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Friday, July 06, 2007
Welcome to This One-Man ShowI went to the Police concert last Friday with my friend Dorothy. Her husband got us tickets because he knows that we were totally obsessed with the Police when we were junior high-schoolers. We had the cassettes, the notebooks, the library books, everything. So he very generously splurged on the tickets as an anniversary gift to his wife. Eleventh row, baby. We were so close, I could see Sting's, Stewart's, and Andy's face. They all the same hairstyles they had twenty-five years ago, when I first became a Police fan. (A little less gel, maybe.) They were old, though. Of course. Everybody gets older.
I saw their faces so well, I was easily able to imagine interpersonal dramas occurring on stage. Like, when Sting sang "So Lonely," and he changed the lyrics to "All made up and no where to go/ Welcome to the Andy Summers show," it almost kind of looked like Andy threw the finger at him, with his fret hand. At the very least, Andy didn't smile. He didn't look amused at all. Later, Sting sang the same lyric about Stewart and got the same non-appreciative reaction.
When Andy did his solos, Sting ran up and tried to do that thing that bass players do with guitar players. (Stand next to each other and make their instruments have play dates or whatever.) Andy ignored him. He was totally, throughout the entire concert, like:
< ignore > Sting < /ignore >
At various intervals, Sting would run up to one of the side stages to mug and shimmy for the fans. I could have sworn that Stewart and Andy traded knowing looks over that, more than once.
Besides that (possibly imagined) tension, it was a good show. They played more Synchronicity stuff than I'd hoped they would, but that's okay. See, I am/was a very serious Police fan. I was all like, "I hope they play 'Contact' and 'Bombs Away' and 'Darkness' and all the other songs that are no one's faves but mine."
They played "Invisible Sun" and showed Afghani children on the video screens. They played "Walking in Your Footsteps" and showed CGI dinosaur skeletons walking around, which Dorothy and I agreed was slightly cheesy.
Dorothy and I, in our mid-thirties, were among the youngest people on the floor. After the show, Dorothy wondered if we flirt with the roadies so they'd let us backstage. I was like, "We're not that young." I mean, there were women in their 40s who looked way more sexy than us. If they weren't using their implants to gain access, I wasn't gonna bother using my stretchmarks. Ha.
Afterwards, Dorothy said she didn't know how she'd ever go to another concert again unless she got floor seats. Even though I never go to arena concerts (that was only my third, ever), I totally knew what she meant. Something about seeing the faces of the men who meant so, so much to me in my childhood... It was a very strong feeling. Like something had come full circle. That is cheesy, I know. But y'all regular concert goers probably know what I mean.
Thank you, Dennis, for the tickets. You are the awesome.
The Rain is a Pain that Falls Mainly on Houston. Insane.
It's been raining for about three weeks straight, which is rare for us in June/July. It's not supposed to let up until the week of the 15th.
I'm not one of those people who gets depressed by the rain, but I do miss the sun a little, now. I miss the blue sky just a little bit, you guys.
Labels: pop culture
11:25 AM #Comments:
I am green with envy of the rain. GREEN, I tell you.# posted by
tina : 1:42 PM
And I am green with envy of the Police. GREEN.
Except the way your post showed up in bloglines was like this: Welcome to this One Man Show, I went to the Police
And for a second, I was very worried as to what crime you had been a victim of.
# posted by
Amy : 7:13 PM
I am very sad now. My friend and I went to the show in St. Louis and decided we could only afford the cheap seats. Big mistake. The arena we were at had little to NO foot room; you had to be very careful dancing and flailing around or you would lose your footing and pitch yourself down through three floors of people. The show was awesome, but I could barely see the faces of the band but for the video screens. It wasn't a let-down in any way because of the performance, but I learned my lesson about paying for floor seats for the reunion tour of a band from my childhood who might never play again. I want a do-over!
# posted by
: 8:47 PM
P.S. I agree about the dinosaur footstep thing. I was kind of cringing waiting for it to be over, and surprised that the band had agreed to that. Also, can we discuss the hotness of Sting? Was he as amazing up close as almost a football field away?
# posted by
: 8:51 PM
Ha! Those guys hate/love each other. It's awesome. Glad you got to see them live.
# posted by
Omar : 5:55 PM
Tina: I'm willing it to go your way. Is it there yet?
Amy: Funny!
tleighb: Don't fret. Just travel to the next stop on their tour and stalk them at their hotel room. Sting's illegitimate child would be better than front row, don't you think? :)
As for his hotness: he was okay. Honestly, he's gotten so much older, it kind of made me sad to see him with the spiked hair. Over the years, I've grown to love Stewart more. Does that make you feel better about the whole thing?
Omar: I'm glad you say that. I know you probably read the interviews and stuff, so I can trust you. I've been scared to read them, since I saw a blurb in which Stewart said they were doing a sucky job on this tour.
I'm like, "Mommy! Daddy! Stop fighting!"
# posted by
Gwen : 10:08 AM
I did the same thing before the show, Gwen. I refused to read their Rolling Stone article until after I saw them because it was entitled, "Their Fragile Truce." I was afraid I would jinx it and Stewart would end up putting Sting's eye out with a drum stick, or Sting would poutily prance offstage mid-show. Meanwhile, Andy would just stand there lackadaisically (sp?), still halfheartedly strumming, going, "Again with this? Bloody hell."
I know Sting has his, well, Stingness, but I love him just the same. I think of Sting like the spoiled youngest child whom older brother Stewart just tries to appease even though inside he's like, "I discovered your ass, you preening stagemonkey."
But let's get to the real Police issue here: why in holy hell did they let Kanye West onstage to destroy the last half of Message in a Bottle at LiveEarth? That was truly a grotesque display. He just...yelled. And jumped around. And distracted from shots of Sting's sculpted tantric arms.
# posted by
: 9:48 PM
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