A tour rider, for those not in the know, is a list of requests sent to a venue by a band's management in advance of a live performance containing requests to make the few hours spent backstage as manageable and stress-free as possible. As touring has steadily increased from the no frills attitude of the sixties to the multi-billion Euro industry it is today, so have the perks available to the musicians who command the largest fees - and you can learn a hell of a lot about bands by what they request.

A musician's level of fame can usually be directly mirrored by how excessive their tour rider is. If you're a nobody you'll be lucky to get a couple of warm beers but, on the other hand, if you're Lil Wayne, who's playing the O2 this week, the promoters will bend over backwards to satisfy your every demand no matter how unreasonable they may be.

One of the most famous rider requests is the 'Brown M&M' contract stipulation which Van Halen sent to venues on tour in the 80's, where they requested a bowl of M&M's with all the brown ones removed. If this request wasn't met it gave Van Halen the contractual right to cancel the gig at a moment's notice.

Bit of a dick move, you might say? Not entirely. The real motivation behind the Brown M&M clause was to alert the band and their management whether or not their technical setup and directions had been adhered to properly. After all, if they couldn't get a simple M&M request correct, could the venue really be trusted with the band's huge stage setup and all the dangers associated with such a large scale show?

Van Halen: Not fond of brown M&M's

David Lee Roth, singer for Van Halen, explained in his autobiography: "The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment and so many human beings to make it function. So just as a little test, in the technical aspect of the rider, it would say 'Article 148: There will be fifteen amperage voltage sockets and twenty-foot spaces, evenly, providing nineteen amperes...' This kind of thing. And Article 126, in the middle of nowhere, was: 'There will be no brown M&M's in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation."

"So, when I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl...well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error. They didn't read the contract."

But what about some of the more unreasonable requests?

Electro queen Grimes, mirroring her Pixie-like image, dictates that her backstage area must contain "if possible, one cute bulldog, French bulldog, pug or Pomeranian (or other cute animal, such as a chinchilla or a pekanese) to visit and hang out but who gets to leave before too much loud noise is heard so that he or she does not hurt their ears. It is important that if said animal visits, they have a safe home to return to. Lol."

Yes, that "Lol" is actually written in her contract.

DJ Steve Aoki's rider is a little less tongue-in-cheek, requesting, among other things, 6 pairs of men's underwear and socks, 2 bottles of Cristal and 1/8 Oz. of "local grass".

Madonna actually had her own furniture delivered to her back stage area from her home on the MDNA tour, as well as wanting 20 (TWENTY!) international phone lines in the room along with special pink and white roses "with the stems cut to six inches."

Iggy and the Stooges would send venues an eighteen page document, which contained incredibly vague requests like, "you know what would be really nice? If you could make the room look less like a typical rock & roll dressing room and more sort of...interesting? Are you with me?"

Oh, and "seven dwarves, dressed up as those dwarves out of that marvellous Walt Disney film."

Others include The Rolling Stones needing a room for the travelling snooker table, Motley Crue requesting local AA meeting schedules and a sub-machine gun (hopefully not connected) and Katy Perry's contains strict instructions that her driver is not allowed to look at her, while Britney Spears famously demanded framed photographs of Princess Diana for her UK gigs a couple of years ago.

What does this tell us about celebrity? Well, once you achieve a certain level of fame you can literally send a letter to people in a different country and they will endeavour to locate dwarves, drugs and booze for you.

Who said the days of rock n' roll hedonism were behind us?