My wife and I got to the El Rey last night about 7:30pm only to find a fairly long line waiting to get in the theater. Doors were supposed to open at 8pm... the show at 9pm. Around 7:45 I noticed Kipper walking from the parking lot across the street... at first I wasn't sure it was him ... I guess I was expecting that he would be dropped at the door... or enter behind the stage. He did go in early... Anyway around 8:30 they started letting people in. The place was filled with tables even in the areas that are supposed to be a dance floor. At first I was beginning to think we were going to be stuck at the back the whole night since the place was already crowded. We did manage to push ourselves to the front right of the stage... and to our surprise.. there sits at a table none other than the man himself... Sting! So we staked our place standing for the show about 5 feet away from Sting. I've met Sting several times... this is the first time i've asked him for a handshake. He seemed to be in a very cheery mood... I think one of the people sitting with him was his publicist... an older lady with reddish hair. I've seen her before but don't know her name. She was very friendly. Anyway after shaking his hand and a few words I made it back to the standing area next to his table. Just for the record someone brought in some sushi for 2-3 people at Sting's table... including Sting. Anyway Chris took the stage around 9:30pm... the show was being filmed for a Direct TV broadcast and possibly for a PBS special. Chris was incredible.... he was joined mid-way through the set by Shawn Colvin for 2 songs (they played the Sting song twice - so she was on for 3 songs actually) and later Sting joined for a Sinatra song and Moon Over Bourban St. Jason Rebello was also in the audience (sitting close to Sting) and he joined Chris on several songs. After the show everyone was walking around the audience... however Sting took somewhat of a safe position in the side stage area. I spoke to Kipper a bit... a really nice guy! It was around 12am and most people had left when they starting asking everyone without a wristband to leave. Sting, Chris and Kipper were still there. I think there was some gathering in the balcony area... but it seems that it would be very small. As we left Shawn Colvin was walking acorss the street to her car as well. We spoke to her a bit on our way across... she is also a super nice person. Many thanks to Maggie for suggesting I buy tickets last week! Herb _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp