Den Police Freak Daily Life

2007-06-10T10:35:00.001+02:00

I couldn't resist it, but that stupid Paris Hilton deserves a good beating. Anyway, her agenda was just discovered for the first days in prison :-), enjoy!

DAY ONE
6 a.m.: It is so gross here, Diary. They gave me something called "a cavity search" without even buying me a cocktail.
6 p.m.: Ew. They just brought dinner to my cell, and my lawyer is totally a liar because it is so not the same thing as room service. There was a HOT DOG involved. I am going to refuse to eat. I'm totally going to be skinnier than Nicole when I get out of here. She's going to be so pissed. It will be awesome.

DAY TWO
3 p.m.: Some of the other girls in here are nice, Diary. Today in the yard during my hour of free time, the one they call "Nunchucks" told me she thought I had a pretty mouth.
11 p.m.: You know how, like, you always think of the perfect comeback a few hours too late? I totally did that. Instead of saying, "Are you a dude?," which made one of the guards run over and drag me back to my cell, what I SHOULD have said to Nunchucks was, "You should see it with lip gloss. Now shut up and get me a martini." HA HA! And people said Nicole was the funny one. WRONG. I am rad.

DAY THREE
10 a.m.: I hate Nicky. I asked her to bake a file in a pie and she just laughed at me and called me dumb. But I need to deal with two broken nails. WHO'S DUMB NOW, HUH?
4 p.m.: I miss brushing my hair 200 times a day. Can you believe they won't let me wear my extensions in here? Apparently, they're "worried" someone might try and yank them out. I was all, "Like that doesn't happen to me every night at Hyde," but they totally wouldn't listen.

DAY FOUR
2 p.m.: DUUUUUUUUUDE. The grossest thing just happened, Diary. I can't even write it down, it's so bad. I … I GREW HAIR. On my FACE, Diary. It's just THERE. Over my eyeballs. I begged the guard to file it down, or shoot it, or something, but they wouldn't! I CAN'T EVEN LOOK AT MYSELF in the reflection of the toilet water!
7 p.m.: I talked to Nunchucks in the yard today, and she told me that someone else told her that someone ELSE got out of here by pretending to have a total nervous breakdown, and I told HER that I could totally do that because I've so watched enough Lifetime Television for Women to know what they look like. So when I met with my lawyer today, I just looked all blank and acted the way Britney acted right before she shaved her head, and he got totally nervous and then I started drooling and he ran and got the guard. I am so out of here.

DAY FIVE
3 a.m.: And they said I couldn't act. —The Fug Girls

Live clips

2007-06-09T12:03:00.001+02:00

Edmonton download

2007-06-09T12:01:00.001+02:00

Listen to this show, and you will hear a much better sounding band, especially on Don't Stand So Close To Me!

Part 1: http://www.gigasize.com/get.php/-1100156562/Police_June_2_Edmonton_pt_1.zip

Part 2: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PEE5Q6HE

Again a complete setlist

2007-06-07T10:16:00.001+02:00

Aha! Our good friends at StingUs found out that the guys played again a complete setlist, is needed taking into account the expensive tickets! But let's surely hope they will bring some more "The Police" spirit in the songs as well. We do not need lame Sting covers, but The Police is what we want to hear! And I will pay my 300 dollars then for a nice The Police jacket. Although even that is ridiculously overpriced...

New live recordings popping up

2007-06-04T09:54:00.001+02:00

A new live recording will soon become available of the Edmonton performance! Will be nice to hear how the guys sound 3 concerts far in their tour.

