Um, folks? For once in my life I'm speechless: Amsterdam 2

[English-lion]

[quote="nancyrose"]Hey Dive, as I read your review the most amazing sensation washed over me...and I realized...I just experienced "second-hand" happiness!![/quote]

I like that "second-hand" happiness!! nicely put

I really enjoyed the read Dive

[smudge]

Yay Dive! I'm sooooo glad it was that good and thanks so much for a wonderful report. I've got second-hand-post-gig-buzz

Now I feel a little less crap about the awful transport time you guys had in London.

Have fun getting that paradigm shuffled around some more! And get yourself back over here soon. (via Gatwick of course).

[kimmy]

Dive,

Great report!!

Hope you had a good sleep (probably all one hour of it!)

You have a great time!!!!


Kimmy

[Divemistress of the Dark]

Y'all are the best people ever. Anyone making negative remarks about our flag or tube sox can kiss my big green ass... Although as I was telling Gio, usually the strange looks at the socks at concerts turn into big smiles when I remind people about Stewart's socks from Back in the Day...especially after the shows, when he's just burned the place to the ground.

I really think he may have made a deal with the devil at a dark crossroads. He was so good last night it just seemed impossible, like he'd grown an extra pair of arms. Maybe he's truly some kind of Hindu god passing as a mere mortal...

I don't know how we're going to leave, is the only problem. I would soooo love to call up hubby and tell him I lost my return ticket...and join Dietmar & Gio in Geneva...but I do miss hub, and heck, there's CHA-lloween to plan for.

Look for a thread from us soon on this, Samburu and Gina and I have hatched up some fun ideas for costumes whilst waiting for the train to come

I'm still all SQUEEEd out. We finally got to sleep, but it took some effort.

[sockii]

Awesome report, Dive! And great work Gina (& everyone else) with the flag lately.

Real life has been rather ass-kicking lately so I haven't been able to follow everything very closely, but these were great reports to read.

[georgygirl]

WOW Dive, your report is awesome.

I suppose that you are rich globetrotter following many "The Police" gigs.

Lucky you!



And about using tube socks, I am thinking about it, but I don't know it it fits right with a dress.

[Lynne]

Thanks for the great report, Dive! I love feeling the second-hand happiness!

[Divemistress of the Dark]

Hey folks, actually traveling is not so hard as it may seem sometimes...get a credit card that gives plane tickets as rewards and use it for *everything*. Gas, your utilities...you get free tickets faster than you think. Sharing a hotel room or using Priceline helps too.

I know many of us in the U.S. and Europe have more disposable income than our friends in other parts of the world, and I don't mean to belittle that...I am certainly lucky to get to take trips anywhere period, much less see The Police eight times, and I'm grateful for it. Also for having clean water, food to eat, and a roof over my head, because many millions of people don't have that much.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. Sorry to hear life has been rough of late, Sockii...had hoped you meant ass-kicking in a good way...

[GinaSuperCat]

Late, late, late...I know but I have 90 minutes after my classes to sit in the office while PapaCat is finishing teaching his seminar and given the fact I haven't slept since the three hours on Sat. night ("hell" is kind of an understatement for what happened to me on the way home), reading Vico is just not gonna happen tonight, so messageboard it is <grin>

I had an absolute blast in the Grolsch Music Cafe with the SCnetters and I head over to the concert feeling nothing less than a charmed SuperCat. I enter the queue for the field at 17:30 when the doors open and just walk right through the front section and position myself about four people back a bit towards Sting's side. I end up befriending two fellows who are so very sweet to my left and notice that three fellas to the right all have custom made t shirts (one has RO another XAN and the third NE in huge red velveteen letters on the front of stark black shirts with Amsterdam Arena and the present date on the back). I immediately know I'm in good company!

After Fiction Plane, I notice that the guys in the shirts are actually planning to take them off (they have shirts underneath, as well) and hold them up so I tell them about the flag and we end up coordinating with so we can all hold up our stuff to be viewed by the Police in tandem.

We're all in position and the two fellas to the left who are getting a kick out of my tour itinerary, insist that I stand in front of them to wave the flag. I tell you, I met some of the friendliest people on the field both nights and just had a complete blast, in part due to awesome impromptu company in part due to the most kick-ass live music. Everyone got a kick out of the flag and we take a few pics with shirts and the flag, etc.

