Tales of an erstwhile traveler: The Whisky; Dallas
Posted: 25 Jul 2008 16:15Hmmm. Everyone's so excited about the end of the tour that I thought I'd take a few moments and cobble together some verbiage about the first show, back in February 2007, and some other adventures that happened along the way. Enjoy!
.................................
Our story begins with your humble narrator receiving an email from one Giovanni Copelandweb saying something like "due to your incessant griping over Sting.com getting most of the tickets to the public tour announcement for the Police reunion kickoff, we made some phone calls. Please knock it off." (Of course I'm kidding and Gio would never say something so indelicate, but he did email me one day to tell me I had won one of the tickets in the SC.net lottery to send a couple of lucky fans to the tour kickoff of The Police reunion.) And away we go.
I still can't quite believe it, but my name is apparently on The List and I've received some correspondence indicating the entire project isn't a figment of my fevered imagination. The day before I leave for the gig, taking place at the legendary Whisky-a-Go-Go in L.A., I dial the phone number emailed to me by another forum member named Sockii, who has joined me in my consternation over the Sting.com treatment and who has the other SC.net ticket, thanks to a lottery we both entered after the ticket contest was announced. I find out later that she has a real name (Nicole) and I find out MUCH later that she lives in a cool apartment building in urban Philly and has a rockin' doctor boyfriend and a bluebell ride...but at that point I'm thinking to myself, Is this really happening? I mean, I log onto a website and start talking to people I've never met before, and now I've got a ticket to see The actual-friggin-Police at the first semi-public performance they've done since 1986?
Some more backstory: I grew up in middle of nowhere Kansas - Wichita, if you must know...which is pleasant enough and full of kind people and halfway decent scenery...but it isn't exactly a hotbed of action when it comes to catching rock and roll bands. I manage to see acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Meat Puppets on their rare excursions into the Midwest, but the one and only time The Police play my humble burg happens to be the week of a ski vacation I'm being bodily forced to attend by my parents, who can see my burgeoning fandom and are determined to quash it at all costs...which is a real blow to my adolescent self, since I have an older brother who's been making me cassette tapes of their music since I was in primary school.
So anyway, I'm gonna go see a band I've loved my whole life, courtesy of a guy I used to draw pictures of in my spiral sketchbook during math class. Yeah, right. And pigs are gonna fly out of my ass if any of this turns out to be for real. I know from the fans who've attended recent screenings of a movie he's made that Stewart has a reputation as an accessible guy and that he actually reads his website forum, but what are the chances?
But what the hell. I book the flight. Rent the car. And next afternoon I turn up at a bar called the Backstage Cafe in the heart of Los Angeles, which I remember reading had been owned and run by one of the Copeland brothers...but I didn't really pay much attention, since at the time I was working a whole bunch of hours a week at one of those jobs that's all glitz and glamour and not a whole lot else, since everyone and his brother wants to work there. Which means they pay peanuts and give you zero vacation time. Getting to do too much of anything else was not really on my radar for a while. Nonetheless, I'm enjoying thinking about getting to visit this bar where I'm assuming several chapters of rock and roll prehistory have been penned.
I walk in. And there's a really nice looking guy with a couple of tough tattoos who tells me his name is Conroy standing at the bar. Later on I meet a couple of people from Sting.com including an attractive blonde named Maggie, and I dont know it yet but she's going to play a pivotal role next morning. And there with Conroy is Sockii, another fun-looking rocker chick carrying a purse with pictures of the three Police stuck all over it. I later find out it's been signed by what is likely now all of them, but at the time I'm just sort of overwhelmed and wishing I'd come up with some cool accoutrement to join them in their reverie. Feeling outclassed, I guess you might say. At least I've remembered to wear my favorite black leather jacket, which is just the right weight for the warmish February air.
So things lead to things, and we quaff a few glasses of gin and tonic, and later a cute young woman who's married to a dead ringer for Ian Copeland (and who turns out to be the Copeland herself) turns on the television set....and none of us can quite believe it when the start showing the intro to the 104th Annual Whatever Grammy Celebration... And it's The Police. And they're back. And we're screaming.
And I'm getting goosebumps and my heart is pounding just typing this, nearly 16 months later.
More hijinx ensue and Maggie tells us all that we really need to get our tired asses out of the bed and be in line EARLY. We know a few local rock stations have handed out what might be upwards of a hundred tickets, but the show isn't till 11...is she sure?
