Aerosmith (e: Van Halen) banned brown M&Ms from their dressing room for shows and wouldn’t play if they were present. It was a sign that the venue hadn’t read the rider thoroughly and thus possibly an unsafe one (what else had they missed?)
> As lead singer David Lee Roth explained in a 2012 interview, the bowl of M&Ms was an indicator of whether the concert promoter had actually read the band's complicated contract. [1]
I wonder if they had to change that as the word leaked out. I can just see the promoter pointing out the bowl of M&Ms and then Roth saying "great, thank you, but the contract didn't say anything about M&Ms, now where is the bowl of tangerenes we asked for?"
To add to this, sometimes people would approach Van and ask about the brown M&Ms thing as soon as they received the contract. He would respond that the color wasn’t important, and he was glad they read the contract.
