My Police loving
friends...
I'm sorry it's taken
me so long to find the time to sit down and tell my little story. I was
sitting at home a few weeks ago, feeling sorry for myself because I didn't have
tickets (I had already blown the budget this year) for either of the two
November Police shows in Toronto, and I'd heard our friend Bruce win his front
row seats...congrats again to you and Jock and Chris for nailing that one...
when one of my longtime friends finally came through with an offer I
couldn't refuse. My friend works for a promoter here in Canada and
often is able to get me tickets or bring me in to see shows with a pass, and as
you can imagine I've been bugging him since February to get me into one of the
Police shows.
Turns out he was
able to do if for the Friday night show in Toronto. So I show up, collect
my lovely backstage pass, and head into the bowels of the ACC arena to see my
friend and figure out what kind of "meet the lads" opportunity I might
have. Well it turns out, to no ones surprise I'm sure, that the Police are
running a very tight production. And while it may not be a sizable show
ala the Rolling Stones and Gensis, it is a large touring production, being run
very, very professionally, with the best of the best in the touring world
participating.
Okay, so let me tell
some stories and you can sort of judge them for yourselves. The boys each
have their own dressing room, Sting's is usually the largest, but all are
nicely done up, with lots of drapes, candles, ligthing and furniture ,etc. for
ambiance. They certainly aren't roughing it in a old sports locker
room... There are three or four large wardrobe road cases for each of
them,
They've got the
usual catering facility for crew and staff to eat in... I saw Danny
finishing up and said hello to him as he was leaving... I'm sure we fans are
just another face in the crowd of hundreds they see every day, so for those of
you that they appear to recognize, consider yourself lucky! Now
for these two shows they had a separate band dining room for the
boys. There's also a room set up as a gym... the gym equipment travels
with them, don't know what they have, but they've got it all in order to keep
them happy, well fed, and in shape for lots of shows. I did get the chance
to go out to the front row, dead centre and say hello to Bruce and his wife...
great seats mate! And then I moved backstage to wait for the
show.
I don't know if they
did any meet and greets before the show, I assume they did with contest winners,
etc., but they had few, again very controlled, ones after. A very
small group of people were given access to them after the show.
Unfortunately I didn't get closer than 5 feet from them and at the time it just
wasn't possible to do more than nod and smile at them... I was able to
stand backstage in the "tunnel" prior to them going onstage. It's quite
the process. Stewart arrives first, being escorted from his dressing room
by someone I didn't recognize (definetely not Jeff S). He's wearing a
jacket and is talking quietly, shaking his arms and legs a bit to get the blood
going while he waits for the others to arrive. Billy Francis escorts
Sting from his room down to this area, Danny hands him his bass and he puts it
on and starts talking to Stewart and the other fellow. My friend mentions
to me to watch this interaction and watch the clock... "watch what happens if
Andy doesn't show up within two minutes" was what I was told. Suppossedly
a few people gets a bit anxious if they are not exactly on time and Andy
has been left behind at a few arenas after the show when he spends too much
time after a show talking to guests...
Anyway,
he shows up within a minute being escorted by someone else I don't recognize,
but he's got the camera out and is taking pictures of this group of 6 standing
backstage. The production security chief watches all of this and is
watching for anyone that doesn't belong and making sure any other crew peopel or
arena staff etc. move along the corridor away from this area... if you don't
belong there, you don't get to be there. The only reason I got to see this
is because my friend had spoken to him and explained that I was a big fan and
that he would stand beside me agains the wall the whole time. So no
cameras for this part, and no talking to them.
As I'm watching "Get
Up, Stand Up" comes on the PA and the "handlers" move away. The band
starts to separate and get ready for the show. They all put their
in-ear monitors in place and the talking is over. Andy is strumming chords
and flexing his hands, Sting has his back to me but you can see he's doing
scales... and Stew is off by himself doing jumping jacks and moving around
trying to warm up. The Security guy talks into his headset and then the
ligths are killed and out come the flashlights and they are escorted onto the
stage. A very cool, kinda private moment.
At this point I race
around to Andy's side of the stage to catch the beginning of Message.
While I've worked on many shows in the past and know how to blend into the
sidelines, staying out of the way and being subtle... I just couldn't do it for
this show. This was me standing side stage and backstage at a Police
concert... I barely let my camera out of my hand and couldn't help but grinning
all evening.
As for the show, I
think others have told you as much or more than I can... I just thought I'd
share my little story with you. I would have loved to have met them, but
it just wasn't possible, even with a pretty good connection. As it was,
some security guy was getting all annoyed with me standing around taking
pictures (like I said earlier, I'd met the head cheese so I was fine, but they
get kinda antsy with people side stage with cameras).
Now the rumours
floating around the offices and staff are that there will be another leg of the
tour in the summer around the time of those make up shows planned for
June. So if you can imagine, they finish the tour in March, take some
months off, and the play the cancelled European and UK dates in June, and play
some other shows around North America - sounds to me like a summer tour of
outdoor amphitheatres, which would be very cool. Can you imagine the
Police at the Gorge?
By the same token however, I have to say that the third
Police show in Toronto was a sell out as attested to by Bruce et. al., but the
Friday show had only sold about 10,000 tickets as of the Monday. So...
they closed off the third level, draped it off actually, to make the place seem
smaller, and everyone with tickets for the gods was upgraded to lower level
seating, which again is sounded like some of the people on this list benefitted
from! Good for you by the way!
Personally, I think they've saturated this market, but I think they could sell a
Molson Amphitheatre show or two in the summer, and I'm sure they could do that
all over the US too. I heard a few snide remarks about Sting doing this
because Andy and Stewart needed the money or that he was just doing it for them,
but from everything I saw and was told by people on the tour, they are
definitely getting along as adults and musicians. Yes, they do disagree,
but no punch ups. They do have separate dressing rooms, but they also eat
dinner together, ride in the same vans and buses, and planes, and generally are
not avoiding each other like a couple of bands I know who hate each other and
are only in it for the money.
So there you
go, that's my happy little Police adventure. I'd love to hear new music
from them, but I really don't expect it. For your viewing enjoyment I've
posted a few pictures and will get the rest up on photbucket as soon as
possible. I've posted three so far... http://s151.photobucket.com/albums/s125/policetour/
A shot of the band
with the crowd lit up during Synchronicity II and then various arrows you find
backstage pointing you to catering, they gym, Stings dressing room, Andy's,
Stewarts, Kathy Schenker Music office, Live Nation Office... just nuts the
amount of traffic and the amount of gear they were hauling around. That
being said, it's a very cool process seeing the lights and stage getting put up
and taken down, so much better than the cosmic tetris clip on the
website.
Best wishes to you
all as the holiday season approaches.
David