Welcome to This One-Man Show
I 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.
