8 posts tagged “concert”
You already know that I'll have a lot to say about the whole experience, but for now (because I'm desperate for some sleep) I thought I'd share this photo from fourth row at last night's Police concert:
Yes, Stewart, that green blur you saw was me. Thank you for pointing at the flag, and especially for the big smiles and eye contact. Thank you for the opportunity to meet such incredible people. Thank you, Kellie, for letting me be a part of this crazy Kryptonite history.
Okay. I'm about 3 blog posts behind, because I've written them all in my head but had no time to get in here and make them real. Too many things going on right now to even explain why.
But I'm sitting here in my office with a package to my left, containing the absolute best thing that could ever have been expedited to me (aside from... maybe... a big cheque. Oh, and when my book was published. That was pretty damn cool to receive).
After a bit of a frenzied journey, I now have in my temporary possession... THE GREEN FLAG.
I am, justifiably, freaking out just a wee bit.
In fact I can't bring myself to open up the envelope right now. Globs and globs of responsibility go with this little icon, and I'm overwhelmed with what it represents, which interferes with the other crap that's overwhelming me right now.
Gong bless Ms. Kellie. She's a Goddess of the Green, Mistress of Mission Control, and Blessed Virgin of Kryptonite all rolled into one. I want to take her out for drinks. Many drinks.
Thank you, K :)
And so begins the flag's next Big Adventure. But touch it without permission and I'll be forced to kill you.
[almost a week later, I know -- but Vox and I were both down for the count this week]
We had another meetup with even more fans on the Friday at Fionn McCool's, and this time we had a special occassion to be there for: two birthdays to celebrate. Both were from the UK, traveling to Toronto just for the Police concert, so I baked a beautiful marble cake, and my roomie Lynn helped decorate it. I spent hours making the Stewart Copeland "Rhythmatist" logo as a stencil (because birthday girl Kim was flag bearer that night, and that's what is on the flag) and it turned out splendidly. Lynn cut it out and shook the cocoa over top. Everyone thought it was too good to be restaurant cake, and it was :) The waitress had a supreme sense of adventure, as she stuck the candle right at a very conspicuous spot on the logo. Good eats, good beer, great company... it was an incredible night.
But really, the fun was only beginning. We cleared out and headed over to the Air Canada Centre, where most of us had floor seats in the same general area. I had no seat mate for the night, but I was surrounded by my buds, and I made friends with people behind me and in the rows to my left. Kim and Lynne were directly in front of me, although almost 20 rows ahead, but it meant that after each Stewart flag-point I got a clear shot for photos.
The concert itself was sweet. Seats were awesome, sound was great, and the band rocked. Definitely better than the
Our green shirts got a lot of attention, and people asked us outright what they were about. I suppose at most concerts you get some hardcore fans, and the really rabid fans are scary. You also get those "Rocky Horror" fans who have somehow synched up song lyrics with actual things to throw at the band. We are not those fans. We are fans who just want to be pointed at.
The people behind me had a raucous debate about Joe; after two minutes of it I turned around and settled it, with a smile. They asked me more questions, which I answered. I think if I hadn't, one of them would have belted the other, and probably after several beers. I met a really nice couple when I found my "real" seat (I'd been put off to the left instead of in the centre) and told them about the flag, the CHA! bracelet I was wearing, the orange ball, the green shirts, the flag, and everything else they asked about. I think Clayton-not-Clay thought I was insane, at least until he saw the first point and everyone in the general vicinity celebrated with me and patted me on the back and tolerated my excited SQUEEEing.
I danced with strangers, I took photos of Stewart's points, I screamed and waved and nearly exhausted myself in a generally excited panic. The songs were incredible, the encores worth waiting for, and wearing a colour that is so unappealing on me was totally worth it. Since the Toronto shows, the Police went to Boston and then Montreal... where they cut out songs on the setlist (you know things are bad when EBYT and Roxanne aren't in the show) and then cancelled a show in the US after that. I got the vibe that Sting wasn't just saying he loved the city because that's just what they have to do... they gave it their everything that night, and it was not a concert to be missed.
After that, it was back to real life for me. No more beautiful hotel room with the "Everyone Stares" view (thanks, Lynne!), no more visiting friends to hang out with at the shoe museum, no more CHA! bracelets and no more flag points.
Bless you, Stewart, for all that you do... and for making your fans feel so much a part of the show. Thank you, Stewart, Sting and Andy, for bringing me some real, intense, soul-screaming moments. For making me see what I want to do. For all of it, and for the music. Thank you to my buds from the Forum (you know who you are) for letting me participate, and for being who you are.
