Michael Cohl

27:08Yes, I agree. It's more of a museoban. It's a museoban. But it's also a tough guy man. The worst crowds. More bikers. Pink Floyd. More violence. I mean, there were some tough nights. I didn't know that. Yeah. No people don't know. Tell me about Bill Graham. When we first aware of him. 1974. He did the crossbeast Hills National Young Tour. Again, I was a sending. And he called Maple Leaf Gardens who said, call call. And he called me. So that's how we met. And we did crossbeast Hills National Young at the varsity stadium. And in those days, you didn't really know to hire people. So I did everything, you know, about the groceries, helped with the load.

27:53And nobody knew how to make a capacity. So we figured it out and we went 40 ,000. So we sold 40 ,000 tickets. Just nothing but every song. Heaven. In fact, it was the night before the show. Everything finished about nine o 'clock. Blazing Saddles was playing at the varsity theater across the street. I went to sit and fell asleep. And the next day, we've got the stadiums full and they're still lined up around the block. And I go, oh my God, what have you done, Michael? Somehow we got them all in. Unbelievable. But that's the first night I met Bill Graham. And what was your thought? Yeah, he was my hero.

28:34Yeah, he was doing the crossbeast Hills National Young Tour. He'd done all these other tours. It was like, holy shit, I want to be that guy. So we get to 89, 88. And he's doing the Amnesty show. I've got the three o 'clock call from Bob Mitchell who says there's this lunatic. Not everybody's aware of everything, right? So Bob kind of knows who Bill Graham is. But not the way we would all Bill Graham. This guy's Bill Graham's show. You know, Rodeys are Rodeys. Bob's a Rodey. A great one. But it's like, look at, I quit. I said, you can't quit. This is a charity show. We're raising money. We're doing our bit.

29:12What are you doing? He said, there's this guy spewing at me. I'm worse than puke. And I like, I want, I was a Bill Graham. And he says, yeah, I said, just don't quit. I'm in my car. I go down there and I say to Bill, look it enough. Don't ever talk to any of my people ever again. I didn't really mean it. I didn't think I meant it. Yeah. I said, but for the rest of today, just talk to me. Anything you need. We'll get through this. And when we're finished, we're never going to work together again. We do enough stuff with the United Appeal and the various charities. We do tons of stuff raised millions.

29:53Even in those days, we're comfortable on our scan. We don't need this crap from you. We agree. We're working through it. So now it's the next morning. And this is how the stones comes about. And again, this one, I don't know where it came from. And I wasn't trying to figure anything out. At all. Yeah. Loan behold, my step all come into the office led by Bob Mitchell, who's been anointed. And said, boss, we got to talk to you. I go, what is it? And he says, we know you promised us that we would never work with Bill Graham again. And we appreciate that. But and I stopped them. I said, just stop.

30:32I know what you're going to say. I don't keep my word. I'm all about the money. And I said, just stop. I meant it. We need the next thing in our growth is we need total self -respect and belief. And we need to demand it of everybody else. Now go back to your desks and do your job. And I did mean it when it came out. And I ultimately did mean it the rest of my life. And they say to me, but you can't mean it. And I go, why? And they said, because if we don't work with Bill Graham, we'll never get to work with the rolling stones. Because he was there promote. And I said, well, this is six years since he did the one own tour.

31:13See, some people are bigger than life. He only ever did one tour. And it had been six years. Yes. But it was still him. At this moment in time that we're talking about, what are the stones up to? They don't exist. The stone stone exists. They've been pissing all over each other in the press for seven and a half eight years. So they haven't done anything. They just dissolved the corporation. Wow. Which is like the stones are now decreased. So for seven -ish years, they don't exist. They don't exist. That's right. I am going to put them together because we need self -respect and we need to prove that we can do it and screw that because we don't want to be abused by Bill Graham.

31:56We're never going to work with the rolling stones. Wrong. We're going to work with the rolling stones. And we're going to let that ultimate lesson of self -respect and moving forward and discipline all work. What happened next? So what next is, in less than an hour, I call a rork. I said, well, I figured out I'm going to put the stones back together. I'm going to give him 40 million. He interrupts and says it won't happen. There's no chance they're pissing on each other. It'll never happen. I said, I'm going to give them 40 million for 40 shows.

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34:04Just to understand the marketplace, how much more is that than anyone had ever gotten for anything? Two or three times. Two or three times the biggest store in history. And you have never done anything on that scale? Well, didn't do for myself, but I did for Chuck Sullivan, Michael Jackson. And I saw how much Michael Jackson made and it was more than that. I see. But here's the thing about the Chuck Sullivan thing. There's the industry. There's the people outside. Chuck was an outsider. And I went to the outsiders to do that tour. Nobody in the industry knew exactly what was going on or what happened.

34:41If you did it the normal way, you couldn't have done it. No, no, couldn't have done it. And he says, okay, but now I'm not going to call Robert. I go, why is this? Because you're going to go bankrupting or my friend. We love you. We're big Floyd. We can't do that. I said, you're wrong. Is this another case where you don't have the 40 million, by the way? I don't have a nickel. No, I do not have the 40 million. Okay, just had to ask. Absolutely. Just want to make sure. It's a given. Okay, I want to make sure I understand the story. But I am, I am with LaBaz. It's a long story. I was with Molson's and I was with the gardens.

35:17They screwed me at the closing. They screwed me. Then I said to them, you screwed me, Mr. Molson's. And I will be back to you in the next two years. Within a year, I sold my company 50 % to LaBaz. And the family that owned it was Charles Hoffman, the brothman, the infamous. Okay, so now I've done a deal where they own half my company. And I'm thinking, Charles will give me the money. I don't even ask how the money works. I'm so relieved. You're already the most successful promoter. Yeah, then I handed it at this time. Yeah, but I'm years. Yes, but I always bid off this much and generated this much.

