Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Mixing it up

Last night I had the extreme pleasure of seeing my old friend Andy aka Mister Odney for the 1st time in 15 years. We went to the Police concert at the Wachovia center and had a super fun time. I had a moment of feeling old upon seeing Sting's gray beard and Andy Summer's old man hands with bulging blue veins and translucent skin covered with age spots up close on the huge video screen playing his guitar. They played alot of good b-side sings that I haven't heard in ages and truly enjoyed. Sting's voice had lost an octave but he was still Sting. Stuart Copeland, the drummer, was, as always, abso-fan-fucking-tastic-lutely amazing. In alot of ways I'm glad they haven't recreated any more new music for the studio as it was good to hear all of the old classic Police.

I had a few surreal and funny moments last night as my mind seemed to combine things that shouldn't be combined. For starters before the show began, the lighted advertisements kept repeating the upcoming acts, among them was the Wiggles and Nine Inch Nails. I pointed that out to Andy and he asked if they were touring together. Of course, I started to imagine a concert where the 2 groups played songs together like, Get Ready to Fuck You Like an Animal. At that point I had to get a beer and I wandered out onto the concourse.

The first concession stand I came across was a Carvell. Not in the mood for ice cream, I was about to walk by until I noticed that they were selling cans of beer and no ice cream at all. I got in line and was met by a blank stare from the clerk when I asked for a Heineken and a Cookiepuss. Some people just can't seem to find humor in their jobs, I suppose.

Eventually, after the show started they played one of my favorite Police songs, I Can't Stand Losing You. The song was completely ruined for me because for some reason after they had close up of Sting's smiling face all I could think of was his bit role in the movie Dune. In particular the scene where he emotes the line repeatedly, "I will kill him!". If you've seen the movie you know what I'm talking about. The acting was terrible and for the life of me I could not get that image of my head. I started to uncontrollably giggle through the whole song.

Some things aren't meant to be combined, fortunately a good time with an old friend wasn't one of those instances.

1 comment:

Mr. Odney said...

It was awesome. Don't forget the bitter guy behind us who complained loudly about how the Police-and I guess bands in general-like to get audiences worked up into a lather before the encore.