Review: Record Collector Magazine (UK)

*** Entertaining reflections from backstage

Cutting his teeth at Hofstra University’s concert booking organisation, Gregg Praetorius soon made the move, as he puts it, “from the back row to the back stage.” Graduating to Long Island’s Calderone Concert Hall (an aging ex-cinema with a 2000+ capacity, which was conveniently located on the gig circuit), and despite witnessing firsthand the “foibles and failings” of a number of big names, having served his apprenticeship at the venue he broached out into promoting and managing events for a number of rock and metal’s big names. You would have thought he would have learned…

Hemingway it’s not, but Babysitting…is an extremely interesting and entertaining read. The centerpiece (as may be deduced from the title) is working off-and-on with the post-Joe Perry and seriously imploding Aerosmith, although three nights with Van Halen plying up to a camera crew also stretches Praetorius’ patience and, presumably, belief in humanity. Along the way, unfortunately staging Judas Priest almost in the dark, watching Rainbow shoot their “All Night Long” video clip (and later refusing to encore), Pink Floyd turning up late, and an inept attempt to move a piano all add to an attention-grabbing and addictive memoir, and a warning to anyone who might still think it’s all just sex’n’drugs’n’rock’n’roll.

John Tucker