Police Report for August 4, 2007

Yes, we saw the Police in concert again! This time at the Virgin Music Festival at Pimlico this past weekend. They played almost the exact same set as in PA, minus two songs, but it was still exhilarating, mostly because we were so close to the stage - anywhere from 100 feet back towards the start of the show to 50 feet away when they closed with a single-song second encore of Next To You. I even have some photos, although most are at least a bit blurry and/or grainy; the event organizers stated pretty clearly no cameras with changeable lenses, so that meant no Nikon D50 for us (we still saw a handful of people walking around with DSLRs though, so I guess it wasn't a well-enforced rule); instead, we took our old eBay-purchased Sony, with its 3x zoom. Eh, better than nothing, but it's hard to take a decent photo from even that close, when you have to hold the camera over your head to shoot above the crowd, plus there's the standard digital camera shutter delay to contend with.

We were able to get right up front because the Beastie Boys were on before the Police, and about a third of their fans emptied out - their loss was our gain! We were packed in pretty tight, at the end of a long, hot, humid, dusty day - it was a blast! We were close enough to see the few looks of disgust on Sting's face when they messed up song intros (Sting's fault once, Stewart's another time, although can the drummer ever really be wrong when it comes to timing?), and to read some of the text on Andy's guitar strap - "Oh My God, You Killed Kenny!" - seriously, that's what it was. Otherwise, not a lot of difference from the last show; as Jenny pointed out, unfortunately Andy's kick-ass solo for Walking In Your Foosteps was severely abbreviated, and one of the songs they didn't play that they played in Hershey was one of my favorites, The Bed's Too Big Without You. But I thought Driven To Tears sounded tighter, and I appreciated being able to fully enjoy another favorite, Synchronicity II, without also searching for our seats, as we had to do in PA.

Other bands, bah who cares. But here's a quick rundown anyway:

1. LCD Soundsystem - easily the best act we saw all day, other than the Police. These guys are aggressive, loud, energetic, and maybe a bit crazy.
2. Peter Bjorn and John (PB&J) - rock/pop from Sweden, songs themselves are hit-and-miss in terms of the writing, but another fun performance.
3. Amy Winehouse - great voice, outstanding band, too bad she mailed it in, either due to the heat or b/c she was high, not sure which. Plus, she really needs to eat something.
   
4. Beastie Boys - caught the second half of their set, not my kind of music but they're funny guys and great performers.
5. Cheap Trick - maybe a bit too old for this crowd? Robin Zander can still sing, they were OK on the whole.
6. Danny Tenaglia (DJ) - fun guy, good performer, eschews the 'DJ-as-cooler-than-you-stoic' stage persona.
7. Sasha and John Digweed (DJs) - yawn.

We also saw the billionaire himself, Richard Branson, around mid-day. He really puts together a well-organized festival, and his emphasis on environmentalism and community service isn't just lip service; half the festival ground was filled with various service organization and NGO booths, and every trash-disposal area was staffed by a person who made sure that garbage was sorted correctly [landfill, compost, or recycling].

[Update: I just uploaded a very short video (0:15) of the first few lines of Roxanne. It doesn't sound all that horrendous, a lot better than I thought it would anyway, considering it's a still camera in MPEG movie mode. It's so short because it's on the highest-quality setting, and that's as big as the buffer gets at that setting.]