atalush

Black Sabbath

Floundering in the ’80s with a new singer and a sagging fanbase, the members of Black Sabbath decided that something monumental needed to be done for their 1983–’84 Born Again tour. Their idea? A gigantic onstage recreation of Stonehenge, the ring of colossal standing stones built in the English countryside by prehistoric druids. As any fan of Spinal Tap might guess, the stage set turned out to be an epic disaster. Unsurprisingly, no one involved can quite agree how it happened …

Geezer Butler (bassist, Black Sabbath): At the time it was essential to have a big stage set, the more complicated the better. Audiences expected it. As far as Stonehenge went, I always thought it was corny, but not having any input one way or another, I just went along with it.

Ian Gillan (singer, Black Sabbath): We had a meeting with LSD: Light and Sound Design. The guy said, “Has anyone got any ideas for the production?” Geezer suggested Stonehenge. The bloke said, “That’s a great idea, how do you visualize it?” Geezer said, “Life size, of course,” so they went and built it as big as they could — up to the lights in most places. I realized immediately we were going to have problems getting it to the venues.

Butler: It was our manager’s idea. He gave the task of measuring the stage set to our tour manager, who measured it in feet. The company that built the stage, however, assumed it was in meters, so everything came out almost three times bigger. When it came to do a stage rehearsal, we found we could only accommodate part of the set. All the large Stonehenge pieces had to be scrapped, costing us a small fortune.

Gillan: It was definitely Geezer’s idea.

Ross Halfin (photographer): I went to their rehearsal to do a shot for the tour book. They had this plywood Stonehenge that reached to the ceiling — it was ridiculous, like a building. The drum riser was about 20 feet high, with all these lights built into it like a spaceship. I think they had to scrap that, too.

Brian Tatler (guitarist, Diamond Head, support act): It looked a little bit heavy metal and a bit clichéd, I suppose. What can I say? They were Sabbath.

Gillan: Nobody considered the fact that a life-size Stonehenge was just plain silly because you couldn’t get it all up. We only had three of the stones onstage, and there was a dwarf who’d come onstage miming to the sound of a baby screaming. He’d crawl across the stones and when he got behind the drum kit, he’d fall off onto a pile of mattresses. The screaming would cross-fade to the tolling of bells, and then roadies dressed in druid outfits would walk out onto the stage. They were pretty convincing actually, apart from the Reeboks. Then the show was supposed to start. We didn’t like the idea of the dwarf much, so the night the first show started, he came out, fell off the back and the screaming didn’t stop, because someone — who shall remain nameless — had moved the mattresses out of the way.

Butler: It gave me a good laugh when Spinal Tap used their mini Stonehenge, even though they said it was a coincidence.

Gillan: When I was in Vermont working with Deep Purple, we used to go to the pub and this bloke came up on weekends from New York. It turned out he had a friend who was working on a movie called Spinal Tap, and I told them all these stories. It has to be what inspired it.


HAHAHAHAHA

This story is pretty funny too:

STUCK IN A LEMON (YOU CAN’T GET OUT OF)
U2
At the climax of the shows on their Popmart tour, U2 planned to encore from an enormous 40-foot-high lemon. But on the opening night of the tour, in Las Vegas on April 25, 1997, unexpectedly calm weather conditions failed to disperse the vast clouds of smoke that accompanied the entry of the giant fruit. The Edge, unable to see the foot-pedal to activate his guitar, had to crouch down and fumble around for it on the floor. “This voice came into my head,” he later said. “I’m Derek Smalls.” The lemon failed to open altogether later that summer in Oslo. “We pissed ourselves,” recalled The Edge. “It did open about a foot,” said manager Paul McGuinness. Eventually, the band climbed out the back and made their way to their positions by more conventional means.

Oh man, I love that movie and these stories so much...