JAY LENO AT THE KODAK THEATRE
May 30th, 2008 admin“If we can’t book it – it’s immortal”
After 30 years of booking and producing hundreds of major concert touring stars, Broadway touring musicals and every type of performing arts troupe one can imagine, we still find ourselves thrilled with the next challenge.
We have been honored to have been chosen to produce Jay Leno and Foreigner for a large California corporate concern in Los Angeles in the late Fall of 2008 for 3400 attendees.
Yes, a California corporation hired an Austin producer to handle all elements of this impressive event for a venue in Los Angeles. It ain’t where the producer lives that counts – it’s who he knows and his experience that matters. We’ve produced major events throughout the U.S. and abroad in every venue on the planet.
I’ve worked with Jay Leno twice before he got the Tonight Show gig. By the way, Jay is as nice a guy as you would ever meet beyond being a brilliant comic.
So, one night backstage at the Bass Concert Hall at the University of Texas at Austin before a show for a packed house, I noticed Jay’s suit. It had that 1950’s silver sheen to it. I said, “Jay, that’s a great suit”. Jay said, “John, how much do you think I paid for this suit”. Now, I got jittery. If I went low, he might be insulted. If I went high, he might think that I thought he was a rich boy. I tried to pick a middle ground. “$500”, I said. Jay came closer to me and said “I paid $40 for this suit at St. Vincent de Paul”. He wasn’t kidding. He then said, “John, I still can’t believe I have more than 10 cents in my pocket”. He was making a ton of money even before the Tonight Show as he did over 200 concerts a year in those days. But, the memory of the lean years never left him.
It’s moments like this where the humanity of a star comes in to play like a shining beacon of normalcy. The great stars are as human as the next person, even more so. Their on stage persona is one thing and their personal life is another. I have found them to be incredibly genuine as well as consummate professionals and I’ve produced a ton of them.
We did have a sphincter check on this upcoming date. Jay’s contract with the Tonight Show was slated to have ended about two weeks before our event. No one knew what he might do. He could have decided to take a vacation or take some time off with his family and “poof”, no deal. As it turned out, he extended his departure date to some time early in 2009 and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
John Bernardoni
Executive Producer