the first
big open air show that I ever did the Garden
Passes with you. I told that story for you about Leslie,
Western Mountain, Pink Floyd, the faces and Mountain where Pink
Floyd sunk into the lake, the monsters which came out
of the lake, which just flew everybody away. To working

(01:51:29):
with everything the Pink Floyd did, I couldn't get I
just literally loved every second of it and help them
put those productions together. Um, when Everson, Lake and Palmer
did that Manticore, you know the album, I built the Manticore.
They thought I was nuts, and that's what we're gonna do.

(01:51:49):
I built it. I love all those tricks. I love
production where they're relevant. And then you go to Mariah Carey,
who arrived at Wembley for a first sold out no problem.
I think two nights or three nights. She had so
much equipment we only managed to unload a truck and

(01:52:09):
a half. There were three trucks sitting in the car park.
We couldn't know we know what to do with them.
And then with Barbra Streiser and I said, I said,
but you don't need all this stuff. They want to
see you. And with Prince, he took me. With Prince,
we did fourty nights at Wembley. It took half a
tour to get Prince to understand that he didn't need

(01:52:32):
the elevator, and he didn't need the escalator, and he
didn't need this an all he needed to stand on
stage and play. He could blow anybody away in his sleep,
which is what he did, of course after every show
he did in a little club at night. That so
there are acts where production is part of their ethos

(01:52:52):
and works incredibly Pink Floyd, etcetera. And they are acts
who feel they have to have it but don't actually
need it, where it's a waste of time and money. Okay,
this leads to the other thing, which you get asked
all the time. I'm sure any and this is fantasy
if it bleeds to the reality, greet any still alive

(01:53:14):
act that you haven't worked with you would like to
work with, or any project that you can envision that
you would like to put up. Um project. I'm mentoring
a group of the next generation and we're going to

(01:53:35):
do a huge climate change concert lation at the end
towards the end of the year. I co patures when
my partner Kevin Wall Live Earth in two thousand and ten,
which was the forerunner, which we did with our goal,
and we did that all over the world. We were
ahead of the game. Today the future is dealing with

(01:53:57):
the climate and the environment. You could see every day
of the week what's happened in Texas. Last week we
were ten degrees below zero or eighteen degrees below zero,
and three days later we're eighteen degrees. But I went
out this morning with a shirts, not even a jacket.
That's nuts. Last seven days ago, I had so many

(01:54:19):
layers on. I had two pairs of gloves on. Mine
was so cold. It's extremes of climate what we're living with.
That's the result of what they call climate change. So
the next big event is a massive event about the environment.
I want to do that. I'm gonna I want them.
They're headed up. There were a great bunch of kids.
They're not kids, but they're the next generation. They're passionate

(01:54:42):
about it. I want to help mentor them through given
the pathway to it and um what they want to
create and what they're building, believe it or not, which
is the best thing. It's got me sucked in with them.
They're going to build an app called Hero, which means
that every body can download that app and follow their

(01:55:03):
pathway of what every individual can do to help beat
the climate situation, not what governments have to do. So
it's not about them. It's about what we can do
and that I want to get that over the whole
idea is to promote this app which is free, but
everybody to download it with a whole series of pathways

(01:55:24):
where each person could do their own thing about protecting
the environment and their future, and it can be global.
That's my next project. Okay, that does beg the question
since you were there with the progenitors, the big ones
like Live Aid, at this point in time, the massive concert,

(01:55:46):
is that still valid and be Is it more about
getting the message across the information and more about raising
money or is that paradigm just exhausted. Well, everybody thinks
it's exhausted, but actually at all and um, the paradigm
is what the message you're giving out. When we did

(01:56:09):
Live Aid, it was purely and simple. Four thousand miles
down the road, people were starving and we in Europe
were having arguments about what to do with fruit mountains
and butter mountains that we couldn't give away. It was nuts.
Live eight was a message to government to the G

(01:56:33):
eight conference. That's what it was called Live eight to
persuade them to put Africa on the agenda, which they did.
So it depends on what you're trying to do. Our
environmental show is not going to be about raising money.
It's about promoting the app for people to use and
to get involved themselves and what they can do if

(01:56:54):
you want to raise money, are like shows I've done
for the Red Cross and whatever, and you're blatant about
raising money. Raise the money, it's not you can separate
the two. Okay. I think finally, you are a commander
of the British Empire. Did you see that coming? What

