Sick of watching former pop idols waxing insincere on The Voice? Did music clip show RAGE lose your viewer vote when they dipped into politics?
Then switch off the telly and move online, where a new reality show is launching that turns the outrageous demands of rock stars into the premise for an Amazing Race-style web series.
The new online program, titled The Rider Challenge, is centred around that most thankless of music industry tasks: the tour rider; basically, a tour rider is a list of specifications or demands made by a performer in an agreement with a promoter or venue for a concert – the most famous example being Van Halen’s ‘No Brown M&Ms’ request.
The Rider Challenge will pitch contestants grouped into six teams of two racing around town to fulfil bands’ ridiculous requests (eg. co-ordinated fruit and meat platters, still and sparkling water, assorted cheeses) before the artists themselves arrive backstage for their show, as The Music Network reports.
The musical guests that will be making the idiosyncratic demands include emo poster boys Fall Out Boy, nu-folk heirs The Lumineers, alt-hip hop star Kid Cudi, as well as Fitz & The Tantrums and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. From that list we can speculate that the rider items will run the gamut from cigarette papers (Kid Cudi), to eyeliner (Fall Out Boy), and plenty of banjo strings (the rest).
The show is the brainchild of Live Nation, the world’s biggest concert promoters, in a partnership with Ford, with contestants in the running to win a Ford Fiesta from the car manufacturer and, even better, all-access VIP passes to Live Nation promoted concerts for a year.
The debut series of The Rider Challenge begins on 30th September and, as an online sneak preview shows, was shot on location in five major US cities during the summer concert tour season, with the 12 contestants racing around in distressed Amazing Race fashion.
The Rider Challenge is another welcome addition for Australian audiences who have been pretty starved for music television options until recently.
While the return of popular music quiz show Spicks & Specks has been delayed until 2014, Foxtel subscribers were recently treated the premiere of a new TV series focussing on cabaret, burlesque, and circus performances that was hosted by You Am I frontman Tim Rogers, along with a range of A-list musical guests, including Tex Perkins and Kaki King, filmed live on location at St. Kilda’s new arts hub, The Memo.
Meanwhile The Bump – a televised expansion of Sydney radio station 2Day FM’s program of the same name – also expanded the music TV roster recently, channeling the spirit of the now defunct Video Hits as a replacement on Saturday morning screens, providing clips and interviews with more mainstream acts.
