There are several big Reunion tours taking place this Summer (including The Police, Genesis, and the Smashing Pumpkins); these are bands who have sold many millions of albums each, and who have a cadre of hungry fans around the world eager to experience the magic once again. I'm one of them. I don't know about you, but when I go to see artists I enjoy in concert I appreciate the so-called "happy accidents" and miscues that only a 'live' performance affords. Disclaimer: this may be more of an analog post than digital --- so bear with me.
Stewart Copeland is the drummer & founder of The Police (as an aside -- he also happened to write the foreword to my book, The Art of Digital Music , co-written with David Battino). The Police have been rehearsing for months in Vancouver ahead of their big world tour which kicked off last week -- and will span some 80 concerts and multiple continents. All of that preparation, and yet -- things can still go off track. For anyone who knows him, Stewart is a very witty, intelligent, articulate guy who writes nearly as well as he drums. He's posted an amazingly funny blog entry on his web site here about the first disaster gig of the tour which happened last week in Vancouver.
In this blog entry, Stewart goes into some detail about how the guys in the band were out of sync and just couldn't get it together throughout the night at this show -- despite who they are and what they've achieved. It's a rare glimpse into what can go wrong; something you just don't see a major artist write about publically too often. But I think it really levels the playing field between artist and fan -- when the artist isn't perfect & isn't afraid to talk about what goes wrong along with all the good stuff; makes them more human & brings them back down to earth. I'm proud of Stewart for having shared the gory details -- it's a fun read with a happy ending (and you definitely feel as though you were there experiencing it all yourself). I encourage you to read Stewart's blog entry; everyone I've shared it with has gotten a big kick out of it. For my part, I'm looking forward to seeing the live show in LA in a couple of weeks -- and am hoping I get to experience some of the screw-ups first hand; guaranteed it will make the show that much more fun and memorable!
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Read More Entries by Kelli Richards.
Ha ha! That’s a great story—and a great attitude. Readers may also be interested to know that Stewart, a longtime Mac user, was the keynote speaker at O’Reilly’s 2004 Mac OS X Conference, thanks to Kelli’s background work. Here’s a recording of the presentation.