I happened to check in on the Police community message board under 'recordings' recently and found a reference to a DVD dubiously titled 'Police Oakland 1983 Pro Shot'. I say 'dubiously' because in all my years of trawling the web for Police recordings i had never once seen a reference to such a recording. Yet here it was, freely available via trade at some old school bootleg trading site, referenced as stated in a thread at the Police message boards. Naturally I followed the links and found the source of this surely genned-to-death recording. This individual very kindly offered to B+P me a copy of his dvd. I expected little, possibly even some mishmashing of the existing montreal footage.
Imagine my utter bewilderment and delight when I loaded up this disc today and discovered a complete - yes all 93 minutes - pro-shot and either master or 1-2 generation vhs-dvd transfer of the Police playing Oakland in '83. Even the sound is good. Unbelievable discovery. This one isn't even on Rogier's list - and here it was, not being hoarded, not being suckled on by the nefarious Police Elite Trading Society, but freely available from a fellow trader. Can anyone shed any light on where this came from? I now wonder if the VHS source exists somewhere accessible. It's timecoded and over 90 mins so it's likely a pre-broadcast source.
Screens:
http://www.thedelorean.net/audio/police ... re%204.pnghttp://www.thedelorean.net/audio/police ... re%203.pnghttp://www.thedelorean.net/audio/police ... re%202.pngLogin: zenyatta
Pass: mondatta
Picture is a little saturated (red). Sound is good, occasional mild distortion. Weird mix - really reveals how out of tune those backing vocalists were. Sting takes his top off towards the end, and looks like a fricking greek god.
*Please* don't inundate me with copy requests - I'm sending one to a fellow nutter in the US next week, and to one in Europe. I'll help out my local comrades also. It will get around ASAP, the love will be shared.