So slept in till lunchtime today, due to exhaustion after getting terribly excited at The Police concert last night. Okay, so Sting's vocal range isn't quite as good as it used to be, in my humble opinion, but gee, those boys are so tight. They always have been, and they have been touring since May 2007 so they would want to be, but they sure are a trio of accomplished musicians. I often wonder how the band are going, playing the same stuff they played last night in another state, and the same stuff they're going to be playing tomorrow night in another country. But then again, perhaps the gooberliness of touring means that your stage experience is heightened, each song becoming a meditation of sorts, its very familiarity meaning that you can immerse yourself into it even more? Maybe. It would be a terribly addictive thing, playing live, I imagine.I did spend a bit of time indulging in this kind of philosophical meandering last night, but not much, because I was just there and into the music. And yea, it was very good. It was pretty muggy last night, have to say. That must have been why most of the people surrounding us just couldn't really be bothered gearing themselves up to get into it. Honestly, I don't know what is wrong with people sometimes*.
I was there with Andi the Duracell Bunny, so I was in fine company. We had a great time. These boys are maestroes all (well, "boys" is probably stretching it when Stewart, the poor dear, feels the cold now and has to wear pants rather than those garish green shorts he used to get around in. But still, drums the same :) Shutting my eyes and sinking into Andy Summers' guitar playing wasn't something I thought I was going to be able to do again live in my lifetime - I sure appreciated it. Just like I appreciated that ancient bass Sting has been carting around the world :)
It was a stripped-back kinda show, in a lot of ways, and I really appreciated the tempo. It felt almost Zenlike in some ways, a meditation of sorts. A pretty frenetic one, though, because my calf muscles are sore after last night's workout. It was an interesting set they played (including songs like Walking in Your Footsteps, for example, from off the Synchronicity album). They included my two favourite songs, So Lonely, and Next to You, as part of their encore - but of course the last song of the night was their most popular song, Every Breath You Take**.
I'm not sure who was responsible for the support acts ... well, Sting was responsible for the first one, Fiction Plane, featuring his son Joe out in lead playing bass in a three-piece with reggae influences and a bit of "yo!"ing going on. However, for all that, they do have their own sound and I think they're pretty good.
The main support was Fergie***.
I am so grateful that these guys reformed to tour once more. I'm so glad I got to be there, standing in bare feet on the hallowed MCG turf (had to love one of the roadies walking onto the ground with a pretend footy and kicking it to a pretend teammate hehe).
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It's been long-considered knowledge among a couple of friends of mine that we are musical Nazis of sorts. It's not that any of us want to be. It's just that we all have rather strong opinions on music and we ain't afraid to wield them.
Andi and I sat in the stands of the G last night, in the process of meandering our way out of the ground, and waxed lyrical about how it is that some people just do not get music. They don't miss it if it's not playing; it's just background for whatever is going on. They don't understand people who have such strong reactions to music. I don't understand how they don't understand ;)
* Why would you spend big bucks to go see a band and then not be transported? Huh? I don't understand that. I do understand that, as Andi suggested, some of the people there would have had freebie tix, but that still doesn't deny explain why most of the people around us just kinda stood there. What the hell is going on, as that doyen of modern philosophy, Bret Michaels, once surmised?
I expect everyone else around me to be entering into the same trancelike-at-times experience that I am entering into, and I expect them to do it because I am doing it. That makes me a musical Nazi.
** Every Breath You Take is not a love song. It is a stalker song. Listen to the lyrics. If you had this song at your wedding, and you are now divorced, I am wondering if you had to take out an intervention order at some point when things turned nasty. Because "every move you make, every vow you break, every smile you fake, every claim you stake, I'll be watching you" doesn't feel particularly loving to me. I like a bit of breathing room in my lurve. Not psycho monitoring of my every move. Yerk. I would have thought that even people who aren't all that into music would have clued into the scariness of this song, but it seems not. Perhaps I just think too much. Perhaps other people don't think enough. Who knows?
*** Okay, I admit there is a bit of jealousy there. The girl looks pretty gorgeous, admittedly. (It was funny to turn and look at the crowd while she was playing and the rapt attention being paid to her by the male audience members. They were like a bunch of puppies salivating at a giant bone). She has a great figure. She also has an amazing ego. All the songs are about her and how wonderful she is ... that is, the songs she sang that were originals. She did about four covers, and she even ripped off a song from her own band, the Black Eyed Peas, the only song I can bear, Where is the Love? But unfortunately, she only played half of it. She did, however, insist on playing all of My Humps, the song that surely will be playing in my head if I ever lose my entire mind and go off on a shooting rampage. They should play that song in police cells to torture confessions out of people. I would confess to anything to get it to stop. If there was an eternal hell, that song would play on high rotation in it. My goodness, I don't think I can tell you how much I detest that song :)
Anyway, that's the end of the story. I don't want to end this post on a whingefest about Fergie, not really. Not when you get to see one of your fave bands playing.
My second favourite part of the show was the segue from Can't Stand Losing You into the instrumental of Regatta de Blanc which felt as good getting lost in as it was watching it on the Police Around the World video which Andi watched, oh, once or twice or eleventy thousand times when we were teenagers :)
For Andi:
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