And next AM at oh-god-thirty, there we all are, and Maggie has proved her prescience the first of what will turn out to be a whole bunch of times: there are already other people there. But we're still near the head of the line. Just to be sure things work out all right, Mags whips out a marker and tells everybody to put out their hand. 1. 2. 3. And on it goes, and we all have a great time standing around what looks like one of those cheesy Larry Flynt franchises they've put in every God-fearing community from coast to coast throughout the land. And we go in to buy bottled water, and penis-shaped cupcakes, and pinch ourselves periodically, because we still can't quite believe this is really happening.
CHAPTER 2
Eventually security tells us it's all right for us to cross the street and stand in another line next to the starboard wall of the Whisky, which is located on a corner that leads up to a hill behind. Nicole and Maggie and I have Conroy in tow, because we're hoping against hope we're going to be able to get him inside. So we're standing there in line and seemingly out of nowhere, a whole bunch of people with video cameras from outlets like Der Spingerherstenhoffen start asking us questions. How does it feel to be here today? (We're still not really sure it's really happening.) How far did we come? (I'd have come a lot farther if necessary.) Have you ever seen The Police before? (I was too young.) And on and on and on.
And...suddenly...a kick drum. Right next to our heads. We figure we're probably behind the stage. I can't breathe. It's Stewart.
(I have not only written about this part of the story profusely but I have posted photos all over the place of all of us with our heads up against the wall, so I won't reproduce them here.) Suffice it to say it was really, really a cool moment, made much cooler by the segment about a half hour later when they finally open the doors. And thanks to Maggie's forethought, we're at the head of the line. Which means we're in the front row. The venue is small - maybe 500 people, but nothing can compare to being close enough to Andy's monitor to read the tiny technical statistics printed on the side of it...
I still can't quite believe it. It's an out of body experience, sort of...like I'm watching this all unfold through someone else's eyes.
The crowd is going absolutely nuts. I turn around and look right into the eyes of Questlove, the drummer for Roots. Behind him is some blond guy who looks familiar...Jesus Almighty Christ. As if this can't get any more surreal. It's Taylor Hawkins.
And eventually the band comes out. Sting first, then Andy, then bounding down the stairs with a stride many of us would know instantly, it's Stewart.
I have tears in my eyes at this point. What can you say? Something you never, ever thought you'd get to see just happened? And you're there not only for free, but courtesy of one of the actual bandmembers, and with people who appreciate what a moment it is?
They start playing. What song is it? I know every word and mostly every note of every recorded Police song, but I only have eyes for Stewart. Watching him play from this close up is nothing short of life-changing. He's like an octopus up there; no wonder there's a little competition, I remember thinking to myself. Who on earth can compete with that?
So they get through the set, and there's some talk about how the tour is going to go down, and I'm a little disappointed with all the Best Buy talk, but I figure it comes along with rock and roll at this level. And then they announce the tourdates. I remember hearing the word BONNAROO and just about losing my mind. At this point I don't know I'll be seeing the band upwards of a dozen times with a whole bunch of new friends. All I can think about is the venue where I've seen Oysterhead the year before in an amazing performance. And it's an hour from my house. I can't quite contain myself and emit something like a SQUEEEE that's later audible on the audiotape. Ooops. Gonna have to compose myself a little better.
The band plays a while longer and all too soon it's time for us to go. We turn around and file out, back into the crowd on the street that's turned into a melee at this point. Having nothing much else to do, we decide to hang around for a while just to see what else is going to happen. We're standing on the corner talking to the folks from LiveNation, who want to interview us about the event, and somehow I manage to cobble together a few sentences for them, being careful to mention the URL "www.stewartcopeland.net" a few hundred times. I look over my shoulder and Sockii is talking to some international outlet and sounding like she does this stuff in her sleep. I later hear Maggie say "It's a dream come true!" like a line from a Publishers Clearing House commercial and wonder how come I've been selected for this gig, since everything that comes out of my mouth sounds a little of the "uh, er" variety. But then I figure people are going to assume we're all a little shocked and cut us some slack, which actually happens later when friends of mine I haven't seen since high school see an interview of mine on the LiveNation Internet feed and start sending me emails.
And then the doors to the venue open and out walks Sting. We're glad to see him, of course, and then Andy, as both of them slip away and are escorted into a limousine.
