Executive Interview s
me, “Hey, would you like to stay
and watch the recording?” I decided to stick around at the studio
and make cups of tea and sandwiches or whatever because their
road guy left. And that night, they
recorded “Nights In White Satin,”
and somewhere around three or
four o’clock, they offered me a job
as a roadie. That was 1967.
Peter Jackson
Idaho Center
A
s Eric Clapton’s full-time tour manager since
the mid-’80s, Peter Jackson is a busy man.
“Whenever he does a show,” Peter said, “I am there.”
Handling the touring career of
one of the world’s most renowned
live performers requires a tremendous amount of time and dedication, as well as knowledge and skill.
But add the year-round responsibilities of an arena manager to that
already hectic task and it’s easy to
wonder: What? Why? How?
In addition to leading
Slowhand’s touring caravan, Peter
is assistant director of the 13,100capacity Idaho Center in Nampa,
located about 20 miles from Boise.
The arena, which opened in
February 1997, and its neighboring
11,000-capacity amphitheatre
hosted around 150 events last year,
including the well-known Snake
River Stampede Rodeo and concerts
by a variety of major entertainers.
“I’m working here in the building
and planning a world tour,” Peter
said of his concurrent roles. “I will
be heading out (on tour) and everyone here knows and understands
that. I will be gone quite a lot
next year.”
The connection between the two
jobs is logical. As a veteran touring
chief, Peter has examined numerous
venues across the world, noting the
ups and downs of each, what works
and what doesn’t. At the Idaho
Center, he incorporates those key
features – such as cozy dressing
rooms, a hospitable staff and quality meals – to create a positive experience for road crews and artists.
In the handful of years he has
been with the Idaho Center, the
arena and the Boise concert scene
Page 32 2000-2001 Edition
have grown immensely. “We did
a million people through the door
in a couple of years,” Peter said.
“Considering there’s a 5,000-seat
hockey arena and another 13,000seat building in town, we haven’t
done too bad.”
The London native’s journey
to the Northwest began many miles
and almost as many years ago
while working on Fleet Street,
the heart of Britain’s newspaper
industry. “I got quite a cushy union
job down there where basically
I didn’t do too much,” he said with
a chuckle.
“There were pubs and bars open
all night just for the workers. Well,
you can only sit and drink so much,
so I decided – I used to get two- or
three-hour breaks – to go down to
the clubs in the West End and see
some music.”
His longtime passion for music
fueled his quest for live performances, which included catching
the likes of the Rolling Stones or the
Yardbirds jamming away in some
smoky pub.
“I just got this love of music
from my father. I grew up listening
to the American Forces network
that was beamed out of Germany,
so I got a love of American music
and the blues.”
During a night out at one of the
West End’s popular clubs, Peter met
a drummer who offered him a job
as a roadie driving the band’s van.
As if it were some dreamy, fantastic
cartoon, the lightbulb went off
inside Peter’s head. “I thought, ‘Oh,
yeah, the rock ’n’ roll business.’”
That was the start of a pretty
extensive career with the band.
With whom did you start
your career as a roadie?
He was a guy called Peter Jay.
He had some hits in England.
I sort of dropped out for the
summer and thought, “I could do
this for a summer, have some fun.”
So I became a roadie for Peter Jay
& the Jaywalkers – you know, we’re
talking about the ’60s.
How did that gig lead
to meeting the Moody Blues?
I was introduced to them from
an old, dear friend of mine whom
I grew up with. He’d been working
with the group and was leaving
to be with Denny Laine, the lead
singer. Denny eventually went on
to Paul McCartney’s Wings band
and actually, he was the lead singer
in the Moody Blues when they did
“Go Now.”
So my friend introduced me
to some of the band members and
I got very friendly with them. But
they had a roadie and I didn’t have
a job, so I was thinking, “I’m going
to have to go back to the printing
business.” One night they asked
me to do them a favor. They had
been offered a gig but their road
guy couldn’t do it. So I agreed and
took their equipment down to this
club and set it up.
The following day they went
into a studio and asked me to
take the equipment there. Justin
Hayward, the lead singer, said to
We continued to tour up
until 1970, when I got a busted
vertebrae from picking up a
microphone onstage. I had guys
helping me then, but I used to set
the mics and run the soundboard.
