Cher went there<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n\n\tWilliamson: It\u2019s almost like an international concert happening for a local New York charity. One year John got Robert Plant. He flew here from the U.K. Hozier is coming this year, another one of John\u2019s friends. He\u2019s flying from Ireland.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: This is his third or fourth time. It\u2019s special when someone says, \u201cI\u2019ll take a week out of my life to do this.\u201d And the other thing is, they don\u2019t want anything. Not that we\u2019re paying anybody, but they don\u2019t want any of their expenses covered, anything. That\u2019s kind of crazy, right?<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: We might cover expenses for some artists, but some don\u2019t want it.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: Everyone coming is a mensch. But there are people, rightly so, who need some expenses.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: It\u2019s become big in the artist community, and that\u2019s a huge credit to Nicole. They are often being treated better than they are on the road.<\/p>\n
\n\tI\u2019m always amazed at how seamlessly this show segues from one act to the next. I\u2019ve seen plenty of comparable shows, and even when they have a house band, it\u2019s usually a bit clunky.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: A lot of these multiact shows are a mess, and artists don\u2019t want to sign on for that because they\u2019re not well organized and the production is a mess. Our production team is so tight; these guys are so good. There are people who watch our stage moves more than our show: they\u2019re interested in how seamlessly we go from one act to another.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: A lot of that is our house band. Most of the time it\u2019s backed by our 21-piece house band led by Will Lee, and each one of these artists can just plug in. They get into the Beacon on Monday to rehearse and play on Thursday. So by the time Mavis Staples shows up, a comfy bed is made for her.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: But from the production side, everyone has their own amps and they need to plug in\u2014it\u2019s incredible.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: It\u2019s a very fast three-and-a-half to four-hour show.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: We\u2019ll look at each other sometimes, John especially, and say, \u201cWell, 25 songs left to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s not a bad problem to have. \u201cOh no, we have too many amazing artists.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: Listen, the enthusiasm we have sometimes gets out in front of us. And the artists want to do more. That\u2019s the other thing.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: And what do you say when they want to come?<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: Some people invite themselves. We have artists all the time and we sometimes have to politely say, \u201cThe boat is full, we\u2019d like to consider you another year, we\u2019re so appreciative of how generous you are with your time and talent.\u201d And we mean it all. We all feel so blessed and privileged to be behind this show.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: Every year, we ask so many people. And every year, we have to ask again. You\u2019re working around tour schedules, spring breaks with families, recording sessions, writing sessions. It\u2019s not an easy thing and so many artists we do talk to want to do it but it\u2019s not working with the schedule.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: And the expectations go up. Once you have Cher and Alicia Keys and John Mayer and Jon Bon Jovi and Dave Matthews it just\u2026 part of that is self-imposed pressure, but some of it is real pressure.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: Almost every name on our lineup this year is a household name.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: Greg is a concert producer in his own right. His tentacles are out there \u2014 also his testicles.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: (Laughs) He does mean it; it takes huge balls to go out there.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: He\u2019s been working it and getting to know everybody. It\u2019s not an easy thing to do with this amount of talent and to keep it fresh.<\/p>\n
\n\tHow do you determine the run of show? Balancing who goes first, who closes, fitting in videos about God\u2019s Love\u2026.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: Some of that is set from years prior. We know where we have the God\u2019s Love video, where we have the CEO speak. In terms of the artists, sometimes the music director will take a stab at it and me and John will look at it and make tweaks. A lot of times the headliner\u2014and when I say the headliner, it\u2019s tricky because there\u2019s often multiple headliners\u2014but someone like Cher you might say, \u201cof course she has to close the show.\u201d But in a three-and-a-half-hour show, you might want to put her 70% into the show because that\u2019s when all your top donors are there and some of them might leave a little early. It\u2019s a balance.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: Some people who could be closing the show don\u2019t want to. Like, Alicia Keys opened.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: It\u2019s all very thought through.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: And then there\u2019s a guy called Bill Murray who always shows up and makes the show even longer. But he\u2019s so great that it\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: And some (stage) moves need longer\u2014if a piano is coming on, we might have the host talk longer.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: And a lot of these artists want to watch the show; they don\u2019t want to sit up in their rooms. A lot want to watch from the side and sing along. Or the hosts want to watch from the side. There\u2019s always craziness on the side stage. There\u2019s no room for anyone to walk.<\/p>\n
\n\tHow much do you weigh in on what songs the artists play?<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: If it\u2019s a no-brainer like \u201cEmpire State of Mind\u201d [for Keys], we\u2019ll want her to do that. A lot of times we\u2019ll ask for a cover and an original or John and I will make a suggestion or the music director will make a suggestion, but it\u2019s a balance.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: A lot of the artists are very open to hearing what we have to say. Robert Plant for example is a guy who is always changing. His whole career, he doesn\u2019t want to look back in time, he wants to look forward. So even though he asks, he very seldom listens to me. (Laughs) But he listens about coming.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: But they get it, that it\u2019s for a benefit and they don\u2019t want to be too hip for the room.<\/p>\n
\n\tI saw Conan O\u2019Brien open the 2024 Love Rocks benefit by singing Elvis\u2019 \u201cSuspicious Minds.\u201d It was shockingly good.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: That was such a great opener.<\/p>\n
\n\tHow does that come about? Who suggests something like that?<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: Some of these guys who are comedians, one of the ways to get them to come is to allow them to play. \u201cWill you introduce a couple of artists? And feel free to do a song.\u201d He exceeded expectations. I heard Bill Murray wants to do a song this year, he\u2019s been doing \u201cWerewolves of London.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tYes, I saw him do \u201cLove the One You\u2019re With\u201d at the 2025 benefit. So for a Thursday show, you start rehearsing around Monday, right?<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: By the time the artist walks on stage for their rehearsal, the band knows the songs so well. Everyone wants to take our band on tour with them.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: Some people after the first rehearsal are like, \u201cWe\u2019re done.\u201d For us, there\u2019s a lot of magic in the rehearsals, watching it come together and the camaraderie.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: They are the heartbeat of the thing, the house band. Everyone in that house band is a music director in their own right. They all leave egos at the door and they all come to play together. They\u2019re all like surgeons in how they execute and deliver.<\/p>\n