And then...Stewart. Of course he's completely mobbed by the press pack, and we stand there for a while and watch them all jockey for attention. And then the crowd thins out a little. I'm standing maybe 50 feet away through a smallish alley, so I think to myself What have I got to lose? And at this point I really, really want to thank Stewart for going to the trouble of getting some of his fans into the gig.
I have to wait a minute for a TV camera to get out of the way. But then I walk up to Stewart. I stick out my hand and say something like "Hi, I'm Divemistress from your forum. Just wanted to thank you for getting a couple of us in here today."
Stewart looks me in the eye. Very surreal moment as a photograph I've seen a million times becomes three dimensional and turns into a real person. Big smile. He shakes my hand. And he says "DIVEMISTRESS! HI!!" He knows exactly who I am. He seems genuinely glad to meet me. Which is the last thing I expect.
CHAPTER 3
Meanwhile, the press is still clamoring for attention and Stewart's got to feed the beast. I try not to stand there all day and monopolize his time. Other people are trying to get things signed and whatnot so I say a couple more things about what a pleasure it is to meet him and step back into the crowd.
I trot across the street and run back into Sockii and Conroy, then learn the disappointing news that we did not actually succeed in getting Conroy into the place. Which is too bad, because you can tell he's one of these genuinely cool people who would never take unfair advantage of a situation to improve his own vantage point. But he takes it in stride and is philosophical about the whole thing, telling us he's gotten to meet Ian Copeland a couple of times and hang out.
Meanwhile, we're all dying to get somewhere to go online and find out what's happening on SC.net. Rumors have been circulating for weeks there's going to be a separate Police website but we don't know what the URL is yet. So we turn down Melrose Boulevard and go into a coffeehouse to log onto the message board. We learn there's a new website, www.ThePoliceTour.com, and that the tourdates that have been leaking for weeks are finally irrevocably confirmed. We all turn over the plastic right away for official memberships and then we sink into a bit of a slumber, since we've been running on adrenaline for 48 hours straight. We have a little more time to drive around and see the city and talk, and we run back by the Backstage to talk to a couple of Copelands, including Chandra, who's devastated Ian isn't there to see what's taken place. We say what we can, but feel like it's pitiful consolation since we're all feeling the lack of that big booming laugh ourselves. I've recently finished Ian's book "Wild Thing" in what turns out to be a six-straight-hour marathon and it pains me in nearly a physical manner that I've missed meeting such a presence.
TO BE CONTINUED....
.................................
Our story begins with your humble narrator receiving an email from one Giovanni Copelandweb saying something like "due to your incessant griping over Sting.com getting most of the tickets to the public tour announcement for the Police reunion kickoff, we made some phone calls. Please knock it off." (Of course I'm kidding and Gio would never say something so indelicate, but he did email me one day to tell me I had won one of the tickets in the SC.net lottery to send a couple of lucky fans to the tour kickoff of The Police reunion.) And away we go.
I still can't quite believe it, but my name is apparently on The List and I've received some correspondence indicating the entire project isn't a figment of my fevered imagination. The day before I leave for the gig, taking place at the legendary Whisky-a-Go-Go in L.A., I dial the phone number emailed to me by another forum member named Sockii, who has joined me in my consternation over the Sting.com treatment and who has the other SC.net ticket, thanks to a lottery we both entered after the ticket contest was announced. I find out later that she has a real name (Nicole) and I find out MUCH later that she lives in a cool apartment building in urban Philly and has a rockin' doctor boyfriend and a bluebell ride...but at that point I'm thinking to myself, Is this really happening? I mean, I log onto a website and start talking to people I've never met before, and now I've got a ticket to see The actual-friggin-Police at the first semi-public performance they've done since 1986?
Some more backstory: I grew up in middle of nowhere Kansas - Wichita, if you must know...which is pleasant enough and full of kind people and halfway decent scenery...but it isn't exactly a hotbed of action when it comes to catching rock and roll bands. I manage to see acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Meat Puppets on their rare excursions into the Midwest, but the one and only time The Police play my humble burg happens to be the week of a ski vacation I'm being bodily forced to attend by my parents, who can see my burgeoning fandom and are determined to quash it at all costs...which is a real blow to my adolescent self, since I have an older brother who's been making me cassette tapes of their music since I was in primary school.
So anyway, I'm gonna go see a band I've loved my whole life, courtesy of a guy I used to draw pictures of in my spiral sketchbook during math class. Yeah, right. And pigs are gonna fly out of my ass if any of this turns out to be for real. I know from the fans who've attended recent screenings of a movie he's made that Stewart has a reputation as an accessible guy and that he actually reads his website forum, but what are the chances?