Basically, I felt my days were done
after that; I’m finished. I got an
offer to become an agent in the
States, so I left the band. I thought
I couldn’t help them anymore.
I moved to America with my
wife in November of ’70, but the
job never materialized. The guy
who offered me the job was fired,
so it never panned out. I lived
in Chicago for about 10 months
while the Moodys tried to do a
tour in the spring of ’70, and it
didn’t quite work out. They missed
dates and the crew they had
replaced me with just didn’t work.
The band asked me if I would
come back to England. They had
set up Threshold Records and
asked if I would run the management for the band. I would hire
a new crew and put the touring
division together, basically. So I
returned to England and ran the
touring division of Threshold
Records.
When they were finishing a
new album, our agent called me
and said this American company
wants to sit down and ask the
band to become their new agent/
promoter. This was the forerunner
of, let’s say, SFX. Concerts West
was a national tour promoter,
which in those days was absolutely
unheard of. So I jumped on a
plane to L.A. and met with Tom
Hulett and Jerry Weintraub.
POLLSTAR
s Executive Interview
When I met with them they
said, “Hey, we got this idea. We’d
like to do a national tour with
the Moody Blues and we’ll do an
85-15 deal.”
Up until then, the deals that
used to be done were, well, put
it this way, if you sold out, the
promoter made nearly as much
money as the band made. So this
was quite a new idea.
When these people offered the
deal, I said, “Well, we’ve had so
many problems with people and
contracts, we don’t sign contracts.
I’ll shake your hand and you got
a deal. We’ll do a tour. Yeah, 85-15,
fine.” And that’s what we did. This
was right about the same time Led
Zeppelin did the same thing with
Concerts West.
So that was it for the next three
or four years. The Moody Blues
would come over here for usually
three-week runs at a time, and
they would put the shows on sale
and just sell out immediately.
It was unbelievable.
What happened
when the Moody Blues
broke up during the ’70s?
Along the way I learned
complete tour managing, artist
management, everything. Basically
that’s what I did. I managed for
them, at most, probably three
years but in name only. I did
everything but I wasn’t called the
manager. That went until they
broke up, I think, in ’74.
Then I was asked by the
Moody’s English agent after the
band had broken up if I would
handle this brand new act for him,
Leo Sayer. There were two managers; one was the agent and one was
actually an old English rock ’n’ roll
performer named Adam Faith.
They asked me if I would commit
18 months to take Leo on the road
around the world and handle
everything for him. Once again,
I did everything but I wasn’t the
manager. I was the tour manager
and just ran everything for the guy
on the touring side.
POLLSTAR
When I came back, a couple
of the Moodys approached me to
handle their solo projects, which
I did. I handled a couple of solo
projects for Ray Thomas and
Justin Hayward. Then in about ’77,
I decided I had enough of England
once again, with the taxman telling
me, “Welcome to the super tax
bracket.” I said, “That’s it. I’m
going back to America.” So my
wife and I moved back in the
summer of ’77.
I then went to work for Concerts West in their Chicago office.
They were doing 600 or 700 shows
a year. You name it, we were the
tour promoter. I did the Eagles’
Long Run tour, after which they
broke up. We did Paul McCartney
& Wings, Neil Diamond, John
Denver, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra,
the Bee Gees’ Saturday Night Fever
tour. The list just goes on and on.
They also handled Eric Clapton.
In 1978, I was asked to do the
production end for his tour. He
was somebody I had seen in the
’60s with the Yardbirds and with
Cream. I had actually done some
Farewell Cream dates with the
Moody Blues opening on the
American tour. So I went out and
started working with him.
When did you make
the transition to working
with Eric full time?
I was still working for Concerts
West, doing just American tours
with Eric. We did a tour somewhere in the early ’80s. It was a
tough tour for Eric. He had some
ulcer problems and other medical
issues, and he had to take about 18
months off.
He went back to England where
he convalesced and recuperated,
put a new album together and
came back touring again. So it was
the first time he had been on the
road in a couple of years. It was a
whole new Eric. And at the end of
it, when we finished in America
after a long tour and he went back
to get ready to tour Europe and the
PETER with Eric Clapton and George Harrison circa 1995.
rest of the world, his manager,
Roger Forrester, had a heart attack.
