Just Great.

Please excuse this short lapse of non-illustration-related material and allow me to share my greatest concert experience to date.

Our handy but not so dandy cameraphone captured enough of our 2nd row view of The Police Concert for someone to almost believe that those bright, ghostly images are the actual members of the band (objects in cameraphone are closer than they appear--really!). Oh well, thank goodness for WireImage. Please note the prettier, much clearer photo of The Police, as seen through a professional's lense. That's about what we saw.

OK, so now that you get the idea of our proximity, I will say it was the most memorable and definitely the greatest concert experience I've had so far. How can it not be? We had an amazing time singing and dancing to all of their hits, jumping up and down like it was the eighties all over again, especially when they played Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, but without the big shoulder pads, rolled-up pants and awkward haircuts. One song, forgive me for not remembering which one it was, but after Sting sang a line, the audience reverberated with "eyo weyo weyo yo" pitch perfect. Sting's look of surprise was wonderfully genuine. Did I say 2nd row was amazing?

If you've seen Sting on TV recently, the cameras don't lie. He really looks AMAZING in person. When he sang, he SOUNDED terrific. His star presence on stage was a force. Stewart Copeland played powerful drums, booming in Driven To Tears, and Andy Summers played guitar like he invented it (no pun intended--yes, he is the oldest of the 3, but it was clear he was having fun). They played effortlessly in sync, and as cliche as it sounds...ROCKED the house to the end. The magic lasted a little over 90 minutes ending with Roxanne and two encores. The entire performance was just under 2 hours which, for Sting, is long. I wish it could have lasted another 2. We knew it finally ended when the three of them took their final bows and Andy Summers proceeded to photograph the screaming crowd. If you want to read more about it, a reviewer pretty much sums it up here: Newsday: The Police as Fresh as Ever

Now back to the board. Ho hum.