Brando's last Friday Random 11 included a song by the Police. He said:7) “When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around,” The Police.
Apologies for another appearance from The Official Spokesman for
Tantric Lovemaking, but old Sting is too good to keep locked out of
sight behind bedroom doors. I didn’t go to the reunion concert a couple
years ago because the only tickets I could get were $250 a pop, but I
recently saw footage of them playing at some UK festival and wished I’d
dug into the cookie jar to spring for the tickets. I know, that's crazy
money to spend to see anyone unless they figured out a way to bring
someone like Hendrix back from the grave and send him on tour. But
there are few bands that could play an entire concert without playing a
song I wish they skipped, and The Police are one of those
bands—assuming they didn’t let Andy Summers sing “Mother.”
The ticket price was what caught my eye and reminded me of a story Grizzled told me long ago... The Police played at one of his college dances. Yes, a dance. They didn't do a concert there, but rather, played at a Grinnell dance as part of their "low budget tour"... and they weren't even the headliners. Ultravox was. As a matter of fact, The Police were still so new that Grizzled said when he saw the sign announcing who would be playing, he thought "Ultravox and The Police" was one band. Why did Grinnell score The Police for a dance? Well, they weren't charging $250 for a ticket yet, but Grinnell apparently had a former booking agent in charge of booking their performing arts programs.
Other groups that Grizzled got to see in the Darby Gym?? Bruce Springsteen... just a month after the release of Born to Run, and the same week he was on both the covers of Time and Newsweek (the link says it was a month later, but Grizzled swears it came out the following weekend... I trust Grizzled). He said a fellow student swore by this bar band, having seen them often in New Jersey. He also got to see Charlie Mingus, Leon Redbone, and the Bill Evans Trio. I don't remember who else... I've usually tuned out by that point, cringing at thoughts of my own pathetic collegiate concert history...
And if Grizzled is talking about his concert past around one of his brothers, this story always comes up... how in the middle of the 60's, at The Cellar, a little club in NW suburban Chicago, his brother, and his other madras sportsjacket and skinny tie attired friends, got to see this new group smash their equipment onstage to the dismay of the audience. Yes, The Who.
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