Basically, Eric called me and
asked if I could come in and help,
and I did. Concerts West let me
take a leave of absence and I went
over to England with my son and
wife. We were there for a few
months and then did the rest of
the world tour. Eventually, Roger
offered me a job to go work for
him and go on the road with Eric
worldwide. That was around 1984.
How and when does
Nampa, Idaho, come into
the scheme of things?
I was living out in Los Angeles
when the Northridge earthquake
hit, and I decided I needed to get
out. I had a second son by then,
and it’s tough living around L.A.
I wanted to stay in the West. I’ve
lived in Chicago and Dallas. I love
Arizona but it’s just too hot in the
summer. I had some offers to go
there but I decided not to. I looked
up in the Seattle area because I’ve
got friends up there. God, it’s just
like England – wet.
Some friends of mine had
moved up here to Idaho, so we
came up and visited them. That
was it. We loved it. Forty-five
minutes and I’m skiing. In five
minutes I can be fly fishing on a
river for trophy-size trout – except
I’m too busy half the time.
It’s a great place to bring
children up, and it’s not as cold
as everybody thinks. Everybody
thinks of Idaho as being this igloo
in the wintertime but it’s not.
Actually, they call Boise and this
area the Banana Belt of Idaho.
So the decision was all about
the environment and nothing
to do with the Idaho Center?
I had been living here for a few
months before I even heard about
some facilities being built. One
was a small facility downtown and
one was this 13,000-seat facility
outside of town in a community
called Nampa, which is now the
second largest city in the state
of Idaho.
I called a couple of people I
knew, saying, “Do you know any
of these people who are building
this thing?” And one of the guys
made a call and contacted the
person who was in charge. I called
him and said, “Do you think
I could come and have a look
at your building that’s under
construction?” And the reply was
sort of, “Well, uh, what do you
want to look at it for?”
So I said, “Maybe one day I
might come play there. I’m a tour
manager.” And they said, “Well,
yeah, sure.”
2000-2001 Edition
Page 33
Executive Interview s
Being a longtime tour manager
who knows the ins and outs
of many venues worldwide,
I’m sure you had a sharp eye
for what would and wouldn’t
work at the venue.
They hadn’t thought about a
lot of those things. “What are
you doing about the electrics?”
“Where’s that going to go to?”
“Well, no, you can’t do that.”
“What about the dressing rooms?”
“How will the performers get from
the dressing room to the stage?”
Just stuff like that.
So I started to give the head
of construction, Rod Orrison –
he’s now director of the facility –
all these pointers about what they
should be thinking about and
doing, because when all is said and
done, your big paydays are going
to be concerts.
I already had some previous
experience on that when they built
the Reunion Arena in Dallas.
Before Concerts West, I promoted
the first shows that went into
Reunion. And about six months
to a year before they had finished
construction on Reunion, we had
a meeting with the architects and
the city – this was Concerts West –
and there were all of these things
that were being pointed out there.
You know, “How does somebody
get from here to there?”
So Rod turned around and
said to me, “I’d love for you to
meet some other people who are
involved in this project. Would you
come back tomorrow and meet
these people?” I said, “Yeah, sure,
I’m not doing anything.” We had
a year off at the time with Eric.
I met with the architect, finance
director and chairman of the
North Nampa Renewal Agency
and they asked me if I would
be interested in working on the
project. So they hired me as a
consultant and that’s how I got
involved in this building.
There was the understanding
that when Eric goes on the road,
that’s where I’m going, so I will
have to take a leave of absence.
Page 34 2000-2001 Edition
And they said, “Well, sure,
whatever you need to do. We’ll
take you when we can get you.”
How can you leave the
building without creating
problems?
Cutting deals is basically what
I do. I book the arena and cut the
deals. I can do it on the phone or
I can do it by e-mail. And people
get to know that if they need to fax
me or actually talk to me, I call my
assistant; she’s a jack of all trades,
Christy Vos. We literally hired her
to answer the phones and become
our receptionist. But I count her
as my secretary, my assistant. She
handles everything for me. I run
my Eric stuff here in the office,
too.