35:59Yeah, but you've been successful company. You've been just so understanding. You've been wildly successful now for about 17 years. Yes. I have to do the math right. Well, 74 we got successful. So this is 13 years. Okay, so 13 years of great success. You're offering $40 million for something and you have nothing. We're just living, yeah, we're living beyond our means. Yes. Okay. That's, I just want to not understand the picture clearly. You know, I understand. And I don't have the 40, but I offer it. And yes, and you want to know how impactful 40 million was. Yes, there's better ways than saying more than anybody.

36:33Yeah. Rupert said, Steve a work called me and said, you have an interesting offer to make. And I said, didn't he tell you what it is? And he said, yes, but I need to hear it from your mouth. And I go 40 million for 40 shows. And he says, I'd like to meet you halfway. And he laughs. I said, okay, he says, I'll take the Concord to New York tomorrow. You fly in and meet me for lunch. Is that okay? And I said, fine. So he's not waiting. This is late in the day. And he's getting on the morning Concord. Yeah, unbelievable. By the end of the lunch, he says, you've got my vote. And you've got the tour.

37:11But you have to get Mick and Keith. Very significant statement because I've worked with the stones. Yes. I've been a local promoter in Canada. And I was their local promoter in Buffalo. Yes. But I don't understand where Rupert fits because he's never showed up at a single show. But now I'm having lunch with him and he says, you've got the stones. I go back. I say to Lori, I had this really weird lunch with this guy who for some reason thought it was appropriate to blow smoke up my ass and tell me I have the stones, which couldn't possibly be happening because we just met. I still think he's blowing smoke up my ass so we have dinner.

37:49Then I come home. At the dinner, he says, well, we've got to figure out what to do with Mick and Keith. You have to meet with him. You have to have to like you. They have to trust you. Mixed in love with Bill Graham. Do the wee part and we figure out. We'll talk again in a few days. I start to do a little homework when some people tell me, yeah, Rupert hates Bill Graham. Bill Graham calls him fatty. He was a short, really wrote ton Brit who Bill Graham was too arrogant to and didn't respect him. So I go, okay, there's hope. And we're talking and talking. Then suddenly we've looked at a budget.

38:28We've looked at it. And it's kind of like, wow, I'm actually maybe going to get this. So now we're making the deal and we have to have a meeting with the Rolling Stones. I've met them. I've worked with them. But I'm coming in as a different, you know what I mean? Yes. I'm everybody's buddy now and coming in trying to marry your daughter. Yeah. Who? I never noticed that scar in your face. Yeah. Step two, how do we get them to talk to each other? Yeah. So we can cock the thing, man, Rupert. The goal is to get Micken Keith to talk. Yes. Okay. But we do it without getting them to talk. Okay. We go to yarn winner and Rolling Stone magazine and get them to induct them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

39:17Because we know that A Keith lives in Connecticut. B he'll go. C that you have to play after. We also know from chatting that all the rest of the battle show up and that it Mick doesn't. They don't care. They'll do it. Yeah. And Mick won't allow that. Never allow that to happen. And you can't go and you're on and Mick are friends. So we know that when it's time for the Stones to play, there's no chance Mick won't play with them. It works. They get inducted. They play. And the next Monday, Rupert calls me and says they liked it. We're going to have a meeting with you. Come to New York a couple weeks later and see if we can stand each other.

40:04Great plan worked. Now it's time to go to the meeting. Meetings on a Monday. I go to New York on Thursday. I lock myself in a room at the park in Meridian and I just talk to a mirror with room service for four days and I'm going to ask you if you're going to be ready. I'm going to be ready. I'm going to be ready. It's all set. It's Monday morning meetings at noon. Nobody gets up before that. I've got my deaf leopard jacket and I got my pink Floyd jacket and I don't know which one to wear. I'm very superstitious. I go, I got to wear my pink Floyd jacket. I walk in. It's done and over when I walk in because I walk in with my pink Floyd leather jacket which is nicer and better than any merch that stones it ever produced and mix stands up and looks at it, turns to rest the benefits.

41:00You see that jacket? That's what I've been talking about. And I know we had to have a meeting and talk about it but it was kind of like, well, it wasn't over that I was going to get it but it was over that I was in the running. Well, it was also over that you had something that they wanted. Yes, just bumped into it. But everybody wanted it. Yeah. It was just we were doing it for other bands and for whatever reason went to Atlanta Bill Graham weren't doing it for the stones. Yeah. They were still stuck in black tees. Yeah. And we were trying to do other stuff. Yeah. Because we started to realize who were the stones audience?

41:40So this is late 80s so the latest stones fans were all grown up successful people now. Exactly. So the next thing is we have to we have the meeting. It goes really well. We keep going and now we're down to the deal. And we have negotiated and negotiated and negotiated the deal. And what are some of the points in the deal beyond because the main event has already been covered? Well, the dinner is the expenses and who pays the expenses and when there's overage. I see. So now it looks like it's real. I got to go back to Charles Braufen and get the money. We have a meeting. He said, glad you brought me a deal.

42:22This is why we did business with you. Then we go to the little bats board. They started asking questions. Charles got really mad. Slam the table. It says, what are you asking questions? It's the you're not going to back the rolling stones. Why are we in business with this lad? Like stop it. And I went to them for 65 million. Because I said, I think we're going to get it for 40. But I'm telling you, we will get it for 65. So anyways, they approved the 65. I'm bidding 40. Time has moved on. It's late winter February March 89. We're doing the deal. I think I've got it. I don't know that they're still talking to Bill Graham.