SONG PERFORMANCE APPRECIATION

2007-06-03T14:07:00.001+02:00

Well, here comes my personal appreciation of the songs performed so far by The Police:

Message In A Bottle: Rock solid, no comments to be made.
Synchronicity II: Maybe they should "derange" this further, it just doesn't sound that well. Maybe they should switch it with Synchronicity I?
Don't Stand So Close To Me: Very nice, but they should use that one as opener and go back to the original version played back in the early 80's, this one is ... too "Stingish mellow".
Voices / When The World Is Running Down: Rock solid.
Spirits In The Material World: Nice new arrangement with Andy "picking" on his guitar, very nice new version.
Driven To Tears: Rock solid
Walking On The Moon: In my opinion the best song performance of all, with Andy doing a great in-between-solo-part, minimalistic but ever so nice.
Truth Hits Everybody: TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO slow, guys, this should beat the shit out of my lungs, and instead I fall asleep!!!!!
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic: Mmmm, new arrangement, but too "Latin-Music-Like", back to the straightforward version I would say.
Wrapped Around Your Finger: Very good new version, good good good.
Bed's Too Big Without You: It was one of their best songs, and live it has always been great to hear it, and yes yes yes in 2007 they make also a nice rendition of it.
Murder By Numbers: Kick this song out, works on my nerves....
De Do Do Do De Da Da Da: Too soft, I need to hear the BANG when Andy starts, this is again too mellow.
Invisible Sun: Rock solid slightly re-arranged version.
Walking In Your Footsteps: Perfect
Can't Stand Losing You: Harder boys, play this HARDER!!!!
Roxanne: Kick out the Stingish softness and bring in the arrogance of the early years.
Encores
King Of Pain: Perfect
So Lonely: Perfect
Every Breath You Take: Falling asleep, this song simply cannot be played live, it dies due to Sting's moaning finishing of the song...
Next To You: Hard Harder Hardest, still too mellow, but great version nevertheless. Therapy played a great version once with Sting, I am sure the Boys can even do better.

And if you wonder how I know all this? Look at my earlier posts.

2007-06-02T18:36:00.000+02:00

Murder by numbers ... performed in Vancouver on May 28th 2007:

The lyrics describe how to get in the mindset of killing people. Sting said it is about the evil deeds of politicians. Sting wrote this with guitarist Andy Summers. it was their only collaboration on Synchronicity. Most of the album was written entirely by Sting.
This was used as the B-side of "Every Breath You Take," but it was omitted from the vinyl copy of Synchronicity. At the time, vinyl copies went on sale before cassettes, and CD technology was just emerging. Many people would buy the vinyl copies right away, so leaving this off encouraged them to also purchase the "Every Breath You Take" single or the cassette.
At some concerts, Sting introduced this by saying it was about the manipulation of large groups of people, knowing that the audience were being manipulated the whole time.
TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart said that this was performed by "The sons of Satan." In 1988, a few years after he made his comments, Swaggart was involved in a sex scandal.
Sting appeared at a Frank Zappa concert after meeting the eccentric composer before the show. When he got onstage, the band started to play this as Sting talked about the comments Jimmy Swaggart made about this song being written by Satan, Beelzebub, and Lucifer. He concluded by saying, "I wrote the f**king song, alright?" He went on to sing the whole song with the band and the track appears on Zappa's live album, Broadway the Hard Way. (thanks, Jeff - Kendall Park, NJ)
This song was featured in the Sigourney Weaver movie Copycat. A serial killer leaves the lyrics to this as a clue.

Missing songs in the setlist

2007-06-02T18:31:00.001+02:00

OK Andy, Stewart and Sting, we miss Tea In The Sahara, I Burn For You, Secret Journey and Once Upon A Daydream in the setlist. Any chance these songs will make it? Hope you do read this :-).

Stewart's honest feedback on the 3rd gig they performed

2007-06-02T15:29:00.000+02:00

Well, bravo to Stewart for being so honest!!!!!!!! Read what he posted immediately after the gig online on the forum of his official website!!!!:

“Whenever you’re ready Mr. Copeland” says Charlie, the production manager, as two crew members hold aside the giant gong, creating just enough space for me to slither onto my percussion stage, which is still down in its pit. I leap on board but my foot catches something and I sprawl into the arena in a jumble as the little stage starts to rise into view. Never mind. The audience is screaming with anticipation as I collect myself in the dark and start to warm, up the gong with a few gentle taps. But I’m overdoing it. It’s resonating and reaching it’s crescendo before the stage has fully reached its position. Sort of like a premature ejaculation. There’s nothing for it so I take a big swing for the big hit. Problem is, I’m just fractionally too far away and the beater misses the sweet spot and the big pompous opening to the show is a damp squib. Never mind.

