Filing a Police Report

[weaktwos]

brittadotcom already filled in her adventures, so I'll add my chronicle of the trip.

taogrl and I decided to make a day of it and hit San Francisco by BART around 1pm. She had never bounced around the Ferry Building, so I thought I'd introduce her to the joint. I think I will plan for a dedicated Ferry Building Shopping Trip one of these days. Maybe I'll have to plan an actual Ferry Trip to the venue. I didn't buy anything this time around as I didn't want to carry it to the Coliseum.

We arrived to the Coliseum via BART by 5:30pm. We found beer, margaritas and sat down. We proceeded to people-watch and played a good round of "Yours and Mine"*. taogrl was the proud recipient of a unique individual festooned with the schwag of a misspent life riding around in a lark. Apparently, I missed a doosie of a soulmate while I was off fetching drinks. Thank goodness it doesn't count if you're not there to see it. Oh, but what could have been.

So the concert begins. It's Fiction Plane, Sting's son's band. They have a nice sound. I thought that since Fiction Plane was a 3-man band and that Joe Sumner was playing the bass that he was really trying to copy daddy. Turns out they used to have a fourth but he left the band. And they site as their influences bands like Nirvana. Just say no to cocaine, Joe.

Next up, the Fratellis. The big problem: they were too loud. So loud that when they introduced themselves, their band name sounded nothing like the "Fratellis" to me. Thankfully Britta got it right. I had heard them before via their song "Flathead", I just didn't know it until last night. I actually think I'd like their music at acceptable volumes. But the lead singer came off as either drunk, an asshole, or both.

I have a gripe for whoever was in charge of the music between live portions of the show. They only had like 5 songs that looped. I recognized only one, which was XTC's Making Plans for Nigel. We were only making plans for nigel about seven times last night. It's a good thing I liked the song. However, I've reached my Nigel plan-making quota for the year.

Finally, the Police come on stage, opening with Message in a bottle.

I can't remember the last time I saw someone wear white pants with a black shirt, but I think it might have been during the Miami Vice years, or remakes of the Miami Vice series. But Copeland was decked out in the tighty-full-length whities.

Other than that, watching them play just about all my favorite songs by them was a thrill. And Copeland is fantastic to behold. I lamented the fact that there was a delay between the audio and the video such that what I saw on the jumbo screens was about a beat apart from what I heard. Watching him work was fantastic. Watching him switch from a matched stick grip to the traditional grip even had flair.

The Setlist (My favorites are in bold):
Message In A Bottle
Synchronicity II
Don't Stand So Close to Me
Voices Inside My Head
When The World Is Running Down
Spirits In The Material World
Driven To Tears
Walking On The Moon
Truth Hits Everybody
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Wrapped Around Your Finger
The Bed's Too Big Without You
De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
Invisible Sun
Walking in Your Footsteps
Can't Stand Losing You
Roxanne
King Of Pain
So Lonely
Every Breath You Take
Next To You

If they had performed "Man in a Suitcase" and "Canary in a Coal Mine", I would have been orgasmic, but that's okay. The concert was still well worth it.

You can see their setlists for their shows so far at the Virtual Ticket. it's interesting to note that Murder by Numbers was played in all three Vancouver shows, and subsequently has not bee played.

The end of the concert was the most frustrating part. The wisdom and simplicity of taking BART reached its nadir at the moment of attempted efficient egress from the Coliseum. Apparently everyone but 10 cars must take the BART, because the bottle neck and subsequent trail of tears lasted from the Coliseum to the train platform. Imagine trying to force a softball through a garden hose. Welcome to the Coliseum BART Station. Don't piss off any police officers, either. They shove you into the crowd even when you're being nice. I know they have good reasons for doing what they do. After all, a crowd of that nature can turn nasty if someone freaks out and starts fighting. One guy was getting close to imploding. However, having a cop yell at me to move along and push me into a crowd of people was not so cool. I was already moving along, dumbass.

So, the lesson learned: for major coliseum sized concerts, I'll try driving in next time. I can't imagine it being worse than the slow march to a train.

*I'm sure you recall me mentioning this before, but this is the game where you race to declare really good looking men as "yours", and missing links as your opponent. Opponent, in this case, is your bosom, bestest friend!

Comments

[brittadotcom.livejournal.com]

I only figured out they were the Fratellis because I shelled out $20 for the souvenir program, and they had a full page ad in the back saying they were joining the tour only in Oakland, Philadelphia and New York.

I also thought Stewart's vintage choice of clothing was interesting at the least, and the delay didn't annoy me that much until Sting was trying to get us to clap...heh!

So, to really decide if you want to drive next time, now the question is how LONG was your BART crowd mess? If less than an hour, you still fared better than we did. We literally just sat in our car in the gravel parking lot for a FULL HOUR not moving an inch. Finally when we started moving around midnight, it was normal merging traffic pace, onto the freeway in about 5 minutes, then back to Foster City before 12:30! We were wondering if they didn't let our lot out until the main lot was empty or if our gate was locked or something silly!

Did you smuggle in a camera? I'm jealous! My ticket said "NO CAMERAS OR RECORDERS" so I didn't want to risk my real camera getting confiscated...then they didn't even find my water bottle inside my sweater & jacket, so I probably could have gotten it in. I took a couple Treo photos, and some video clips for sound, but it was so loud they're mostly just a mess of digital clipping. I might still post them in case anyone's curious. I still want to check how low So Lonely really was, and I can tell that much from my clips. ;)

[weaktwos.livejournal.com]

Well, I think we waited as long as you did, but with the bart trip back to pittsburgh bay point station that added another hour to the trip, plus an hour driving home. So despite waiting in the parking lot, I still could have driven home faster than the bart . However, during rush hour, BART seems the way to go.

I did smuggle a camera. An expensive camera, to boot. I guess I was feeling ballsy. And they saw it. But the announcement over the loudspeaker said no flash photography or video. I told them I was from out of town and had been touring in San Francisco during the day. I think they were concerned it was a video camera. And it wasn't. And I didn't use my flash. :D

and to add...

[weaktwos.livejournal.com]

I honestly had been touring san fran and had my camera to take pictures there. So I didn't really have a safe place to stash my stuff.

[eyow.livejournal.com]

I think the hot tip is to just go to the overflow parking that's on the other side of 880 from the Coliseum. It'll take a while for you to walk to your car, but especially if you get in the one to the left (which I did), you are RIGHT at the on-ramp for 880-S. It took us 2 hours from my house in Campbell/San Jose to get up there, and about 35 minutes to get home.

I totally had my camera in my purse, but just failed to take any pictures because I'm lame.

[hangedwoman.livejournal.com]

I'm so freakin' jealous. I've actually contemplated spending the money to fly out somewhere to see one of the concerts.