It’s sort of a big joke. I was just
at the IAAM’s Arena Managers
Conference in Denver and apparently I was the topic in one car:
“How the hell does he do it?” Well,
I just go up into my room and get
onto my computer – I’m no computer whiz by a long way – and
there’s all my stuff from different
promoters around the world, the
office in London, whatever. I just
answer the e-mails. I think 10
years ago, five years ago, I couldn’t
do it.
How many tours
have you been on since
joining the Idaho Center?
Around three. Sometimes
they’ll be short ones. I mean,
one of the first ones was a long
one. But nowadays, I’m reachable
over the phone, e-mail, faxes.
People can reach me anywhere
in the world and they do.
Earlier this year, I was down in
Samoa, which is virtually on the
dateline in the South Pacific, and
once I found a good electrical
outlet – that was the only problem
– I got onto AOL just as easy as
I get onto AOL here or anywhere.
And I was on the Web picking
up my messages and e-mailing
them back.
THE IDAHO CENTER commemorates its debut concert, which featured the Moody Blues,
in May 1997. L-R: Former Nampa Mayor Winston Goering; the group’s Justin
Hayward, Ray Thomas, Graeme Edge and John Lodge; and Peter Jackson.
Modern technology
is key to your operation,
but I’ll bet your staff at
the Idaho Center is top-notch.
We created a staff – myself and
Rod Orrison – and even today,
not one of our staff members has
ever worked in any other arena.
Two guys actually worked in a
2,500-seat gymnasium; it wasn’t
an arena by any means. So they’re
in my operations side of it. But we
basically taught our staff from the
ground up.
That sounds like more
of a challenge than a benefit.
Why did you go that route?
I don’t think we could afford
to get an experienced staff. That
was the necessity. My box office
managers, for example, they were
the most experienced people of all
of us. They had run a ticket company called Select-A-Seat, which
was Boise State University’s ticket
company. Actually between the
two of them, they built Select-ASeat here, which is what this town
knows as our ticket company.
So they were experienced –
I wouldn’t try to teach somebody
about the box office anyway – but
everybody else was new. Like my
marketing director now, Cyndi
Lenz, when we found her, I think
she was making something like
$6.50 an hour selling tickets in the
box office. We saw the potential
immediately and said sorry to
the box office, “That’s going to be
our new event coordinator.” So
I taught her the job and from
there, she’s now in marketing.
That’s what we’ve done. We’ve
gone out and hired people we felt
were dedicated and could work
with people. It was hard. We taught
everybody, and basically that’s why
we’ve been successful.
That’s just one of the for
instances of how we built this
staff. We’ve given people a belief
in themselves that they can do
things. If you find the right person,
they can learn anything if they’re
willing to learn. Put the time and
effort in and it’s amazing what you
can do.
In addition to your staff,
what else is important to
efficiently and effectively
operate a successful venue?
With my background in music,
I know that when these road crews
come in here, this is their home for
a day. Sometimes some of them
POLLSTAR
s Executive Interview
don’t see a hotel in a week. And
they’re going to get off of that
bus and they’re going to be a bit
bleary-eyed; they’re going to be
tired. They’re going to be walking
into this building with an attitude.
You’ve got to make them a
home. You’ve got to give them
a nice breakfast. Don’t just throw
some plate of food in front of
them, something that was cooked
yesterday. We give them good
food. We treat them right. We bend
over backwards to help these
people.
Our catering company is a
local company and we had lots of
discussions before we ever hired
them. I basically said to them,
“We’ve got to give quality service
at a reasonable price.” That’s for
the public, as well, and everywhere
else in the arena. And the chef they
hired, Jeff Mather, he’s great. He
was trained as a gourmet chef.
He’ll cook the hot dogs and the
hamburgers – the normal fare –
but when it comes to bands
coming in, that’s when he excels.
He’s a rock ’n’ roll nut himself;
he has his radio blaring in his
kitchen full blast. And I said to
him, “Don’t ever stop doing
what you’re doing. Don’t cut the
portions. Just give it the love and
care and attention you’re doing
there and we’ll be fine.”