43:05I don't know that Mick is still pushing for Bill Graham. But I hear a story of Bill Graham flying over with Mick on the concord because he was having an affair with one of Mick's secretaries. And ultimately, I do hear from Mick later on that that was true. And that, you know, Mick, in the end, was going to give it to Bill really and just said, Michael's bids 10 million higher than you. So I felt good that I knew they would only bid 30. Yeah. Michael's bids 10 million higher than you. And do you not think, you know, I'm responsible for protecting the band. And do you not think that 2 million each is a lot for us to pay to work with you?

43:46And Bill said, no. And Mick later told me that's when Bill lost. Like, why were the rolling stones worked for 10 million last week? Where are the rolling stones? Of course. In some ways, it's a funny world because in Bill Wyman's book later, he talks about how they had a big tiff with Bill over 3 million that he stiffed them for and refused to pay. And the bands swore they'd never work with them again. So you have the other four rolling stones thinking the negotiation with me and Bill Graham is just a ruse to get me up as high as possible. There's no chance on earth. They're going to work with Bill and Mick's still cavorting with Bill.

44:23I go to Barbados for the closing. Bill's there. What? Bill's there. Pitching. You didn't tell me that. Don't I'm telling you now. That's what I got. I've got to the closing. Making his pitch kind of thing. Unbelievable. I know. The reason I think we've got it is because one night we're at home in Douglas Drive and it's like really late. And there was a band meeting. I knew it. And Rupert told me they were making a decision. They called us at about 1130 at night. And all the band were there and Rupert with his fantastic Prince Rupert. Michael the rolling stones have decided to be employed by you for the purposes of touring.

45:05And the band are all here. Say hi boys. That's so funny. Well I never forgot employed by you. And I went so employed by me. Yeah. Exactly. Fantastic. Exactly. So now we're in Barbados and we're doing a close. Yeah. But why is Bill there? Well he was some last minute pitch to save the day. To save the day. Well the first, sorry I skipped the first Barbados. I got to go to Barbados when they're making steel wheels and hang around with them for a week. I go to the studio, they're recording, everything's great, things are happening. I'm worried about one thing, but I save it for the rehearsals because I don't have the tour yet.

45:45Anyways now it's okay. What do you guys do at night for relaxation? And Mick says we're going dancing. Be in the lobby at 630. You mean Keith, we're going to go dancing. I go great. I think it's Jimmy Cliff has a club and he's buddies with the stone. So we're going to go there. We're going to eat have our own room and we're going to be dancing. We're walking down the hallway and I see this good looking blonde and I go, God, making Keith. I won't see them again tonight. We get up there. We're walking in the three of us, two security guards. And what's the first thing she says? Michael, I haven't seen you for so long and was a girl I knew from camp.

46:27But it's kind of like later when Keith and I are sitting at the bar and mixed dancing with every good looking girl there. She says, how did you get that girl here so fast? He's like, but anyways, we have a good week. Yeah. Everything goes great. We go back to New York and we have to go back to Barbados later on for the closing. We do the closing. It's happening. It builds pride. Everything he can. Forbes Magazine is making an article about the wonder kids blowing his brains out again. He gave them $40 million. He sunk his ship this time round.

47:08One of the reasons I was excited to meet you was I remember a quote from Bill Graham. He'd say, this is to me, this was a public quote. The stone said supposedly that if he would meet your offer, they would do it with him. Mixed that. And he said, I can't do that. It's not about the money. It's about the money. And I thought that line, it's like there's so much in that sentence. Yes. Yes. And it sounds like Bill. Yeah. And I'm picturing Bill Graham, the beat next slash, should be entrepreneur of the people. And I've never met you before today. And I assumed you were the suit from Canada. Yeah.

47:59Had more money to beat out Bill Graham. And I thought, that must be interesting. Just that. And then you turned up. Yeah. Here I am. And it's a different story. But you know what? I'm not the suit from Canada. And he wasn't the hippie. Well, when you're acting, I can see you were from. Yeah. But he wasn't the hippie. Yeah. Bill Graham was a business man. Oh, for sure. And I don't want to talk ill about the debt as they say. But we were settled with Bill Graham and his inadequate business thoughts for years. You know, this is the thing about Bill. He thought it was okay to keep ticket prices low so that the scalpers would make more.

48:34And he was part of that thing with the scalpers. I was able to change things. How did I change it? I think my biggest contribution and a lot of promoters hated me. There was a huge promoter meeting Bill called one. He didn't invite me because I was meaningless. And I wasn't meaningless. But I wasn't meaningful enough for Bill. But then there was another promoter meeting which was like 98 promoters voted me the devil. And the only one that didn't was my representative. I refused to go to the meeting. But the thing about Bill was he just was making too much money. And I changed that. And the promoters hated me in a way because I just took everything.

49:14It's funny because you know, I haven't thought about a lot of this stuff for so long. Yeah, why would you move on? But it's really, it's just, you know what it really is. It's a plan. Yeah. Learning how to do business. Yeah. And Rupert was unbelievable. Unbelievable lesson because I mean, you do a deal with Rolling Stones. I'm just a promoter. I sign up. I'm used to my role. It's about a week before the first show. And I'm calling Rupert and saying, when are you coming to Philadelphia? And he says, I'm not. I need to take a breath. I'm a promoter who works with the band. Yeah. But when the crisis comes, I go to the manager.

49:56And now, what do you mean you're not? When do you come? He says, well, I'm coming to New York. And I go, but that's five weeks since the tour. Yeah. If there's an emergency in those five weeks, who would you talk to? Myself in the band. Yeah. Now we're in the late 80s. But let's walk through the numbers. But you know, I'm in 40 million ones. My deal with the Stones was in 85, 50. Amazing. That's how much 40 million. We're never going to get into percentage. This guy's nuts. Yes. Let's do the 9010 for. I didn't know by the way that I had to fight with Bill Graham. That was something that Bill Wyman, who I became very friendly with, as the tour started.