\n\tHow did you connect with Will Lee for this?<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: A year before Love Rocks started, I got sober. And Will had been sober at that point well over 20 years. I had reached out to him to get some advice in early sobriety and we became friends. And when the idea for the concert came up, I asked him to be music director and we picked a lot of the band together. He picked all the horn players from SNL, the singers, but we both picked Larry Campbell. I had suggested Eric Krasno, he suggested Steve Gadd, everyone knows Shawn Pelton in New York.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: Other than a couple of times when someone had to go on tour, the house band is the same every year. Including our sound man, who is the same every year. He\u2019s given up a tour. They block it out of their schedules.<\/p>\n
\n\tEarlier you mentioned that you could be doing Love Rocks at Madison Square Garden. Have you talked about moving to a bigger venue?<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: We\u2019ve been through that.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: We want to stay at the Beacon.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: We had a discussion about moving to Radio City this year. It\u2019s the 10-year anniversary (of Love Rocks) and the 40th anniversary of God\u2019s Love.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: But we got a generous $10 million gift. Aside from more people wanting to go to the show, the argument of going to a larger venue is to raise more money\u2014and that was a tough argument to push against even though we wanted to stay at the Beacon. Someone gave us that $10 million gift and now we can have the best of both worlds.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: They let us keep the soul of our show. Anyone at the Beacon totally understands why we\u2019re not in a bigger space and why the show just makes sense there.<\/p>\n
\n\tSo 10 years from now, you\u2019ll still be at the Beacon?<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: That $10 million gift is allowing us to go to year 15. [The amount will be donated over the course of five years.] I don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll go another 10 years, we might kill ourselves, but we know we\u2019re doing another five.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: We\u2019ve always had the date of the next (year\u2019s) show at the show.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: It\u2019s very stressful. You\u2019re raising a lot of money and you want to deliver something of the highest caliber.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: It\u2019s not getting easier.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: Last year was such a monstrous show. The expectations for this year\u2026 there\u2019s a point with anything; you can only go so high.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: We don\u2019t need to top it, we just need to put out really high-quality shows.<\/p>\n
\n\tI think that\u2019s a fair way of looking at it. People have come to expect a certain level from this benefit show, and you deliver it reliably. How do you decide which artists are the right fit for the Love Rocks benefit?<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: Some names that come across our desk, they might be a big name but not right for it.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: And sometimes we have different opinions of who we want on the show.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: You build a DNA of being eclectic but still at a certain level. There\u2019s certain genres that are right and you have to think about demos\u2014and our demo is pretty broad\u2014but you have to think about sponsors, too. Somebody may have billions of streams, but does anybody in this house know them?<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: Almost anything fits, but some things don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: And some things fit more than others.<\/p>\n
\n\tHow do you balance working on this and your day jobs?<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: I\u2019m always working two day jobs.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: We have for 10 years.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: We all have multiple things going.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: Some days it\u2019s crazy, some days it\u2019s just another call. We talk about it all the time. We gotta beg, borrow and steal with the artists and then you gotta beg, borrow and steal with the sponsors. It\u2019s not like they automatically say yes. Some great sponsors we have over time have fallen out because the corporation is changing their whole thing. It\u2019s not about Love Rocks: \u201cWe have X amount of money, and this year we\u2019re pulling back because business is bad,\u201d that sort of thing.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: If you told me 12 years ago we would have one of the most iconic benefit concerts in the country, Mike Bloomberg would be the presenting sponsor, the three of us would be working together and have had the experiences we\u2019ve had with these rock stars, I never would have believed it.<\/p>\n
\n\tSo\u2026 what made you think you could do it?<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: Total ignorance. And total passion. I could give you a list\u2014although I\u2019m not going to give you any names\u2014of industry people who told me the entire first year, \u201cThis is a really great idea but I suggest you just write a check to a charity you like.\u201d Even though John is in his DNA so music and fashion, I think what attracted me to him in the beginning is he isn\u2019t in the music business per se. If I had approached another executive, they would have been jaded.<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: A lot of music executives don\u2019t look at it the same way. It\u2019s their business. John isn\u2019t in the music business. He\u2019s able to look at it the way we do.<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: A big part that drives it is the passion. I got into the things I did because of passion, not because of the bottom line. Not everything you do is always perfect or successful, but we went into this thinking, \u201cWe can make this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tRechter: And we did. I remember being at the first one and thinking, \u201choly sh-t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tVarvatos: We\u2019re proud of it. We\u2019re proud of everybody that works on it. It isn\u2019t us alone.<\/p>\n
\n\tWilliamson: Building community around music is what it\u2019s about. To be able to bring people together through music feels more and more relevant with each year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no shortage of live music in New York City\u2014on any given night, you can find an artist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3306,221,13379,9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-147090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-charity","9":"tag-concert","10":"tag-genre-rock","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-ny","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-nyc-headlines","15":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n