But he loves it, and we’ve had so
many bands that have come downstairs and given him a round of
applause for his food, signing stuff
for him. We’ve had a couple of big
names turn around and ask him
for recipes.
How was the local concert
scene like before you arrived
and the Idaho Center opened?
It was not a strong concert
scene at all. You had the Boise State
University Pavilion, the school
building. They would do some
concerts, but it was not a strong
scene. You didn’t have a lot of
super names coming in. You’d get
one or two. There were also some
clubs in town that got some acts.
POLLSTAR
Then two brothers came here,
Paul and Creston Thornton. Their
company is called Bravo Entertainment. They had grown up in
Sun Valley here in Idaho and California, where they were student
concert directors at two universities. When they wanted to be promoters, they came back up here.
One day, Creston came out to
have a look at the building and
we started to talk about shows and
events. I sort of chopped him off at
the ankles, then sort of moved him
up to the shins and then the knees
just by firing things back at him.
And he kept coming back up with
the right answers as far as I was
concerned. And I turned around
and said, “The Moody Blues are
going to open the building for me.
I could promote it myself, but
I’m going to have so many other
problems getting this building
ready. You can promote it.”
That’s how our relationship
started. They had promoted some
small events before then but that
was the first arena-size event they
had ever promoted. We started to
do the events and they became the
local promoter.
We’ve created that partnership
and have come along together.
We’ve created a market. I know a
lot of agents and a lot of managers
that say, “What’s Boise all about?
What happened?” Well, we created
a market where there wasn’t really
a viable market. We are now on
the map.
Last weekend, we had two
shows; we had Neil Young on
Friday night and on Thursday
night we had Def Leppard. Both
shows did extremely well. We have
Red Hot Chili Peppers and Stone
Temple Pilots, and then we’ve
got a Pearl Jam date coming in
November.
I was just talking to a big
out-of-town promoter about a
really big show, somebody who
had never been in this market
before. And that’s what happens.
People call me and say, “Hey, could
this work?” They bring acts in
that would never have thought of
coming to Boise.
A FEW OF AUSTRALIA’S FINEST chat with Peter at the CIC 2000 in Las Vegas. L-R:
Gareth James of Melbourne & Olympic Parks Trust, Peter, promoter Garry Van
Egmond and Ogden IFC’s Rod Pilbeam.
Of course, Eric came in and
played for me. That was funny.
It was a wonderful and great event.
He walked onstage and sort of
said to the crowd, “Well, you know,
I just came here because I’m a
friend of Peter’s.”
We’ve had the big acts all
come in. We are part of the major
touring scene. We’ve developed
this market.
When did the Idaho Center’s
amphitheatre open?
That was two years ago. We just
finished our second season. We
built an outdoor amphitheatre
right next door to the arena. Along
the way, I told everyone, “There
isn’t an amphitheatre between the
Gorge and Portland, and Salt Lake
City and Denver. If we build one,
I think we can do some shows.”
When we developed our second
parking lot, we literally got the
road graders to scoop up the
excess soil and bring it around to
sculpt our amphitheatre. Then we
built a stage, we put a roof on and
it’s totally open. There’s no roof
over the crowd or anything. And it
stays light out here in the summer
until 9:30 or 10 o’clock.
The bands love it. Shania Twain
opened it up. Her production
people were concerned the day
before the show that it would not
work and that they had to move
it inside. And I said, “Look, we’re
not going to move it inside. It’s the
opening of the amphitheatre; we’re
sold out. Believe me, I think she’ll
like it.”
Well, she saw it and she was a
bit nervous because it was her first
amphitheatre, but at the end of it,
she loved it and kept on playing.
We went well past our curfew but
I don’t think anybody that night
complained because it was the
opening event.
Do you plan to move
to a bigger building someday?
I doubt it. I already have the
offers, but I definitely couldn’t
operate like I do now in a major
market. Without a doubt, there
would be too much to deal with.
For the moment, though, I’m
enjoying it. It’s a lot of work. I
would be finished here and toward
midnight or something I’d get a
call from a Japanese promoter
or somebody from the other side
of the world.
But then that’s what I do. *
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