Jay Roberts was super excited he had booked Lady Gaga to open Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh in 2010.
David Morehouse, president of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team, had charged him with finding someone somewhat on brand and big-time to open the new arena, which was replacing the classic Mellon Arena, the oldest National Hockey League venue at the time.
“I was very excited we had the great fortune of booking Lady Gaga for the opening show at the new arena. It was what was requested by the president of the Penquins. I think it was Sept. 7, which was about when the construction was going to be done and we would open,” Roberts remembers. Booking an arena that is under construction is always a delicate deal.
Roberts still had that glow of accomplishment when he walked into a big meeting to talk about the opening and Morehouse ambushed him:
“Jay, have you seen this?” as he showed him a video of Lady Gaga filmed with a giant strap-on dildo she had been presented by a fan during a show in Europe. It was all over the internet.
“We can’t have this opening up our building. You’ve got to do something else.”
“We’re already booked. Lady Gaga is playing. There’s nothing I can do about that. We’re done.”
“You’ve got to find something else to go in front of it then.”
It was still several months out. Roberts and team had been trying to get a big name act for awhile and he had been talking to Bari Marshall about Paul McCartney. However, Sir Paul was going on holiday with his family at the end of August, so he couldn’t open the building in September. But maybe he could if the opening was before September, Roberts realized.
Roberts negotiated back and forth with Marshall, until Marshall finally said, “If you can do Aug. 18, we can make this happen.”
Now Roberts had to go into the next construction meeting.
“Hey, I have good news and bad news. The good news — I might have someone who can open our building. The bad news — it has to be Aug. 18.”
That date was two weeks prior to when the building was to be handed over.
But the construction group figured out how to change the completion date, adding shifts and accepting that some things weren’t going to be 100 percent done when Consol Energy Center opened.
Roberts was super excited again, booking two high powered acts, including his dream opening with Paul McCartney in front of Lady Gaga. He’d booked Lady Gaga through Gerry Barad at Live Nation, whom he had to tell she wasn’t opening the building after all. “He was okay with it because it was McCartney,” Roberts said.
But the drama is never over for an arena manager. There was a third act.
“Sometimes, the little things are what you remember the most,” Roberts told Based on Truth.
“We were at the sound check for the Paul McCartney show. He has an acoustic guitar he plays specifically on ‘Yesterday.’ That guitar had a Detroit Red Wings sticker on it. A couple of our people pointed it out, because the Detroit Red Wings were our archrival. We’d played them in the Stanley Cup Finals two years in a row. Everybody is freaking out about it.”
The mayor of Pittsburgh took it upon himself to approach McCartney and ask, “Paul, what’s with this Detroit Red Wings sticker? Can you put a Pittsburgh Penguins sticker over it?”
Sir Paul, a gentleman, says, “Go ahead and get me a sticker and I’ll see what I can do.”
Bari Marshall then says, “Okay, Jay, get me a sticker; I’m not promising anything, but we’ll see.”
So Roberts gets him a sticker, hoping that’s a problem solved.
“In the middle of the show I get a call. ‘Jay, we need a different sticker. That’s a left sticker, we need a right sticker. He won’t put it on if it’s not facing the right direction. It would be upside down. You have five minutes if you want that sticker on.’”
“I ran at top speed down to the locker room, found a sticker, raced over to Bari; he puts it on the guitar and McCartney performs with Red Wings and Penguins stickers.”
Another day, another detail….taken care of. — Based on a true story as told to Linda Deckard
Photo: Jay Roberts, who is now GM of Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, and Hank Abate, who is now with Oak View Group, at Consol Energy Center the day it opened with Paul McCartney. (Photo courtesy of Venues Today)