As Message rips open the retractable roof of the Arena, the whole crowd in my vicinity is just pulsing quarternotes...many are screaming the lyrics. It's so packed at this point that we are all shoulder to shoulder. During Walking on the Moon, I get this eerie sensation as I slowly rotate around 360 as 55000 people are singing the eyohs...it was one of the times where the sheer enormity of the event and the minuteness of one cat invokes a sense of awe...looking around when Sting says "there's 50k people here, I want to see 100k hands (sure, it's a line I've heard several times) this time creates that eerie tingle once again. I have the flag curled inward, hugging it up against my collar bone most of the time in what I developed as its protective storage mode with like mama hen wings around it.

The fellas with the Roxanne T-shirts hold them up twice and then I turn around and tell them to get them ready right before I know Roxanne is going to begin...they hold up the shirts and at one point, about halfway through the song, I see Andy wince his vision as if to make out the shirts and smile, nodding with a kind of approval and a brief gesture...I turn around and say "did you see that, Andy just acknowledged the shirts!" We're all kind of yelling, haha.

The flag got several points, a gesture, and once again the counting on the fingers (to 6 this time, I believe). I am now thinking that Stewart is providing the official tally of points for us, knowing that we record such things here <grin> Dietmar gets a great photo of the final point! The people in the field around me get excited when the flag gets a point, they laugh, or pat me on the shoulder, etc. For being so worried about the general admission field and the flag therein beforehand, I am having a freaking blast and feel like I have Flag Support around me...AWESOME!!!

Wow do the Police sound tight...the 4 counts + 4 rest (punctuated with that fantastic *CRACK*) at the end of Hole, in a teasingly extended fashion, just starts and stop on a freaking dime...it's an amazing part of that song live, just brilliant. I really like hearing Stewart play that groove live. The last part of the show just launches into near-earth orbit, like an all-of-a-sudden culmination of misleadingly incremental building of momentum, a reaching-critical mass, and any other faux-physics-for-liberal-artsy-inclined mixed metaphors you can fill in! <grin>

We all meet back at the Cafe and there are already pics up and posts about that, suffice it to say it was truly wonderful to meet Eugenio and Gio, and to hang out with Dive, Samburu, Dietmar, Sabine, AnyOther and to hand the flag over to Gio and watch him and Eugenio sign it. Come to think of it, I was a very lucky cat, having gotten to see Dietmar sign it the day before (and to have also seen the first signature hit the flag, the John Hancock of our lovely DiveMistress) among several others.

I had such a blast the day after the concert: SamburuSunset, DiveMistress and I hit the city. The day pretty much oscillates between piercing contemplation of the incredible as we visit both the Rijksmuseum and the RembrandtHuis, and antics that just leave my face hurting at the end of the day from all the laughing! Plus, nothing proves the dregree to which we are nutters more than the fact that the day ends with the three of us cooling our throbbing heels, all lined up in an internet cafe, posting on the board, ordering SC Vater sticks, and buying tickets for Challoween. Thanks again, ladies!

[DirtyMartini]

Huzzah! Thanks for the great report, SuperCat! And thank you for doing all of Copelandia proud as Flag-Bearer in Amsterdam!

[English-lion]

Wow SuperCat I felt like I was right there with you

shirt nods flag points and all

You have defiantly witnessed history
being witness to all the great signatures

[IndyGirl]

[quote="GinaSuperCat"] I have the flag curled inward, hugging it up against my collar bone most of the time in what I developed as its protective storage mode with like mama hen wings around it.[/quote] Keeping it nice & safe.

[quote="GinaSuperCat"] The fellas with the Roxanne T-shirts hold them up twice and then I turn around and tell them to get them ready right before I know Roxanne is going to begin...they hold up the shirts and at one point, about halfway through the song, I see Andy wince his vision as if to make out the shirts and smile, nodding with a kind of approval and a brief gesture...I turn around and say "did you see that, Andy just acknowledged the shirts!" We're all kind of yelling, haha. [/quote] Yes, an Andy acknowledgement!

[quote="GinaSuperCat"] The flag got several points, a gesture, and once again the counting on the fingers (to 6 this time, I believe). I am now thinking that Stewart is providing the official tally of points for us, knowing that we record such things here <grin> [/quote] I bet you are right. Glad you had a great time!

[jedsoon]

Glad everybody had such a great time!

[Divemistress of the Dark]

[quote]Plus, nothing proves the dregree to which we are nutters more than the fact that the day ends with the three of us cooling our throbbing heels, all lined up in an internet cafe, posting on the board, ordering SC Vater sticks, and buying tickets for Challoween. Thanks again, ladies![/quote]

Well, you're certainly welcome, given that you convinced me to go on the trip, and it wound up being just a blast.

Countin' the days till CHA-lloween!!