Last night's show was spectacular - a thousand times better than Tuesday's (sorry for over-using that pun!) Crowd was great and Sting responded with a more electrifying performance. I was sitting next to great company *BIG GRIN...*, learned what the deal is with the pants and shirt from the wardrobe woman sitting next to me, and Dominic and I are now buddies!
Back later with a more in-depth story...
Last night's show (Wednesday) at the Beacon was great. In my opinion it was better than the first night. The setlist was the same as the Tuesday, except for the fact that Brand New Day was performed after Tomorrow We'll See. Again Sting and Jason performed the beautiful song The Endo to memorate "our dearly beloved Kenny Kirkland". This time Manu joined them by playing on hi-hat. I expect he'll perform the song during the two remaining shows here in NYC.
Well I've been going through withdrawal today after such an amazing experience last night! Last night's show was exponentially superior to Tuesday's show, from an objective and personal point of view. First of all, we had better seats: 9th row center! There were some fellow Frenchies a couple of rows in front of me, and one of them had a Police T-shirt. So I knew I wouldn't be the only one standing during Every Little Thing! My sister and I were isolated in our area until Kevin Kline and wife Phoebe Cates sat down right in front of us!
Miles came on at 8:00 with the same introduction. The audience was much more appreciative of Cheb and his amazing band. I could see that the French people in front of us were grooving to Cheb as much as I was! Kevin Kline seemed entertained as well. The audience actually clapped when encouraged by the band and cheered at the end of the set.
After Cheb left, friends of Kevin Kline who just got there asked him how the opening band was. Kevin said "Interesting!" It was surely interesting to sit behind those two, but I never expected to be sitting close to PAUL SIMON (!!!) and wife Edie Brikell who sat right beside Kevin. I would have liked to say hello to Paul 'cause I love his stuff, but didn't feel like disturbing him. Had I not known who those people were, I would I thought they were "regular" folks - very nice and totally unpretentious. A nice change from Brad Pitt... The funny thing is Phoebe Cates turned around to tell us, in an excited tone, that they just heard that Neil Simon was coming! Cute! I actually thought she said Neil Diamond! Now THAT would have been a sight!
Lights come down, audience CHEERS! Paul Simon and Edie seemed to really like A Thousand Years! The King of Broadway showed up in mid-song and sat in front of Kevin. Then someone else shows up in mid-song and sits down in the row in front of me and to my left. It was.........
It was.............
It was........................
TRUDIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
She was RIGHT THERE in front of me, less than a stone's throw away. Hell, I would just have had to extend my arm to give her the stone! I was SOOO psyched! I didn't stand up during Set Them Free, but the French group and another group in front of them were as restless as I was! Great response from the crowd.
After The Rain Has Fallen has really grown on me. This live version is awesome! And it segues so well into We'll Be Together. I was singing all the lyrics of course, and the woman next to me asks "You're a big Sting fan aren't you?" I sort of missed WBT because she kept talking to me. She turned out to be the one responsible (well one of the ones anyway) for the band's wardrobe. She kept telling me "His jacket is Jean Paul Gaultier, Manu's shirt is Jean Paul Gaultier..." So I asked her why he wears the same outfit every night. She said they gave him a couple of samples of the pants and shirt, and he felt REALLY comfortable in them. I don't know if he ended up getting more than two of each, but he seems to adopt the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude with his wardrobe as well. She also kept telling me that he wore the jacket in the Desert Rose video. I kept telling her "I know!" but in between gulps of beer, she must have forgotten she had told me that already! She also didn't know that he wore the outfit every night and was wondering how I knew that. I think she got the point and finally stopped talking after that!...
Perfect Love: Another one from the album that sounds better live. As Manu came on for his rap, I yelled "VAS-Y MANU!" ("Go Manu" in French). Trudie turned around and laughed!!!!!!! Manu can really handle the rap. And he seems to be enjoying it when the Scream girls walk around him! At the end of the song, Sting turned to Manu and said "Merveilleux! Fantastique!" etc... Some French words which I would like to think were prompted by my earlier cheer!
All This Time and Mad About You were crowd pleasers (he jumped into ATT without an intro). He then did his tribute to Kenny. The song's title turns out to be "Dienda" (he omitted the "Diendamadeek" joke.) It was so quiet when he sang. Beautiful stuff - I had that song in my head as I was going home later that night.
The jokes were the same of course (can't remember at which point he does his comedy routine.) I was pre-quoting him as he said them. I hope Trudie heard and will tell him to hire some new writers!
Fill Her Up doesn't sound as good without the steel guitar, and Scream scream too much on this one. It would be nice to have an actual choir... Fields of Gold was another crowd pleaser. Then...
