It's Not Only Rock 'n Roll

With a focus on local flavor, The Amp’s renowned hospitality program has made the venue a repeat destination for big-name touring artists.

Lorelei Soule at a carving station of beef tenderloin cooked in red wine reduction, one of the dinners for Widespread Panic performing at the St. Augustine Amp. Photos by Melissa Marcarelli.

Touring rock stars can be demanding. Infamously so. In music lore, stories of backstage provisos are as much a part of an artist’s mythology as their chart-topping albums and on-stage performances. And no band’s backstage antics were more exacting – more absurd or legendary – than Fleetwood Mac’s.

While touring their world-beating 1977 smash, Rumours, the group requested, each night, a medieval-times-invoking feast replete with a 40-foot harvest table, ornate dining chairs fit for kings and queens and a spread consisting of a whole-roasted pig, piles of fruits and vegetables and bottles of vintage champagne. Between lavish catering, the band’s prodigious drug habit and Stevie Nicks’ insistence she have a white (not black or brown) grand piano delivered to her accommodations (always a penthouse suite), the tour made little or no profit, despite the group selling out nearly every arena in which they performed.

Maybe you’ve heard about Van Halen banning brown M&M’s from their dressing room, a demand snuck in among specs for lighting and sound as a way to ensure the venue carefully read the whole technical rider. Still, few acknowledge the poor soul who, in advance of each Van Halen performance circa 1980, meticulously plucked every brown M&M from a bowl.

Though they’ve yet to deal with M&M’s or grand pianos, Kelley Westfield and Sarah Masters, hospitality managers at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre, have done just about everything else. Whether an artist requests hard-to-find organic foods, an on-site massage therapist or a spiritual advisor, the duo is there to oblige. One classic rocker’s visit to The Amp fell on Super Bowl weekend. So, Westfield and Masters planned an offsite watch party at Anastasia Island cocktail lounge Odd Birds for the artist and his crew. A renowned soul singer required a dressing room with a certain je ne sais quoi. The duo piped and draped the whole thing in white curtains, and furnished the space with white love seats and tables. “You’re an icon. You can ask for whatever you want,” Westfield says of the unnamed but peerless soul singer, whose rider also included bowls of caviar.

“We're very proud of how we take care of everyone backstage,” Masters says. “We go above and beyond.”

I’m talking to Masters and Westfield on a relatively quiet Wednesday afternoon in the venue’s backstage catering hall, a bright and airy communal space that reads like a hip summer camp cantina, with exposed industrial ceilings, reclaimed-wood walls and dining tables set with black tablecloths, hemp runners and floral arrangements. Lining the walls are hundreds of framed concert posters, each one commissioned by The Amp, designed by the Atlanta-based artist Jared Swafford and signed by the bands.

The next show is still two days away, but preparations have already begun. Late last night, three semi-trucks arrived on the property, delivering the sound and lighting rigs, guitars, amps and miscellaneous music gear for the enduring jam band Widespread Panic. Crew for the Athens, Georgia-bred group is scheduled to arrive early tomorrow morning, at which point they’ll load in and set the stage for a day of rehearsal. Beginning Friday, the band plays three shows. All are sold out.

Back in The Amp’s industrial kitchen, Mindy Fitting, head chef at St. Augustine catering company The Perch, has already started prepping four days of meals for Widespread’s touring party, a group of 50 that includes the band, their crew, management teams and extended family. They’ll get breakfast, lunch and dinner on rehearsal day and lunch and dinner on show days. For the first performance night, Fitting’s preparing a carving station of beef tenderloin cooked in a red wine reduction. The multi-day menu includes fish, chicken, mashed potatoes and lots of mixed vegetables. On Sunday afternoon, The Amp will treat the band to a shrimp fry.

“These are well known people, and they have their stage persona or a character of themselves that’s like a public domain,” Fitting says of what she enjoys about cooking for touring artists. “It’s really lovely to see the private person underneath that.” Fitting shops for produce at The Amp’s Saturday farmers’ market, and sources meat from local purveyors when possible. Though some bands have dietary restrictions, or the occasional hyper-specific request, she says she’s found musicians to be gracious and omnivorous eaters. “They've been on the road for a while, they've been touring for a bit, they begin to think about the things that their mom used to make or something that always showed up on the table for family dinner.”