Hopefully I'll be in Savannah when it's my birthday... and if I am, you'll be reading about it here. :)
More photos from the pre-show meetup, and the actual Friday Police concert (with Fiction Plane).
Just walked in the door from seeing the two Police concerts in Toronto.
Oh. My. God.
My first flag point was ecstasy. I was behind Stewart Copeland and to his left, so all the drum techs and the riser mechanics were very watchable. When he came out, they started Message In A Bottle, and I saw him take little peeks around to find it. It was with Russ on Thursday, over on the right, in the stands. He saw it immediately and gave a big dramatic point, and I almost fell right over, because I knew what that point meant. Russ was like a flasher with that thing, though... he would open the flag up to his shoulders and then close it very quickly. I got one very bad photo of it, because I couldn't snap as fast as Russ did.
I met up with the most amazing group of people, and we are all tight in a very convoluted way. I couldn't even explain the friendship that we have together, what binds us so closely, or how it happened that I'm a part of it. I'm just thankful that I have met up with kindred spirits who are as insane as I am about the things that we share a passion for.
There's just too much to tell when I'm this tired and achy and screamed-out and slightly stunned. So much more I want to tell, but I really have no idea where to begin, because I'm not sure where the experience starts and my entire self ends.
I'm off to bed with a glass of water, two Tylenol, and my camera hooked up to transfer over the many pictures I took the past two days. I know I'll never have another chance to do this again, so forgive me while I recover my senses and my sanity. I'll put up photos when I have spoken to the others who were involved, told my story to those who should hear it first, and found some pictures that I can share.
I am sure I already know what I'll be dreaming about tonight.
After the last Police concert in Toronto, at the end of July, things changed for me in a big way. A lot of things I hadn't thought about, or thought through, had suddenly clicked for me. I knew there was something huge out there waiting for me, but until this summer I wasn't sure what. When my ducks lined up, I was ready and waiting to shoot them.
As a result, I've met quite a few new friends, some very astounding people. These friends will converge in a few days with even more new people, and we'll all be heading to yet another Police concert. This time, I'm a willing participant in going :)
I have never gone to a band's shows more than once; not even in all of my years as a Depeche Mode fan has it occurred to me that it was even possible (or desirable). This year I'll be seeing the Police up to three times -- which is nothing compared to the dozens of die-hard fans who are criss-crossing the planet to go to as many concerts as their sanity and pocketbook will allow. Still, I'm honoured to actually have the chance to make it to this second go around, to make "I'm not worthy" gestures at the flag, and hang out with girls who SQUEE over Their Boys. I love my husband, but he does not squee.
I'll be uploading my cellphone photos to my Flickr account, and hoping that my wee camera makes it into the stadium without any notice. I think the seats are going to give us great viewing access to Stewart's points, and if so you'll be one of the first to know.
Wish me luck... I am likely to get lost, and miss the whole thing just wandering around like a dazed moron.
Audio: Share your favorite song from this summer.
Okay. Here's the thing. It's now the middle of September and I've got the chance to alter this entry to include the real song so here I am. You're going to have to fast-forward a bit here, but I know you'll get what I'm saying.
I've already blogged about how my Police-fan husband (the professional drummer and recording engineer) dragged me to the concert this summer. By now you can tell my Copeland addiction rivals his, and that the Police concert was the beginning of a chain of life-changing events for me.
So. Why did I choose this song, when there are sooo many other Police songs on repeat in my disc player?
Because of this: I have heard this song many, many times over the years. I didn't know any of the words save for the chorus, and I barely knew the subject matter. I'm too young to have been a Police fan before the breakup but I am old enough to have been a huge Sting fan (most of my friends were) and I was not, my feet were firmly planted in the alternative genre. When I went to the live show, I heard the words to this song for the very first time. No matter what you say, or how you feel about Sting, when you see him in person it doesn't matter how many people are in the venue... he's singing directly to YOU. And this song, almost as old as I am... hearing the words for the very first time gave me chills. It was an experience, and feeling, I hope I never forget. I was a teenager again, I was in love for the first time, I was being told a secret... all in the same moment.
I don't mind getting older, because there are chances like this that seem to come along every now and again. And that makes it all totally worthwhile.