(01:57:15):
does it mean to you? And what's your relationship? I
understand you have some sort of relationship with the Royal family.
I didn't see it coming at all. Actually, in fact,
what happens is this brown envelope arrives and you think
it's a bill from the tax people, that it's a
letter saying you're commanded that. What it says is we

(01:57:35):
are mindful of giving you this or not. If you
are offered it, will you accept. That's how it works,
so at that point you can actually turn it down.
Very quietly, thank you very much, you're not getting it,
or thank you very much. I was really surprised that
I didn't know I was getting it, had no idea whatsoever,
and I was thrilled. I've also got a I've got

(01:57:58):
an honor from France as well, which which I like
as well, which is which is an order of arts
and letters which I got from the French government. And
I've got a few other bits of pieces led around
they look um. I spent eighteen years working with the
Prince of Wales. I was the vice chairman of the

(01:58:19):
Princess Trust for the first five years. I was their
main you know, did all their fundraising. And you may
recall the Princess Trust Rock Carlos or other stars Saga
and another story. And I did a lot of work
with them because the work they do is incredible. I
worked with the Duke of Edinburgh on his awards ceremony.
Fact I produced his seventieth birthday pass it wins the

(01:58:40):
castle where the Queen wasn't invited and she was looking
out the window going what the hell is going on
down there? I I've done a lot for very different
parts of or family whatever. I um six weeks before
Princess Diana was killed. I actually went with her to Washington,

(01:59:01):
um um, to meet with the American Red Cross to
to a big Red Cross event, and she asked me
to go with her, and I did. And you know,
I knew it quite well, and so on and so forth.
You know, it's what you do. I um. I don't
really brag about it. It's just what I've done, and
so on and so forth. Um. The the French honor

(01:59:26):
was great. That was a real surprise I got. That
was given to me at Medham and I had no
idea about that either. And the other thing I've got
is a Freeman of the City of London, which actually
is really cool because once a year I can drive
a flock of sheep over London Bridge and there ain't
many people who could do that and I'm allowed to.

(01:59:49):
It goes back to four hundred odds as the son
of a tailor. To use the name of the Jack
Bruce album. Do you ever pinch yourself and say, wow,
look at this ride? I do where I made it?
I do. I actually go around the world giving a
talk um which is basically on luck, called luck and timing,

(02:00:09):
because I believe That's what it's all about. It's all
about luck and timing and being in the right place
at the right time and having a stroker luck. But
then the the finnessing of it is taking advantage of
the situation. I never missed a trick, whether it's meeting president's,

(02:00:32):
prime ministers, kings, queens, I've met them all all over
the world. I've done the craziest I mean, if I
told you some of the things that I've done. I
spent one afternoon with Bob geldof paying Catch running up
and down the corridors of the Right House. Go figure
that one. You know, we are just I've just lucked in,

(02:00:56):
just the weird and the wonderful. I got advited a Cuba.
I did a deal for the Club Tropicana, which technically
I still kind of co on the overseas rights for
I met Fidell. I mean it was you can't do
that unless you're a rock and roll you know. I mean,
when when Queen did that song with with the Monster

(02:01:19):
at Barcelona for the Barcelona Olympics. Here I am standing
in a lineup with with all of Queen and monsterral
at one end, and the King and Queen arrive at
on the other side and everyone's standing look at each
other and I literally get up. I walk. I could
see there's nothing. Nobody knows what to do. I go

(02:01:40):
king follow me. You can get away with Blue Murder.
Extraordinary and working um with the Royal Kingdom of Jordan
to produce the event in Petro where we produced in
the desert, a weekend of events where we produced a

(02:02:01):
show in Petra where the ancestry is. We have to
look up, you have to walk down this corridor that's
a meter wide, four hundred meters. We list it. There's
no power. So we did this whole event with fourteen
thousand candles, and then we did a dinner in the
desert for five hundred people that people ten years later

(02:02:22):
still talk about because it was extraordinary. I mean, it's
just fun. Do it, Okay, I think we've come to
the end of the feeling. We've known we can go
on for hours. You know, these stories are gold. Harvey,
thanks so much for giving us your time. Thank you.
I'll enjoyed it until next time. This is barbed Las

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Bob Lefsetz

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