50:35Why did he leave the band? You know, he hated flying. He hated flying. And so what happened was, we went through opening flight. We're going from rehearsals to fly to the first gig for the Stones. I'm with the band because I'm the tour director and the promoter. I'm the quasi manager. And we had almost all the same staff that there were on the previous tour, whether they were getting used to me. I was a bit edgy like, oh god, they're all of Bill Graham. I have a different management style. He's got, he's involved in every nickel in time. I drove them crazy at first. Some of them almost had nervous breakdowns.

51:15Because I would go, like, why are you calling me? If you're not the best, like, this is the Stones. We have the best truck drivers. We have the best caterers. We have the best everything. You must be able to make a decision. Call me when it's important. But Bill was involved in everything. But now we're going to the first gig. And Alan Dunn has a big smile on his face and says, well, we've seated you up front with the band. And you have the seat opposite Bill Iman. And he goes, I don't catch that it's a trick. So we get to the first gig. We sit, we have our own plane. There's the table here. Bill sits down, lays out about six pills, puts it back.

51:52I go, what are you doing? He says, well, you know, we're going to die, don't you? He infected me. I couldn't fly for like five years. I was a nervous wreck like him. Oh, there's, there's a leak from the plane from the engine. Go talk to the pilot. There's no leak. But he was a rolling stone. I'll go, I'll go. I mean, you have to maintain them. You know, protocol. You caught his iron ore. His flu. Wow. So by the time we got to Europe, which was called urban jungle, because steel wheels was costing them too much money. And they were losing money. I was okay. We made a deal that made the 40 million work.

52:29Anyways, we scrapped steel wheels and we created a new show that made everything work. But by then he'd given up. I can't fly anymore. He took trains. And it didn't work because sometimes the train was late and he missed soundcheck. There was friction with the band. Where's Bill? How can we have soundcheck without our bass player? What's wrong with him? And it was over. Let's talk about before 9010 economics. And then when you first learned about the 9010, do you mean example using numbers? Well, the difference was if the act would make 50 ,000, and the promoter would make 50 ,000. And now the act's going to make 90 ,000.

53:10And the promoter's going to make 10. Understood. And would those have been about the numbers? It would have been like, yeah, it's some nice in that range. Yeah. Okay. I mean, as it grew, you know, 180 ,000 and 20 ,000. But that's why a promoter had to learn to go, we better go in the ticket business. Or we better have travel packages or we better get a ticket rebate or some scalped. I didn't scalp. And we would do those things. And then eventually when you got to the point of the deal with the stones, you were counting all of the not just the tickets, but the t -shirts and the everything and it was all going into the pot.

53:50Yeah. Well, I used to describe us internally as an arena without walls because it's like the NFL. I'm sure they don't make money on the game. And eventually we've gone into everything. You know, by the stones I was doing other stuff. You know, I'd already done wide world of sports, professional skating tour. Again, just opportunities where I met some skaters and I met some people with the skating and they were complaining that the Olympics was the worst thing ever because when it was finished, they couldn't compete anymore. They worked, but they have to go to ice follies or ice capades. And it was so useless and boring.

54:30And I said, well, then let's start a tour. So we started the professional skating tour. Great idea. And then we bob Iger when he was a stunker and I was a stunker. We did a deal for, with Steve Lieber and bob Iger and myself did a deal to do the professional skating on ABC wide world of sports in Madison Square Garden. Great. Tell me the history of live nation. It was Bob Sillerman really started to think called SFX. I had tried it my own way and kind of failed. You know, at a certain point I had 12 different promoters and Bob was a more sophisticated businessman and it gave him a huge, this is how you do it.

55:15I watched him do it and went, wow. But it started. It really was called SFX. They just changed it to live nation. There was no live nation. It was SFX and was Bob Sillerman. Was he a promoter before? No, he was an aggregator. I see. He's a New York Sharpie businessman aggregator. He'd aggregated radio and you might know a thing called AMFM radio and Bob and him were partners. I don't mean DJ like this. I mean, hey, good morning. This is cousin Brucey. I know if I did it. Yeah. Cousin Brucey and Bob Sillerman. He and Bob bought a radio station. Then they bought another station. Then they bought another one.

55:58Then they bought so many and they had a company called AMFM radio which had a zillion stations and that was Bob and then he dumped it and made a zillion dollars. And that became what's now a heart radio. I suppose. That's right. Well, kind of because what happened with AMFM is that Bob took that money and he started buying promoters. He had an idea. Now that I did the music, I'll aggregate the promoters. And so he gave this promoter 20 million 30 and everybody thought he was nuts and some people fought it.

56:39My friend and getting nine figure numbers. Of course, he spent 1 .3 billion in solar for it was either three or four billion. So last laugh, ha ha. And it's the whole idea of an aggregator that the more of AMFM became clear channel. Clear channel. And then clear channel. And clear channel. My heart radio. That's what it is today. No, it's same thing. And it bought SFX. Yeah. Live nation just became later. They changed the name. There was no formation. But it was the idea was Bob bought all the promoters or as many as he could. Yep. And the idea was instead of it being a local business by scale, you could make better deals.

57:23Is that what it is? Yes. Yes. It's as simple as that. It is that simple. Ultimately, live nation, for example, there was a realization. Well, we do as many people as Disney. Disney does 35 million here. We do 35 million here. Disney does 100 million in sponsorship. We do two. We need to present ourselves better.

