20 STORIES FOR 20 YEARS

Jim Reilly

Jim Reilly is the Director of Production for Bethel Woods, and has worked every Pavilion concert in 20 years.

 

“I landed the job in 2006 after sending a blind resume about a year earlier for production manager. I'm more involved in a lot of the executive decision making and committees now, but a lot of my job has remained the same: taking the show from the trucks, getting it on stage, managing the crew, all lighting, sound, video, all that technology, whether it comes from the tour or I have to hire the vendor. It's get the show on, on time, on budget, and then back out the door and onto the next. 

 

I live in one of the foundation houses on campus, the Gabriel farmhouse, and some of the super 8 footage that the NY State Police took during the ’69 festival shows the house nearly finished but still under construction. It’s a real godsend to live there, just because of the schedule logistics, it made it so much easier. Both of my kids are in college now, it’s so unique that they grew up at an entertainment venue. And we all work for Bethel now. My wife Karen handles the tour VIP programs, my daughter Megan is a ticket taker, and my son Will just finished his third or fourth year on the grounds crew. 

 

My normal day for a show is probably 7 am to 1 or 2 am. I try to carve out downtime; it’s a marathon. Believe it or not in July we did two 80-hour weeks. It wasn’t all shows, but you have 2-3 shows in a row and those days that are dark you have to rest for the ones coming, do office work. From May-September it’s a full-throttle job. 

 

In the early years, there were quite a few times where I'd get phone calls and we'd have to tell the support act ‘Turn around, you're going to the wrong Woodstock. The Woodstock hat you're thinking of is Woodstock, New York. No, we are in Bethel, where the Woodstock festival happened.’ That happened quite a few times early on. 

 

Another time, Pat Benatar's bus was late for her set time because the driver followed Google and took the bus on a road that had a bridge that wasn't designed for buses. So, they backtracked. 

 

The two concerts that stand out for me were the 40th and 50th Woodstock anniversary shows. Both were just wrought with one setback after another, and both were almost like we're reliving the original in some cosmic way. The 50th was the most nerve-racking because we had a major weather delay, rain, lightning...I was out at the mix position when the rain hit and it was a good storm, just like the original Woodstock. The crowd chanted ‘NO RAIN, NO RAIN.’

 

But then the lightning hit and, I'm looking at the stage with the other tour production managers, and then all of a sudden, everything goes dark. We lost power. The video screens went out, light rig goes out. So we had no power for probably 10-20 minutes. After it was restored, I ended up in my office with the tour managers and production managers for all of the bands, Grace Potter, Tedeschi Trucks Band, and John Fogerty, along with their agents from Los Angeles. Ron Delsner himself was sitting across my desk and we're all in negotiations over how we're going to make the show work so everyone gets a fair set time and John Fogerty takes the stage no later than 9 o'clock. It was the most heated negotiating, and no one wanted to give an inch, and I ended up I ended up conceding, taking away time from my crew that I know they needed for set change, but I knew that I knew that if we went full throttle, it wouldn't be the prettiest set changes, but we could make it happen.

 

But Grace Potter and her tour manager conceded any of her set time that we needed, and it was only because of her graciousness that we pulled off the 50th. So I still owe her one. The set change actually happened, we did a half hour set change in 15 minutes. John took the stage on time, and the stage closed on time.I gotta tell you, backstage looked like a musical instrument train wreck. But no one was the wiser. 

 

We had one show that couldn't go on. It was because the trucks with the musical instruments (the backline, we call it), got held over, because the driver got a little ornery with the border guards at Niagara and Buffalo, and I think it was our first show with Ringo Starr. We did everything we could, but we had to reschedule. 

 

For the longest time, Lynryd Skynryd played here the most and the crew started calling them our house band. And they loved it, it was hugs all around every time they came back. The country acts, like Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean, love coming here. It’s an absolute must when they’re doing a tour together to play Bethel Woods. 

 

The Hollywood Vampires is in my top three nights for an amazing performance and really fun day. Johnny Depp had so much fun, he stayed late after the show to get his end-of-the-tour tattoo in Dressing Room D. They were pure rock n roll from start to finish.

 

I always got the feeling that Zac Brown loved playing the holy ground here. When bands play for the first time here, it takes 20 minutes loading in before they say, ‘So where was it? Did they build the pavilion on the site...? Can we see the museum?’ They’re like kids, they get so into the spirit of Woodstock and the place where it all happened. It puts a brighter air among things, it’s not just a mundane venue for them. 

 

And the place is so beautiful. Alan’s vision was incredible and we keep it the best we can. It is still as amazing as it was the first day to me. Bands come in from other venues and cities and they get here and you just watch them decompress, they just feel the vibe. It sets a great tone for the day. 

 

You stand on the stage pad and just remember everything that went wrong at Woodstock and those rock bands, this is what put them on the map. Everyone just getting together and having that many people under that much duress and no violence. No breakdown, everyone just took care of each other. You can’t discount that in any way. If that didn’t happen it would have been a disaster area, and it wasn’t. The bands come here and principal artists will say, ‘You got someone who can take me over there? I want to experience it, I want to feel it.’ And they do it. There have been acts that go over there and they take their shoes off just to feel the mud. It’s a special place. It speaks to people. You walk up to the monument, people take their hat off in reverence. 

 

In 2007, there was one show that stuck with me, Levon Helm’s Ramble on the Road. I don’t think there’s been a better show with a better ensemble of musicians since then. It was incredible. 

 

The one artifact in my office is our first burned guitar from the band Seether. The lead singer/guitarist, unbeknownst to anyone, went down stage center and did his impression of Jimi Hendrix at Monterey Pop and lit his guitar. At the end the guitar tech saw us watching and asked if we wanted it, we were like, “YES.” The guitarist autographed the side for us. 

 

I’m as amazed as everyone else that I have never missed a pavilion show yet. I’ve been at every show. Maybe one I left load-out early. It’s astonishing to me and statistically I don’t know how it’s possible. 

 

The best feeling is when the show is up and running, I get to go out and take a walk around the house, check the sound, check the video, maybe take a pit stop at the mix position and it's the best feeling in the world when you’ve got that audience, and see everybody so happy and having such a good time. For a job, that’s a pretty great product. It’s a great feeling.”