Adele: "North American beer is NOT acceptable"
Bit of a silly news story, but it’s nice to know that Adele combines her aversion to taxation with rampant anti-Americanism when it comes to lager, as a rider leaked to The Smoking Gun reveals. Among her rider demands are 12x best quality European lager (“North American beer is NOT acceptable”), large mugs for tea and best quality Californian Sauvignon Blanc, with “NOT CHARDONNAY!” exclaimed with the fury of someone who knows good (and bad) wine.
Actually, though any quoting of riders makes the artist come across like a cross between Caligula, a toddler and Liberace, this is actually pretty fair list of demands: Adele works hard, and it’s unfair to fault her for specifying what she’d like backstage. The life of a touring musician, especially one of her level, is one of very, very long days, and if she wants her wine to be drinkable, fair play.
Also in the leaked document is an unfaultable requirement for all guests to make a charitable donation of $20 to Adele’s chosen charity SANDS. The donation to SANDS, who “promote research into understanding the loss of babies lives”, carries the bolded message “There will be no exceptions to this rule”, something it is, for once, nice to see. For a touch of context, and a glimpse at what a major artist Adele is, her last European tour raised $13,000.