Okay. I got home too late and screamed-out to write about seeing The Police on Monday night, and when I went to blog about it the next day Vox was down. Huge bummer. So I'm just getting to it now, which is fine, because it gave me a chance to pull the photos off of my phone (heretofore a process unknown to me).
Anyway... as they always said on the Great Space Coaster... "Off We Go!"
We got to the Air Canada Centre, and there were almost as many ticket scalpers as there were people flooding in to see the concert. We found out later (from one of the people sitting next to us) that a tickets had been going for $800 a pair if you bought them in the street. The crowd was mostly people over the age of 25, no surprise there, although I did see one mom- and one dad-type person each with a kid around 12 or so. The opening band was showcasing a little nepo-tizz -- one of the members is Sting's son. Still, they did a great job and had tons of energy, so they deserved to be where they were, namely on tour with one of the biggest names in the biz.
After getting to our seats, which were at stage left and on a vertigo-inducing angle, we made a quick exit back outside where I tried to stop shaking and make the room stop spinning. It was NOT good, I was unable to sit in the seat without a panic attack for very long, and had to almost crawl back down and out of the theatre.
Note to venue builders: Don't build places where people feel they are going to fall straight down someone's parted hair and force them to look down at the show, you fools. There's a reason why people who are up really high say to themselves, "Don't look down".
My husband coaxed me down to talk to the seat show-er person, who directed us to customer service, who were incredible. The young fellow there was like, "Oh, yeah... you have a problem with vertigo?" And I'm just... exhaling... saying, "YES!" because he completely understood. So the woman smiled and gave us new tickets, which were just about parallel to the stage, still at stage left, and very close to the floor. I will be forever thankful to the customer service at the Air Canada Centre.
Once we were sitting down, the vertigo was still haunting me, because once it's kicked in it's very hard to find the deactivation sequence. Soon our row filled up with people, which seemed to be people who had also been given tickets in exchange for what they'd had (one fellow, a very drunk fellow, was there with his sister and the seat he had was broken). The lights dimmed. Stewart Copeland was raised from the depths of the oval stage with a big gong, and then... baby... it was ON.
Even though the stadium was packed (about 15-20K people) the whole concert seemed very, very intimate. More like a private bar sitting than a giant venue like this. It was definitely Sting's attitude that made it this way. He was very relaxed, and turned most of the songs into a huge karaoke event. He seemed to be in this space that said, "Yes, we're all friends here... let's sing this together". And we did. We freakin' sang karaoke with Sting.
Now, I must say, Sting looked as hot as you might imagine... he was wearing this t-shirt with little cut out holes in it, tight black leggings, and Doc Marten boots. But he had chicken-waddle arms and it made me feel like he was a little more human. Andy Summers wore red shoes and had a "They Killed Kenny" guitar strap. Stewart Copeland looked even better as an Aged P. than he ever did in his youth, gangly and energetic but white-haired and more intense now.
They did a few songs as orchestral versions, which was absolutely thrilling, but most of them were missing the harmonies (which really made me feel something HUGE was missing) so I just sang them myself and everything was copacetic. Sting totally messed up some of the lyrics, and doing it repeatedly, and then when he realized it the camera had him BIG on the front screen and you could seem him blush a little, and shrug, like, "What the hell... I wrote the fucking thing, who cares?" And then he went over to Andy to laugh about it. I might be one of a handful of people who even noticed, so if that's what he was thinking... he's right. We were only all to happy to be basking in the songs of our youth, live, with other people who totally dug the music too.
Unlike the concerts of my youth, there were no lighters for the slow songs, just a lot of picture phones and backlit LCD displays; although my husband said he smelled pot I only smelled people who were unable to deal with their nic fit for the full two hours.
The pictures we got were crappy, to say the least. All we had were our cell phones because we were afraid we'd have our camera confiscated if we brought it in. But really, we didn't need that camera. Every moment of that concert will be in my mind forever, I don't need photos for a clearer memory of the time we spent there, singing with Sting and wondering when Andy will jump around and watching Stewart throw drumsticks up and very theatrically miss catching them. It was a great show, one of the best I'd ever seen, and now I'll have to find a support group for my husband that deals with People Who Are Depressed The Police Concert Is Over, all while sighing heavily, and squinting over the grainy photos we took.
I'm just back now from tonight's "Police" concert in Toronto. It was the second, and last, show for the city.
I've got quite a story to tell about it, if you're interested... but I'll have to do it tomorrow. I've got to go to bed before my head explodes.
Ooo, and I've got pictures, too :)