I stride manfully to my drums. Andy has started the opening guitar riff to MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE and the crowd is going nuts. Problem is, I missed hearing him start. Is he on the first time around or the second? I look over at Sting and he’s not much help, his cue is me – and I’m lost. Never mind. “Crack!” on the snare and I’m in, so Sting starts singing. Problem is, he heard my crack as two in the bar, but it was actually four – so we are half a bar out of sync with each other. Andy is in Idaho.

Well we are professionals so we soon get sorted, but the groove is eluding us. We crash through MESSAGE and then go strait into SYNCHRONICITY. But there is just something wrong. We just can’t get on the good foot. We shamble through the song and hit the big ending. Last night Sting did a big leap for the cut-off hit, and he makes the same move tonight, but he gets the footwork just a little bit wrong and doesn’t quite achieve lift-off. The mighty Sting momentarily looks like a petulant pansy instead of the god of rock. Never Mind. Next song is going to be great…

But it isn’t. We get to the end of the first verse and I snap into the chorus groove – and Sting doesn’t. He’s still in the verse. We’ll have to listen to the tapes tomorrow to see who screwed up, but we are so off kilter that Sting counts us in to begin the song again. This is ubeLIEVably lame. We are the mighty Police and we are totally at sea.

And so it goes, for song after song. All I can think about is how Dietmar is going to string us up. In rehearsal this afternoon we changed the keys of EVERY LITTLE THING and DON’T STAND SO CLOSE so needless to say Andy and Sting are now on-stage in front of twenty thousand fans playing avant-garde twelve-tone hodgepodges of both tunes. Lost, lost, lost. I also changed my part for DON’T STAND and it’s actually working quite well but there is a dissonant noise coming from my two colleagues. In WALKING/FOOTSTEPS, I worked out a cool rhythm change for the rock-a-billy guitar solo, but now I make a complete hash of it – by playing it in the wrong part of the song. It’s not sounding so cool.

It usually takes about four or five shows in a tour before you get to the disaster gig. But we’re The Police so we are a little ahead of schedule. It’s only the second show (not counting the fan gig – 4,000 people doesn’t count as a gig in the Police scale of things).

When we meet up back-stage for the first time after the set and before the encores, we fall into each other’s arms laughing hysterically. Above our heads, the crowd is making so much noise that we can’t talk. We just shake our heads ruefully and head back up the stairs to the stage. Funny thing is, we are enjoying ourselves anyway. Screw it, it’s only music. What are you gonna do? But maybe it’s time to get out of Vancouver…

The Police not in South Europe?

2007-06-01T15:41:00.001+02:00

Seems the boys did disappoint me on one point: they do not come to the Mediterranean countries such as Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Balkan countries ...

A pity as fans here are absolutely crazy about them!

Hey, Andy, Stewart, Sting, no change of tour possible????

The Police not fine-tuned yet?

2007-06-01T15:29:00.000+02:00

Some insinuate that the Police needs fine-tuning, and must improve its instrumental skills... well, whatever they claim, having listened to the opening gig for sure 20 times, the guys are just excellent. Even better, StingUs posted an article that announced an acoustic album of the boys!

First The Police bootlegs available

2007-06-01T15:25:00.000+02:00

The nice surprise was that even the entire recording was available just a day after the first show, allowing all of of us to listen to it well ahead of them touring Europe.

If you need it, have a look here.

The Police reunited

2007-05-27T15:05:00.000+02:00

And they were fucking great! One might wonder where to get the best information, well I can tell you, www.stingus.net has it all!

Setlist was brilliant:
Message In A Bottle
Synchronicity II
Don't Stand So Close To Me
Voices / When The World Is Running Down
Spirits In The Material World
Driven To Tears
Walking On The Moon
Truth Hits Everybody
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Wrapped Around Your Finger
Bed's Too Big Without You
Murder By Numbers
De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
Invisible Sun
Walking In Your Footsteps
Can't Stand Losing You
Roxanne
King Of Pain
So Lonely
Every Breath You Take
Next To You