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59:09Tell me about from your position, you see this guy buying up your equivalents and other parts of the country. When do you decide I want to be part of this or what's the thinking? Is it I'm going to get swallowed up anyway? No, wasn't that at all. I was doing great. I mean, I was still independent. I had stones, two, dry sand. Crosby stills nationally. I was great. I didn't need them. But the offer got so big that I just went, okay fine. This is stupid. Like that's 10 years money today. I can never catch up even at four percent. Yes. So yes, let's do it. And then you were involved from the beginning once it was put together, yes?

59:58No, it had been put together. A few years later, I came on board. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. And what was the experience like? I thought it was pretty good. I mean, I lived through it. Yeah. We all exited kind of when they sold it. Yeah. But I like Bob. Yeah. It was also getting one of those things. You know, you reflect on life. Yeah. I got up in the morning. I'm going to Bob's funeral. I'm getting up in the morning. Bob's died. He had throat cancer. I'm going to his funeral. I'm sad, but I'm feeling good. I went, I'm going to see all of those guys. Yeah. I'm going to see Mitch. I'm going to see Larry.

1:00:38I'm going to see all of those guys. I go to the funeral. I'm the only guy that showed up. Really? I'm the only freaking guy that showed up. And it dawns on me. I'm going to say this, but all the Americans who ever listen are going to hate me, but so be it all the Americans. I'm Canadian. And I go, it must be they thought they were worth the money. And I didn't. Wow. Because I'm there thanking him, my buddy, and saying, Holy Christ, you gave us money. We've never would have had. But I was so shocked. How do you know what's going to be? You might just be a better friend than they are. I don't know.

1:01:15One of the things when I came to this country that I had hardest time getting used to is how aggressive everybody was. I mean, so aggressive. I know Canada's caught on now, but they were so aggressive. And maybe I'm still a bit of a high school kid. I'm still always shocked when what I thought was true is true. And when I find out people are who I thought they were, I'm never one of these guys go, oh, I knew. But there's so many people who go, oh, I knew all of those other promoters were, oh, I knew. And I've always walked around going, you didn't know. I don't know where you're somewhere lost in your walking through life, but you didn't know.

1:01:59You know now. By the way, I give you my best, you knew story ever. The greatest thing about, I mean, we've skipped 20 years, but so be it. But touring with the stones, I am in Barbados. We're closing the deal. So we're back to that. I'm leaving to go to Barbados. And Lori says, I don't know how she could be this pressing it, women are like that. She says, great, go get the deal, but do not go on tour with them. Because it's 1989. And we have four children, six and under. So I said, don't you where I want now. I'm in Barbados next scene in the movie. I'm in the room. It's just the Rolling Stones and me not even Rupert.

1:02:47There's one last deal point. And Mix says, so we were in Australia. And Bill Graham wasn't at the gig. And there was a problem with the science. And that guy from the sponsors and Paul Dainty end up the promoter end up in the dressing room harassing me. And I didn't know what to do. And I had to give him back some money. And it was a very unpleasant conversation, Michael. So the band that I would like to say the following. We're going to be on all the tour and at all the shows. Where are you going to be? I knew one thing from having been their local promoter. And I don't say this because some people say, oh, that's just stubborn.

1:03:36They don't laugh. And I knew it. And so I hesitated for an eon, which was probably three seconds. And I went, well, I'm going to be on all the shows. And they said, that's one of our demands. But was the conversation when you got home? I didn't tell her. I'm embarrassed with her sitting there. I didn't tell her till about four days till I left for rehearsal. Wow. Which was months later. I didn't have the balls. Wow. But now we're in Brixton Academy. But that's one of the things about we end up with the stones and being with these different groups is you get to be in these historical or interesting moments where you get to see the truth.

1:04:22Yeah. I'm sitting at Brixton Academy. Keith Richards is there. This is one of those great nights. One of the best half hours of my life. And also one of the most embarrassing. There's a coach for two and there's a chair. I'm on the left of the coach for two and Keith's in the chair. We're just chatting, our pregame chat. Little small gig, 500 people. We did lots of those. They love them. They're the best gigs. This scrawny looking guy in a beige trench coat with a hat comes in and he looks like he's 105 pounds and he sits down and Keith says, hi, how you doing? They're chatting for about three minutes and Keith goes, oh, I'm embarrassed, Michael.

1:05:10I didn't introduce you. George Michael and I look, I don't recognize him. And I say to Keith, that's not George Michael. He said, it's George Harrison, you idiot. I know. I know. I know. What can I tell you? Pretty funny. It is funny. And it happens. So we're chatting. Yeah. And then the guys come in and say, Keith, 15 minutes till you go on. So George says, this has been great. I'm going out to see the show. Well, you hear, I'm just here by myself. I just live over there. I came over. I couldn't hadn't seen you for so long. And then George Harrison stands up and he looks at him. He says, I'm so jealous of you guys.

1:05:54Wow. But it gets better because Keith goes, what do you have to do to be jealous of us? You're a beetle. I mean, he acknowledges like you're a beetle. Where are there stones? And Harrison goes, yeah, but look at you guys. You're still together. You kept it together. We couldn't keep it together. It was like been decades and Keith goes, why didn't you keep it together? And he says, you know, Paul had to control everything. And so you sit there and you go, holy shit. It's not going to the book. But maybe you can go on here. It's like my God. Yeah. Now the other good part of the story is George Leaves.

1:06:40I'm talking to Keith for about three seconds. Again, it seemed like a minute. And I realize, holy shit, he's got a trench going on. He doesn't have a pass. He has a hat. Nobody's going to recognize him. Be right back. I run out to try and rescue him. And I see one of the security guys carrying him out. Oh my God. And I go, put him down. And they go, what do you mean? I said, that's George Harrison. Put him down. So it's like, if you ever wrote a book, the chapter would be put him down. So funny. Unbelievable. Unbelievable stuff. I was going to say, tell me about Prague. First of all, we all were learning to tour.

1:07:21Stones had done tours, but 74 days. But during Steel Wheels, we're all learning. You know, Mick has rules. No children, no wives. Everybody goes on strike. I have to go tell Mick that everybody's on strike. He gives in. He was just trying to hide everything from Jerry. So, but we worked it all out. Now we're out on Voodoo and we've got our families. But now we're in Europe. Anyways, I get a phone call. And it's from Huffle. And he says, hello, I'm Vachlif Hevel's assistant. And he says, well, we need to have a concert. And it's important. And President Hevel has authorized me to speak to you. And you to speak to the band.

1:08:11And we'd like to have a concert in Prague. And I go, that's great. I haven't really followed what's going on at all. So I start to get defensive. And I go, how do I know you're with the president? How do I know you're not just some guy trying to come and get tickets and we're in Germany and get tickets for this German show? He says, I don't want to come to them. I said, well, you have to get me a note with the official seal. But then I go and do some research. I'm somewhat embarrassed that I don't know that he got a million people to sit in the city square and throw the Russians out without a bullet.

1:08:49He's now my new hero. He's replacing Pete Seeger. Wow. It was my previous hero. And now he's my hero. And he sends me the letter I get it by delivering. There's no internet. And I look at it. It looks real. I don't really know if it's real. It could be a grand scheme. But anyways, I go to Mick and Keith and I said, you know, have a little bit, and they go, yeah, we know. They want us to do a concert. Mick was always really good at this stuff. And I said, they don't have any money. We're going to lose money. We're not even going to break even. And the truth is, it's behind the Iron Curtain. What was the Iron Curtain?

1:09:30It's 1990, not because that's when the Berlin Wall came down. It all happened very quickly. Like we've never sold records there. People might have smuggled them in. Where do they want to play it? I said, well, they have this stadium. Sparta is the biggest stadium in the world that the Soviet Union, as it used to be called, it has six football fields where they would have the gymnastics championships for the whole Soviet Union. And it holds 250 ,000. So a typical stadium. 60. We're playing to 50 to 60 ,000. LA had 100. We did three nights because, you know, there was Beatles. There was Michael Jackson's and then there was Stu Will's.

1:10:15And then it was unbelievable. So now we have to have the discussion of what the fuck do we do? What do we do? I get maps of it. I think about it. I go back to make their convinced we're going to sell out. Yeah, but Michael, you know they don't know what they're talking about. But I get it. I'm starting to get a feeling. I'm phoning people. And it's like it's the poet who became president. And I said, let me meet with them. I call them back and said, this thing might happen. Come with your best pitch. And they're going to meet me in Holland. So seeing three in this movie, it's 830. My phone rings.

1:10:59I was in Keith's room till 630. It's my assistant. She says, the people from president of may just have coffee or something. I'll get showered and dressed. Tell them 20 minutes. I scurry about, send them up, open the door and it's Jerry Garcia and Alice Cooper. I mean, he looked like you with sandals and he's the president's assistant. And the minister of economics has black mascara, all black, and I go, this is my kind of meeting. The beatniks have taken over the country. I actually woke Mick after the meeting say, you won't believe it. The beatniks have taken. He says, I knew that. I went, I know, I'm an idiot, and I know you, he does follow those things more than I did.

1:11:55The best they could offer was to send his plane.

1:12:03He spent time, we looked at the map, and I said, we have to compromise. So instead of the stage going here and playing the 250 ,000, we're going to put the stage here and play to 150. Which still risky in a country that I would stick. You might have been illegal in this country until very recently. Yes. This was like six months. So six months ago, you could not buy or hear. There were bootlegs. There were people who legally, it was against the law. That's right. Well, everywhere we went in those days, the stones couldn't go to Japan. But we agreed to do the show. And we're going to lose money.

1:12:46But it's okay. The band are fine with it. We're all very excited. We're worried because we're going to go on sale. In fact, we had a pool amongst all of us. I took 78 ,000. I was closest. We sold 115 ,000 the first morning. Period. We sold out. Bingo. Now we made it cheap. It was like 20 or 25 dollars. And the interesting thing then was he's the most super person, gentle, genuinely. He invites us. Laurie McGorrin ends up on the front page of the New York Times, Bondy McGorrin, with the Rolling Stones because the Prague Castle, which I think they've torn down, but is the largest castle in the world?

1:13:31And we're invited to go for tea with President Havill and his wife. We go in, we walk, and we walk, and we walk. But the Russians have stolen everything. They stole the floorboards. They stole the lights. They stole the wallpaper. They stole everything. This is the most decrepit looking, nonsensical palace for a president you've ever seen. We walk into the room where Havill is and he's got a desk and two chairs. There's like, I can't remember, five or six Rolling Stones, me and Laurie at the time. And we're chatting. And the concert's the next day, but he wanted to see us for. He's speaking English.

1:14:14Yeah. He's spoken English. And we hear this noise in the courtyard.

1:14:22And then finally, could you explain to us what that noise is? And he says, well, that's the courtyard. There's about 15 or 20 ,000 people in the courtyard were hoping you would say, hi, but I go, what are they chanting? And he says, they're chanting. Thank you so much, President Havill, for bringing the Rolling Stones. Now we know we're truly free, which was what they told me in the hotel. And I told the band, I forgot this part, but the reason we had to do the concert was so that they know that it was legitimate. It proved that they were free. The Rolling Stones. So he opens the doors. We go out on the balcony.