But what the hell. I book the flight. Rent the car. And next afternoon I turn up at a bar called the Backstage Cafe in the heart of Los Angeles, which I remember reading had been owned and run by one of the Copeland brothers...but I didn't really pay much attention, since at the time I was working a whole bunch of hours a week at one of those jobs that's all glitz and glamour and not a whole lot else, since everyone and his brother wants to work there. Which means they pay peanuts and give you zero vacation time. Getting to do too much of anything else was not really on my radar for a while. Nonetheless, I'm enjoying thinking about getting to visit this bar where I'm assuming several chapters of rock and roll prehistory have been penned.
I walk in. And there's a really nice looking guy with a couple of tough tattoos who tells me his name is Conroy standing at the bar. Later on I meet a couple of people from Sting.com including an attractive blonde named Maggie, and I dont know it yet but she's going to play a pivotal role next morning. And there with Conroy is Sockii, another fun-looking rocker chick carrying a purse with pictures of the three Police stuck all over it. I later find out it's been signed by what is likely now all of them, but at the time I'm just sort of overwhelmed and wishing I'd come up with some cool accoutrement to join them in their reverie. Feeling outclassed, I guess you might say. At least I've remembered to wear my favorite black leather jacket, which is just the right weight for the warmish February air.
So things lead to things, and we quaff a few glasses of gin and tonic, and later a cute young woman who's married to a dead ringer for Ian Copeland (and who turns out to be the Copeland herself) turns on the television set....and none of us can quite believe it when the start showing the intro to the 104th Annual Whatever Grammy Celebration... And it's The Police. And they're back. And we're screaming.
And I'm getting goosebumps and my heart is pounding just typing this, nearly 16 months later.
More hijinx ensue and Maggie tells us all that we really need to get our tired asses out of the bed and be in line EARLY. We know a few local rock stations have handed out what might be upwards of a hundred tickets, but the show isn't till 11...is she sure?
And next AM at oh-god-thirty, there we all are, and Maggie has proved her prescience the first of what will turn out to be a whole bunch of times: there are already other people there. But we're still near the head of the line. Just to be sure things work out all right, Mags whips out a marker and tells everybody to put out their hand. 1. 2. 3. And on it goes, and we all have a great time standing around what looks like one of those cheesy Larry Flynt franchises they've put in every God-fearing community from coast to coast throughout the land. And we go in to buy bottled water, and penis-shaped cupcakes, and pinch ourselves periodically, because we still can't quite believe this is really happening.
CHAPTER 2
Eventually security tells us it's all right for us to cross the street and stand in another line next to the starboard wall of the Whisky, which is located on a corner that leads up to a hill behind. Nicole and Maggie and I have Conroy in tow, because we're hoping against hope we're going to be able to get him inside. So we're standing there in line and seemingly out of nowhere, a whole bunch of people with video cameras from outlets like Der Spingerherstenhoffen start asking us questions. How does it feel to be here today? (We're still not really sure it's really happening.) How far did we come? (I'd have come a lot farther if necessary.) Have you ever seen The Police before? (I was too young.) And on and on and on.
And...suddenly...a kick drum. Right next to our heads. We figure we're probably behind the stage. I can't breathe. It's Stewart.
(I have not only written about this part of the story profusely but I have posted photos all over the place of all of us with our heads up against the wall, so I won't reproduce them here.) Suffice it to say it was really, really a cool moment, made much cooler by the segment about a half hour later when they finally open the doors. And thanks to Maggie's forethought, we're at the head of the line. Which means we're in the front row. The venue is small - maybe 500 people, but nothing can compare to being close enough to Andy's monitor to read the tiny technical statistics printed on the side of it...
I still can't quite believe it. It's an out of body experience, sort of...like I'm watching this all unfold through someone else's eyes.
The crowd is going absolutely nuts. I turn around and look right into the eyes of Questlove, the drummer for Roots. Behind him is some blond guy who looks familiar...Jesus Almighty Christ. As if this can't get any more surreal. It's Taylor Hawkins.
And eventually the band comes out. Sting first, then Andy, then bounding down the stairs with a stride many of us would know instantly, it's Stewart.
I have tears in my eyes at this point. What can you say? Something you never, ever thought you'd get to see just happened? And you're there not only for free, but courtesy of one of the actual bandmembers, and with people who appreciate what a moment it is?
They start playing. What song is it? I know every word and mostly every note of every recorded Police song, but I only have eyes for Stewart. Watching him play from this close up is nothing short of life-changing. He's like an octopus up there; no wonder there's a little competition, I remember thinking to myself. Who on earth can compete with that?
So they get through the set, and there's some talk about how the tour is going to go down, and I'm a little disappointed with all the Best Buy talk, but I figure it comes along with rock and roll at this level. And then they announce the tourdates. I remember hearing the word BONNAROO and just about losing my mind. At this point I don't know I'll be seeing the band upwards of a dozen times with a whole bunch of new friends. All I can think about is the venue where I've seen Oysterhead the year before in an amazing performance. And it's an hour from my house. I can't quite contain myself and emit something like a SQUEEEE that's later audible on the audiotape. Ooops. Gonna have to compose myself a little better.
The band plays a while longer and all too soon it's time for us to go. We turn around and file out, back into the crowd on the street that's turned into a melee at this point. Having nothing much else to do, we decide to hang around for a while just to see what else is going to happen. We're standing on the corner talking to the folks from LiveNation, who want to interview us about the event, and somehow I manage to cobble together a few sentences for them, being careful to mention the URL "www.stewartcopeland.net" a few hundred times. I look over my shoulder and Sockii is talking to some international outlet and sounding like she does this stuff in her sleep. I later hear Maggie say "It's a dream come true!" like a line from a Publishers Clearing House commercial and wonder how come I've been selected for this gig, since everything that comes out of my mouth sounds a little of the "uh, er" variety. But then I figure people are going to assume we're all a little shocked and cut us some slack, which actually happens later when friends of mine I haven't seen since high school see an interview of mine on the LiveNation Internet feed and start sending me emails.
And then the doors to the venue open and out walks Sting. We're glad to see him, of course, and then Andy, as both of them slip away and are escorted into a limousine.
And then...Stewart. Of course he's completely mobbed by the press pack, and we stand there for a while and watch them all jockey for attention. And then the crowd thins out a little. I'm standing maybe 50 feet away through a smallish alley, so I think to myself What have I got to lose? And at this point I really, really want to thank Stewart for going to the trouble of getting some of his fans into the gig.
I have to wait a minute for a TV camera to get out of the way. But then I walk up to Stewart. I stick out my hand and say something like "Hi, I'm Divemistress from your forum. Just wanted to thank you for getting a couple of us in here today."
Stewart looks me in the eye. Very surreal moment as a photograph I've seen a million times becomes three dimensional and turns into a real person. Big smile. He shakes my hand. And he says "DIVEMISTRESS! HI!!" He knows exactly who I am. He seems genuinely glad to meet me. Which is the last thing I expect.
CHAPTER 3
Meanwhile, the press is still clamoring for attention and Stewart's got to feed the beast. I try not to stand there all day and monopolize his time. Other people are trying to get things signed and whatnot so I say a couple more things about what a pleasure it is to meet him and step back into the crowd.
I trot across the street and run back into Sockii and Conroy, then learn the disappointing news that we did not actually succeed in getting Conroy into the place. Which is too bad, because you can tell he's one of these genuinely cool people who would never take unfair advantage of a situation to improve his own vantage point. But he takes it in stride and is philosophical about the whole thing, telling us he's gotten to meet Ian Copeland a couple of times and hang out.
Meanwhile, we're all dying to get somewhere to go online and find out what's happening on SC.net. Rumors have been circulating for weeks there's going to be a separate Police website but we don't know what the URL is yet. So we turn down Melrose Boulevard and go into a coffeehouse to log onto the message board. We learn there's a new website, www.ThePoliceTour.com, and that the tourdates that have been leaking for weeks are finally irrevocably confirmed. We all turn over the plastic right away for official memberships and then we sink into a bit of a slumber, since we've been running on adrenaline for 48 hours straight. We have a little more time to drive around and see the city and talk, and we run back by the Backstage to talk to a couple of Copelands, including Chandra, who's devastated Ian isn't there to see what's taken place. We say what we can, but feel like it's pitiful consolation since we're all feeling the lack of that big booming laugh ourselves. I've recently finished Ian's book "Wild Thing" in what turns out to be a six-straight-hour marathon and it pains me in nearly a physical manner that I've missed meeting such a presence.
TO BE CONTINUED....
Just got in the mood. Everyone's excitement over the end of the tour reminded me of the beginning of the tour, and of the whole ride. Thanks for reading.