Hello from Giovanni. Sorry it took me so long to give you this shor report about Sting concerts in Italy, but I've been busy. The show in Verona went really well, with a great response from the public; I just like to remind that most of the tickets bought through the site sitng.com were in the first three rows, that's really not bad (or at least the ones bought in the early minutes of the online sale). The set list was more or less the same as the previous shows. I was enough lucky to get the chance to see the soundcheck, that lasted just 20/25 minutes, not that much, where Sting rehearsed the beginning of 'Synchronicity II', and some other stuff I don't sincerely remember now, but nothing too interesting or different. I met Sting in the afternoon, in his dressing room; he was working at a photo session for Vanity Fair magazine, the Italian issue; one of these pics will be the cover of the July edition; the interview should have been done in Rome two days later. When he finished the photo session, he wore a black jacket and came to us (Lydia and I), to hug us kiss us (!!!) and to talk a little bit; we talked about the book, and I said what I think about it; he was please, and when I said that it made me wanna meet Gerry now, he said he's a really cool guy, and before giving the book to be published he asked Gerry whether he wanted to erase some parts where he was nominated, but Gerry, after reading it, said he was completely cool about it and didn't want to change a word; I then said that last month I spent some time with Stewart, and he was sort of surprised, as he didn't know Stewart is spending so much time in this country; Lydia asked him, in a funny way, whether he is jealous about our mega interest in Stewart, as we do run his website as well, and he laughed saying...'nooo, you know I'm not jealous at all ... I just spoke with Stewart, we're always in touch...'. We went on talking about personal stuff, but unfortunately I forgot asking him about the Police dvd to be released! Shame on me, we spent something like 20/30 minutes with him and lost this chance!!! grrrrrrr.....shame on me shame on me!!!!!!! But you know, when he's staring at you, and you are talking about your own stuff (family, job, etc...) then you forget about asking a lot of things you would love to ask....next time...next time! He also said he really enjoyed the show in Hungary! Well done people from HUNGARY, well done! He said it was the largest show he ever did! (but I guess the show in Rome tow days later was even bigger, with 500.000 people)... Anyway, he was impressed about the show and the people in Hungary! During the day we also had the chance to meet all the people from the band, while at the hotel; Dominic did a short show just for Lydia and I, playing some stuff sitting at a sofa in the main hall of the hotel, and included 'Lullaby From An Anxious Child'...guys, he's really amazing! I got some pics out of this 'private session', you'll see them in a few days on my site www.illegaltales.com The meet & greet took place close to the dressing room and he was really pleased to meet some italian fans; all of them never met Sting before and they were all shocked! One of them told him...HEY, I THOUGHT YOU WERE TALLER... he smiled and replied he's been ill lately and ..shorter...eheheh! He gave 7 minutes in total to 10 people and they all shook hands while a photographer from Universal Music took some pics; private pictures where not allowed at all, as well as autographs, even if in the very last minute he signed a few books people brought with them. He was dressed with green pants (very similar to the early Police outfit) and a black jacket; his way of dressing was really close to the outfit shown on the Message In A Bottle video!!! We walked together with our arms around our shoulders on the way back to the dressing room and I had the chance to thank him again for his great kindness and for such a fantastic day...and the best was yet to come...the concert! Ciao ciao Giovanni I had the chance to plan together with Universal Music Italy, a very fast and very restricted meet & greet with Sting, Ciao ciao Giovanni http://www.stewartcopeland.it http://www.illegaltales.it