1:15:10They're screaming. And the press are there, which is great. It's fun. Havill goes out, the band goes out. Everybody's crying, even Charlie Watts, the hardest human honor has tears in his eye. And there's a picture goes to the front page of the New York Times and everybody else in the world. And Laurie McGorn happened to be standing there next to the Rolling Stones. But he's a story. Beautiful. What a story. Beautiful. And then we play the show. Yeah. And it's like, how to go phenomenal. It was like beyond phenomenal. We got to know the president and his wife. And our slogan for the show was tanks roll out, stones roll in.

1:15:46Wow. And so everywhere you went in town with stone stones, there being one bread in a bakery, there was no furniture. It was terrible, but it was the most wonderful time.

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1:17:25Tell me about the music world in 1969. You started in 1969. Oh, Jesus, yeah, I did. I started in 1969. I was 21. Nobody would sell me anything. Ricky goes, I got a great idea. We're going to open a strip club, which was perfectly legal. I said, you're right. We're going to have the first all -newed strip club. What is this G -string and paste these crap? We'll shut down all the other businesses because we'll have legal. Well, we're hippies. We're like you, hair down in here. It's the 60s. How can the human body be illegal? Of course. The lawyer tells us illegal. We go screw them. They're wrong.

1:18:12And we do it. We open it up. We run out of money. We find a bowling alley. We fix it up. We get it ready, and we're out of money. We don't know how to promote it. And we thought that the best idea was to bring the press in and some public. And we called it the Undress rehearsal. So we had our Undress rehearsal. Now, in these days, there's only one TV channel in Canada. It's called the CBC, Canadian Broadcast Corporation, like BBC. We're part of the Commonwealth. It's the CBC. They come to the Undress rehearsal amongst other things, and we say to them, you can film it, but don't film the girls.

1:18:54Don't film the girls, and don't put it on TV, because if you do, we're all going to get in trouble. I wasn't worried about them so much as I was worried about. There goes all our money. Ricky and I had like 10 ,000 in the world, some of which to this day, when I think back of it, we each went to the bank of commerce and borrowed $5 ,000. That's where the 10 ,000 came from, because all the drug money had gone to the lawyers to get us out on bail. So anyways, what happens is they come, they film it, and there's only one national news at the time, and they show it, and they show the girls nude. Wow.

1:19:31So two things happen. We're on the front page of every newspaper. My mother calls from Toronto to say, I have an appointment for you with a psychiatrist. You clearly need help. My uncle calls and says, you're about to get arrested, you're in trouble, and we get arrested. Wow. So our next, we're going into legitimate business idea, as we got arrested 34 times. They would come in every day. 34 times? Well, it took a while for our lawyers to ultimately, you learn all these new concepts. Yeah. Talk about a different kind of creativity, where the lawyer finally goes to the judge and says, you have more money than they're making in bail.

1:20:14They're bailing the girls out every day. Ricky would go in Monday and I'd bail him in the girls out. I'd go in Tuesday, heat bail. Like we had to take turns. And then ultimately, the judge went, yeah, you're convicting them without a trial. No more arrests till there's a trial. Wow. The guys we're partners with are in the music business. And we're starting to do music in Toronto. And we're starting to get a feel. Tell me starting to do music in Toronto. What does that look like? Tell me what that means. Well, it's a front, one of one of the dope dealers. Three of the dope dealers. Yeah. Solnicki Gourd Breggman essentially started a company called Solnicki Gourd Breggman.

1:20:54We were all pissed off at them because we went, that's such a good idea. Why didn't you include us? And they went, well, we were just a bit up and somebody said, why don't we bring the who? And so we all invested. And that's what I mean by starting. I see. They did everything. I gave them $2 ,500. And do you know, I have a feeling this story is not unique in that people your age all over the United States who were entrepreneurial might have had a similar story at that time. That was in tune with what was going on in the world. I think you're right. Although ultimately a few years later, we would describe it as, oh my god, somebody just offered four times for the Moody Blues.

1:21:35What we offered. And I said, oh, somebody had a bar mitzvah just step aside. Yeah. You can't fight that battle. Yeah. Hopefully he loses money in a way we go. Was that a typical thing like you there were so many newcomers. But we were the newcomer. Yeah. Like when we got into it, there was a guy in town named Marty Onrotton. He was the man. And how big was music at this point in time? Like what would be the size of the venue that you would be dealing with? How many people would come? The first show. Yeah. Nobody would sell me anything. So eventually there was a guy in California named Jack McFadden.

1:22:16I don't know if you know him. I don't know him, but I've heard his name. Yeah. He had buckoans. Kind of Ricky and I had never heard of buckoans. So we went out and bought five buckoans. Records of Sam, the record man as opposed to Sam, the Chinese food man as opposed to Sam, the strip club man. And we went and bought five buckoan records. Went and smoked a lot of pot and listened to buckoans and went, discuss fantastic. Like all these folks. Yeah. And nobody wanted to bring buckoans. So we did a deal for buckoans to play Maple Leaf Gardens. So our first show is at an 18 ,000 seat, but we didn't know anything.

1:22:52Yeah. And I'm not saying anybody did anything crooked because I don't have any proof. And in these days, you can't even prove the truth. But buckoans had 15 number one albums and 20 number one singles. And we didn't fill the floor. The floor holds 2 ,500 seats. We didn't fill the floor. We saw 2 ,300 seats total. Out of how many again? 18 ,000? Yeah. We lost everything. Yeah. And actually, you know how things work out sometimes? Yeah. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me because it's in our mission. Yep. And buck's back stage, my buddy Jack, isn't even there. And buck doesn't want to know about withholding tax.