ELTSDIM and I get up as well as the people in the front who had been restless! Very powerful performance, affected I'm sure by the crowd's enthusiasm. The audience went nuts at the end of this one. Too bad Moon Over Bourbon Street was a "sit down." But we got up again for Englishman. The crowd was warmed up by then, and Sting prolonged the audience participation with "Be yourself..." It was nice to see that the other fans in front of me knew the routine on this one!
Tomorrow We'll See was a "sit down" again and should be earlier in the set, but major improvement: it came on before Brand New Day. My sister and I headed to the stage as BND started. This guy in the front row on the aisle tapped me on the shoulder and said in a rude tone: "You're going to have to go back to your seat. I didn't pay to see the back of your shirt." Whatever... I must admit that the cities on the back of my TST shirt have faded, rendering the back of my shirt rather bland. I sure hope he liked the backs of everyone else's shirt who followed me to the stage! All he had to do was stand, and he would have been at the front, but he decided to stay seated. Somehow he though he paid for the actual seat, and was determined to use it as much as possible! Sting was really revved up at this point and was signaling the crowd to come forward! GO STING!
The great thing is Dominic recognized me right away from the night before. He looked at me and had a bemused and impressed look on his face! He came over and jammed next to me on several occasions. Dom Rocks! It was such a sight to see him play. I was mesmerized by his finger work. I had never realized how much he puts into it. He might seem like he's dozing off sometimes, but he's really keeping himself busy. I think his laid-back attitude is just him "feelin' it." BND is definitely an audience clapper. I don't know if Sting forgot the words or if it was intentional but at one point, instead of singing the "Turn the clock..." lyrics, he sang the melody as "Do do do do do do do..." I looked at Dom and he smiled!
Roxanne was great as usual. It's great how he loosens it up in the middle. Too bad the audience wasn't too familiar with the "Roxanno" call and response. They did it as long as Sting did, but I wish everyone would keep on singing it throughout.
Desert Rose sounded really loud, especially near Dom. I thought his guitar was actually too loud. It seems Sting has cleaned up some of the effects - there was no electronic echo in his vocals in mid-song like the other performances. The DR/When The World combo is so awesome! World is just mind-blowing, especially when you have Sting jamming like a mad man on the bass, RIGHT ABOVE YOU! The people around me were going nuts! It was a religious experience for me! Sting's really having a lot of fun with this one. Can you imagine being Jason and seeing Sting crawl toward you like a tiger on the prowl with a maniacal look on his face! Dom jammed right above me and let his pick drop in front of me. It made it into my pocket at lightning speed!
The encore was the same - no Lithium Sunset; Faith - the usual. Every Breath you take was much more powerful than the night before. Towards the end, he changed the melody of the verse, emphasizing the first syllable in "every" rather than emphasizing the second word. I'm getting tediously specific here, but these kinds of touches make a performance that much better. (Perfect Love also benefits from a change in melody towards the end.)
Message In A Bottle was even more of a participation number than the previous night. Funny how everyone seems to sing this one in a lower register! Some guys behind me were really getting into this one and yelled out "WE LOVE YOU BABY!" Again, the crowd loved it!
Fragile turned into a sing-along too! I was surprised about that. The cheers were like nothing I had heard at a New York Sting show before. I again got a hand shake from Dominic and Chris. The whole band then ligned up across the stage and took several bows (which they didn't do the night before). Sting was really pleased and humbled, bringing his hands in prayer form.
I hope all of you going on Friday will get a show as good as this one. I can't wait 'till Sunday!
As we left and grabbed our stuff from our seats, I got to say a quik hello to Trudie (who looks beautiful btw.) As we were putting our coats on and exiting the aisle, my siter and Kevin Kline each noticed their coats: they were identical! It was a very specific jacket too, so it was weird! She told him "I like your coat!" and he said "It looks better on you!" They both had a good laugh!
Didn't feel the need to linger much longer. The night had been perfect enough.
Btw, I meant to say that Billy gave me a low-five when I congratulated him on the tour (don't know exactly what I typed yesterday..) and forgot to mention that Jason was surprised and happy that I complimented him. His reponse: a befuddled "Oh! Thank you!"
Fans on both nights asked me to e-mail them some pictures which I'm happy to do. Folks, don't be afraid to bring a camera in! As we were walking outside towards the subway, I ran into a couple of people who stood on line next to me for tickets a while back! Small world... They're going on Sunday too I believe. I brieflly met some fans over these two nights who came from Colorado, Kansas etc... They were really disappoited that Sting skipped the Mid-West ( I can hear the Coloradeans right now say "Colorado's NOT Mid-West!") Well kudos to those fans for travelling so far...
OK, thanks for coming, thanks for reading, we'll see you again (on Sunday!)
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