In September 2005, the Russian tycoon Andrey Melnichenko paid Christina
Aguilera £1.5m to play at his wedding to the Serbian supermodel and former
pop starlet Aleksandra Nikolic. Two years later, Melnichenko spent £1m
flying another of his wife’s favourites, Jennifer Lopez, to perform at
Nikolic’s 30th birthday party at his estate in Ascot, Surrey.
The most coveted and controversial oligarchical invite yet was sent out in
early 2008 by Dasha Zhukova, the 27-year-old designer girlfriend of Roman
Abramovich. For the opening of her Moscow art gallery, a converted bus depot
renamed The Garage, Zhukova booked Amy Winehouse. At the time, Britain’s
celebrated rehab refusenik was battling her drink and drug demons and had
bottled out of most of the gigs she had been contracted to play in the
preceding nine months.
The fact that Winehouse bothered to turn up for Zhukova’s opening probably had
more to do with the reported £1m fee than her state of mind on the day. A
partygoer who observed her throughout the evening reported that when
Winehouse arrived at the gallery “she was in no condition to appear”.
Indisposed at show time, Winehouse appeared two hours late, wobbling
unsteadily down a red carpet lined with lights that led to the stage. “Amy
looked rather like a damaged aircraft on a runway,” the source reported.
That she put on “a terrific show” was, some insisted, down to a display of
more than just her rebellious attitude. As she puffed on her umpteenth
cigarette, Winehouse was observed to tug suggestively at her little black
dress. Fans down the front later claimed that she wasn’t wearing any
underwear.
True or false, it didn’t matter. The beauty of private gigs from the
performers’ point of view is that they have no impact on reputations. I
spoke to a paunchy Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran just before they played a
company party in the summer of 2007. He said he was really looking forward
to it and didn’t give a monkeys about his figure. Afterwards he planned to
spend a couple of months getting in shape for the band’s next world tour.
There are still some who cannot be bought. Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young
are two prominent old-schoolers who object in principle to private or
corporate bookings. Phil Collins can’t be doing with them either. “What do I
need another million quid for?” Collins was heard to tell his manager.
Madonna won’t play party gigs because her live shows are too
technically complex to scale down.
But these are the exceptions to the rule. Stars are now more likely to
complain if they haven’t been booked for such lucrative extracurricular
activities. Peter Gabriel is said to be miffed that no corporate honchos or
big-budget party-throwers have so far waved a fat cheque in his direction.
On the reunion circuit, where money talks nonstop, private gigs are
super-welcome: for their autumn return, Spandau Ballet are now looking to
fatten up their schedule. Concert promoters like the world’s largest, Live
Nation, are usually instructed by their clients to tout for such
opportunities. For many middle-ranking rock bands, whose tours are only
marginally profitable, they are essential. The 2007 Mercury prizewinners the
Klaxons and the Brazilian punk-ravers CSS were delighted — and relieved — to
get a call from Roman Abramovich in 2008 offering them each £185,000 to
perform at his daughter’s birthday party.
For the unwary and unconnected party animal, it’s a case of buyer beware. The
Beverly Hills-based Grabow agency — company motto: “putting showbiz into
your biz” — have an impressive list of 500 or so A-listers, from Eminem to
Bob Dylan, available for private bookings. Allegedly. Noticing Grabow’s
claim to represent Radiohead, and mindful that in February 2008 a
Californian computer-games tycoon paid £15,000 to witness an exclusive set
in Pete Doherty’s east London home, I phoned Radiohead’s management to ask
what they would charge to play at my next birthday party. “The group has
never played a private show in 18 years, and has no plans to start now,” a
spokesman said. I noticed that Radiohead had been removed from the Grabow
list two weeks later.
Strange as it may seem, the origins of this phenomenon lie in a tiny state on
the north coast of Borneo. Little is heard these days of the Sultan of
Brunei. But back in the mid-1990s, Hassanal Bolkiah — then worth an
estimated $38 billion and reputedly the richest individual in the world —
had a plan to attract some of the most famous pop personalities to his
oil-rich kingdom. No matter that Brunei was a country the size of Norfolk
rarely visited by anyone who didn’t work for Shell. The sultan reckoned that
if he paid them enough, the stars would come.
He was right. To a business increasingly used to seeking out revenues from
tour sponsors, media partners and TV advertisers, the sultan’s oil money was
as good as anybody else’s. And there was plenty of it. Bolkiah spent around
$30m hosting some of the most prestigious concerts ever seen in southeast
Asia. First he hired Rod Stewart and Whitney Houston to sing for his
daughter’s birthday. Then, in July 1996 for his own 50th, the sultan paid
Michael Jackson $15m to play three shows over the course of a week. For this
he built a special auditorium in which he installed a gold-plated sound
system and lighting rig.
The Guinness Book of Records noted this as the most lavish party ever. One of
the lighting technicians commented: “We were putting on a show designed for
a stadium in front of the sultan and a hundred of his friends and family. It
felt like they didn’t really know what had hit them.”
The Bolkiah clan were subsequently serenaded by Sting, Elton John, Tina Turner
and others, and as the end of the 20th century rolled around, western
companies started to follow the sultan’s example. In 1998, PepsiCo threw a
party in Hawaii at the end of an international conference. The Rolling
Stones, then touring their aptly titled Bridges to Babylon show, performed
for $2m. “We used to do coke,” Jagger crowed to 5,000 tie-less execs
perspiring in the tropical heat. “Now we do Pepsi!” In the same year it was
whispered that Bob Dylan and his son Jakob had accepted $1m to perform
together at a private function for a high-tech Silicon Valley firm.
Trust the wily Dylan to identify what was blowing in the wind. Though their
parties have attracted less attention than those thrown by tycoons such as
Bonderman, Green or the oligarchs, corporations have led the way in the
privatisation of rock concerts in the 21st century. The last time the Stones
were observed playing a party was for Deutsche Bank at the National Art
Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona in July 2007. For this the band received a
reported $5.4m, which Jagger reminded the 500-strong audience was “coming
out of your bonuses!”.