1:23:36He's not going on unless we give him back them withholding tax because somehow he doesn't recognize he's in a foreign country. I don't have the withholding tax. I've lost everything in the world. The Jesse James of all names is the guy who manages the building. He's there and he's saying, I'm calling the police. I'm closing the show. It's over. I said, oh my god, you can't, you can't, you can't. And I know the guy Harold Ballard owned, maybe leave gardens at the time. So I said to him, is Harold in the building? He says, yes, but he won't see you. I said, I think he might, my father is Phil Cole and he buys boilers.

1:24:14Harold had a hockey team in a building, but his real business was making boilers for all of the manufacturing in Toronto. And I said, just tell him Phil Cole's son's here. Don't even tell him this Michael. Phil Cole's son's here. I met Harold Ballard for the first time that night. He handed me the money. He said, you're never going to fucking pay me back. It's exactly how he said it. But I like your father. And I said, I'm going to pay you back. Yeah. And I got to meet him. Now ultimately, he's my benefactor. He takes me in, he trains me, he backs me. Wow. And it's all because Buck Olin's refused to pay his taxes.

1:24:50Amazing. Yeah. Tell me about getting sober. I just, I'd had it. I got up in the morning, one morning going to work and I was like, I couldn't feel my face. You know, I'd fallen down. And that was it. I stopped. I was lucky. I had great willpower because I didn't go to group or A .A. or anything. I just stopped. Amazing. But for me, it was harder to quit smoking. I mean, it was my smoking. I've been in an addict all along because I quit drugs. I immediately went to gambling. Bankrupted the whole family. Laurie had the threatened to leave me and kill me. So I had to quit gambling, which is where the superstition came in because I think she came in one day and said, I didn't sign up for this three TVs and bookmaking.

1:25:41Oh, it was bookmaking too. And betting 25 ,000 a game and getting stiff by the guys who'd kill me. So I'd pay, but not getting paid for the guys who, and she went, this isn't what I signed up for. And I said, again, that moment, the same thing in the business. I said, you know, that stomach ache you've been having, which my sick view of the world is, is either our next son or cancer. Either way, you need to go to the doctor in the morning. You go to the doctor in the morning and I swear on his life, I will never bet again. Amazing. You've seen amazing things. What a life. I have seen some good stuff.

1:26:22And I think because you've come at it from the point of view of a fan, I'm still a fan. Yeah. I think that's the secret. It's like, that's why it's part of it. No doubt. I think so. No doubt. I think so. I remember once saying to my mom, how come you never lined up to go on Sianny shows? And she says, because there were different generations, so secretive, she said, well, I slept out all night at the Winnipeg Arena to get Frank Sinatra tickets in the 40s. Wow. And so, you know, there's just, it's all happened to the same only different, right? Amazing. Yeah. How's Broadway different than the concert business?

1:27:03It's much, you know, Broadway and being a producer is much, much harder than being a promoter. It's the hardest thing. Well, that in film, I've done a lot of films. It's all still connected. But it's really, really, really hard because you don't have the songs recorded by Pink Floyd and you don't have the 100 million albums. You have a blank sheet of paper and you want to do something. But it's like so hard to get it right. And we failed so many times. We've had some success. I like to say we've done slightly better than Geter and he's in the Hall of Fame. So that's what you need to do. I'm a big Yankee fan.

1:27:41Are you a baseball fan at all? No. I'm the only thing I watch is pro wrestling. Pro wrestling? I may believe Garden is a classic wrestling. I did the first Hulk Mania. Amazing. That C &E stadium. I convinced Vince to go outdoors. He'll remember this. Yeah. And we're at C &E Stadium and it's being broadcast worldwide and we got Hulk fighting Andre the Giant for the title. Yeah. And it goes live broadcast at 8 o 'clock. And the ticket company screwed up the map on the floor. So if you were supposed to be A16, there's no A16. Oh no. And it's 7 .15 and Vince McMahon is cussing me and cursing the day he met me.

1:28:30And we don't know what to do. And we've sold 50 ,000 tickets. They never played a stadium before. I loved wrestling. Yeah. Yeah. That's a wild story. So we just told everybody to sit down if you weren't happy, ask for your money back. Yeah. Yeah. So nobody got to sit in their seats. But there's one of those nights that again, in the book, it would be unbelievable because we ended up at a Greek restaurant and Hux to my left is a big fella. And then Andre. The biggest. Big fella is on the right. And my first thought is if they fart, I'm dead. It's like if they fart, I'm dead. What's the crazy is ticket request you ever got?

1:29:10Oh God. What a story. Again, it's another one of those I've been in the I've been in Keese Room. I go back at six o 'clock, seven o 'clock. The phone rings at 7 .15. I am fog bound. But I hear I go, hello, hello. It goes, yes. Is this Michael Cole? I'm not going to admit I'm Michael Cole because I always think it's some bowhead looking for a stones ticket. And it's on a stone store. And we're in Washington. And it's the lead up to the first night. Yeah. And I go, who's this? Buck Rogers. Do you know Buck Rogers? Yeah. The character. Yes. I go, well, this is Captain Kirk. What would you like? I'm going, this is such shit.

1:30:04Buck Rogers. He says, no, no, no, this is Buck Rogers. And he goes, I'm a board Air Force 2. I don't know. There's an Air Force 2. I start laughing. I go, ah, ah, ah, hold on. I'll get spock. Hello. This is spock. And he goes, no. This is Captain Bug Rogers. A board Air Force 2. And Vice President Gore would like to speak with you. Now, I am so freaking embarrassed. Get on the phone. We've heard that there's a rehearsal tomorrow night where you're running through the show. And it would be great if I could get my two daughters. Of course, we arrange it. Yeah. But it was like Captain Buck Rogers on Air Force 2.

1:30:51Take a hike, buddy. Amazing.

1:31:0710. Bradford. 10. Bradford.

1:31:1610. Bradford. 10. Bradford.

1:31:22Check the relator.

1:31:26Check the relator.