The Kind of Stuff Google News Alerts Bring You
As with many here, I have a Google News Alert sent to me regarding VH. Also Bush, Iraq, and Impeachment.....but that's another thread for another forum
Mixed in with the usual Tongue Cancer Cure and Reunion articles sent to us, this one was in there. It has to do with Portland, A Roadie, and the Barenaked Ladies......oh, and VH and the green m&m's
Friendly, Friendly World: Stories of a Roadie (Featuring Barenaked
Ladies, etc.!)
February 9th, 2007 [2:15PM] Posted by: JASON SIMMS
In the industrial area of N Albina St., there sits a lone house, surrounded on all sides by industry and topped by the Fremont Bridge. I am currently engaged in a quest to find a place to live. One where I can be as loud as I want whenever I want. So when I spotted this bizarrely situated residence, I naturally began to drool. I gingerly approached the door of the some-what dilapidated looking home to inquire as to whether it might be coming up for rent soon.
I had knocked, given up and begun to leave when the door was opened by a tall man with a grey beard in his fifties. I expected the man to curtly shoo me away after telling me that he owned the place, lived there with his wife, and planned to sell it for a lot of money in a few years (he bought it in the ‘80s for $18,000). But when I told him that I was interested in a place to practice and hold shows, his eyes lit up and he began suggesting possible leads in the area.
I had stumbled across another hidden member of Portland’s music community, only this time he wasn’t a band member—Rick Mac Farlane has worked lights at the Rose Garden for over a decade.
When I realized I’d entered the “Friendly, Friendly World” I began to probe Farlane about his work. After a heart attack a couple of years ago he had to stop working concerts and stick to conferences and the like at the arena (apparently big shows are pretty physical for the lighting technicians). I asked him what the last big concert he worked was and he said, “I don’t remember the last, but I remember the greatest.”
It was the late ‘90s and Canadian pop rock band Barenaked Ladies was on top of the world after their huge hit, “One Week.” The group’s keyboardist, Kevin Hearn, however, had not been able to enjoy the success. He was busy battling for his life against blood cancer.
After experiencing some success with treatment, Hearn was back on the road by the time the tour got to Portland. “They had to have a big bouncer literally carry him on and off the stage,” Farlane said. After this procedure, the curtain was opened and each member of the band was spot lighted and introduced. “Normally, when you spotlight someone,” Farlane told me, “three or four of the dozen lighting men shoot him.” But when it came time to spotlight Hearn, all of the rest of the lights in the room were killed, and all 12 spotlights were trained on the ailing keyboardist.
“You can hear my voice breaking up right now as I’m telling you this,” Farlane choked. “We wanted to salute him: We just thought that guy was so tough for going out there and playing that show in that condition. I’d never seen anything like it.”
And Farlane has seen a lot, too. In addition to extensive work with Northwest legends Wheatfield (an independent band that made their crew partners in the business and at one point pulled in half a million dollars a year), he was a roadie for Van Halen in the ‘80s, and claims to have been involved in the invention the common “I don’t want any green M&Ms in my dressing room” gag. The band had a very complicated concert rider (or list demands to play a show) he told me, and rather than check on each request individually, he could assume they’d all been taken care of if the venue had actually gone to the trouble to remove the green M&Ms—by far the most ludicrous request on the list.
Before I left, Farlane offered me various points of advice from his perspective as a long-time behind the scenes guy in the music biz. He stressed how important he thinks it is to put on a great performance, pointing to Billy Rancher and the Unreal Gods. This Portland band, Farlane told me, could not only charge $5 a ticket in the ‘80s (a high price for a bar show at the time) but would also keep a line outside the club during their entire set and people would pay the cover just to see the last few songs as the crowd inside cleared out. Farlane claimed that most of this frenzy wasn’t due to the band’s mediocre musical skills, but largely made possible by leadman Billy Rancher’s charisma. Rancher also fought a battle with cancer, though unlike Hearn, it tragically took his life. His good looks and style however, are preserved in this video.
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