To be clear, The Amp’s hospitality program involves much more than filling bellies and fulfilling technical riders. The venue provides visiting artists a distinctive blend of amenities and local flavor, all designed to leave an indelible impression. There’s The Hyppo popsicles in the freezer and Kookaburra coffee on drip (often a barista from the local roaster will be on-site pulling shots and crafting lattes). Each artist leaves with a curated box of goodies, including Sunshine State-inspired postcards by local artist M.C. Pressure, a bag of Kookaburra coffee and a jar of Bee Hill Farm’s honey, bottles of Hank Sauce and A Frame hot sauces and Amp-branded swag (t-shirt, hat, tote, frisbee, reusable water bottle, playing cards, notepads). Local beach rental company DRIFTERS provides bikes for bands and their crew to cruise the venue property and the adjacent grounds of Anastasia State Park. In addition to opportunities for taking in the native flora, the venue ensures artists can engage with St. Augustine’s unique fauna – the nearby Alligator Farm arranges a kind of pop-up backstage petting zoo. “Sometimes bands show up and they’re like, ‘We heard we can pet an alligator here,” Westfield says. “It’s a surprisingly small industry. People talk.”

That such big-name acts route their tours through this part of Northeast Florida, often bypassing the major music markets of Tampa and Orlando, or the similar-sized Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, is a testament to The Amp’s reputation among artists and their booking agents. But for proof that the venue’s hospitality has endeared them to the artists who visit, one need not look further than the acts who’ve made a point to come back annually. Indie-folk band The Head and the Heart plays just about every year, as does the nonagenarian country-music icon Willie Nelson, who brings along his family band. North Florida blues-folk standout J.J. Grey chose The Amp for the site of his annual festival, the Blackwater Sol Revue. And despite recently playing for a crowd of 21,000 in Denver, the wildly popular bluegrass guitar hero Billy Strings keeps coming back to the roughly-5,000 capacity Amp. In April he’ll play three sold-out Amp shows in a row for the third year in a row.

“Over the years, you start to establish these relationships, and it becomes like seeing an old friend,” Westfield says of the performers who have added to The Amp’s growing number of annual visitors. “We know they’re on the road, maybe tired and missing their home, so we try to make it feel like a home away from home.”

The venue’s transition from a county-run entity to a nonprofit in late 2023 has allowed for added flexibility and expediency in their commitment to accommodating artists, Masters and Westfield explained. The move cleared the runway for renovations to the venue’s four dressing rooms, which were recently updated with new flooring and furniture, along with tasteful touches like houseplants, floral throw-pillows and lampshades and vibrant, coastal-inspired local art. “We wanted it to feel like Florida but not like cheesy Florida,” Masters says. “It’s really curated and comfortable.”

Widespread Panic won’t hit the stage until 8 p.m. on Friday. Hours before that, hundreds of spreadheads – fans of the band – will fill The Amp’s parking lot to commence the ritualized preshow tailgate, known among the aforementioned spreadheads as the panic party. Hours later, they’ll file into the amphitheatre. The band’s famed visual production will illuminate Anastasia Island’s mighty, Spanish-moss-draped oaks. There’ll be dancing and singing; some chemically-enhanced revelry, to be sure. Three nights in a row.

Yet few among the spreadheads will understand the extent of the band’s behind-the-scenes production. Beyond Widespread’s 50-person team, there’s Westfield and Masters and their crew of runners and on- and off-site personnel; there’s The Perch and innumerable local businesses, all contributing something unique to The Amp’s renowned hospitality program.

For Fitting, this will be the chef ’s fourth time cooking for Widespread. The run will add three more Amp shows to her total show count; in February she cooked for her 500th Amp performance. “To know that the band ate well, and that you helped them have a successful show – even if the audience doesn’t know you contributed,” she says, “it really fills you with satisfaction.”