Sept 13th, and finally the long-awaited day had come. I met my sister near her place of work in the late afternoon and together we took the train into the capital, where The Police would be playing the Ajax football club stadium, otherwise known as the Amsterdam ArenA (don't ask me why that last A is a capital; it's probably a marketing ploy). We chanced on some bramble bushes on the way from the station to the venue, and gathered some brambles for our dinner, which was just as well as once inside the stadium we found that all the available options for snacks were meat-based (and my sister is a strict vegetarian), apart from some fairly inedible chips which tasted like they'd been fried two days before, and which we chucked.

The place was slow in filling up, and the support act played to a fairly inattentive crowd, receiving a polite applause at the end of their set. They were alright, I suppose; and their frontman surprisingly uttered a few sentences in almost accentless Dutch. They didn't introduce themselves (or if they did, I missed it), and our seats, although affording us an excellent view of the stage, were too far away for me to be able to read the band name on the projection screen behind them, but from anonypooh's report of the Twickenham concert last Saturday, I guess it's safe to bet that it was Sting's son Joe and his mates rocking away up there. *)

Anyhoo...

The Police. What can I say, what words can I use to describe the gig and the effect their performance had on the crowd and on us? Of course, they were brilliant and fantastic and the crowd went mad with delight when hit after hit filled our ears -- we sang along and danced in our seats (luckily for me and my recovering ankle, no one in the stands actually stood up until the very end of the show), and threw our whole being into chanting the distinctive "hiyo hiyay hiyayo" wherever and whenever it fit into the proceedings. A marvelous time was had by all; but unfortunately today, I feel like an old, old woman. Honestly, I think I might be getting too old for this gigging malarkey; my body just can't keep up with the pace anymore.







I had never ever in my life taken any video before. In hindsight, trying out my non-existent skillz in that respect on The Police may not have been one of my best ideas.





ETA: *) = it was indeed Joe Sumner, and the band are called Friction Plane.