A few random ramblings…

Just got back in from seeing The Police at Suncorp Stadium

I’m glad to say that they are as tight as ever… still proof of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Stewart Copeland’s drumming is as incredible as ever… as is Andy Summers virtuosity on the guitar… and Sting’s still got an amazing set of pipes (must be all that breathing from the Tantra ).

So, with a platform of talented brilliance to start with, how is that the promoters still managed to completely cock it up?

Easy.

First off, hire a venue completely unsuited to live music. Suncorp Stadium is a brilliant SPORTING arena, but concerts there are like trying to study marine biology in the Great Barrier Reef… from the International Space Station. Sure, you can see it, but screwed if you can see any detail. With the number of tickets being given away over the past week, and the number of empty seats, it’s a surprise that they didn’t move the concert to the Brisbane Entertainment Centre. At least then the weather may not have been a contributing factor to another point of poor planning … but more about that later.

The next quickest way to cock up a great gig… hire a smacked out, knuckle dragging git with industrial deafness to run the mixing console for the sound. Honestly guys, just because the PA is capable of breaking glass at 500 metres doesn’t mean we have to make sure it does. Basic principles of audio engineering… don’t push your levels constantly into the red. The sound was apalling for all but the more subtle momens of the concert. When the guys on stage began to pushing their sound, the PA distort and cracked up and anyone not wearing earplugs got a dose of short term tinnitus. Given that I was sitting about 70+ metres from the stage and PA, I hate to think the hearing damage that those directly in front have suffered. I find myself wishing I’d taken earplugs.

Don’t get me wrong… the band was EPIC. Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland are always worth the price of admission. When either of them cut loose with a solo or improv… it made every hair on my body stand on end.

Just a shame that the audio guys let them down.

I’d rate the stage setup about a 6.5/10… simply because it was entertaining and the use of big screens made it possible to tell what was happening on stage. The camera work was very well done and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if we see a DVD of this tours footage.

Ideally, though, a three-piece unit like The Police would be better appreciated in a more intimate setting… with only 10,000 fans instead of 30,000 (which, I can categorically say, is an overstatement of attendance given the swaths of empty seats we saw). Having a huge stage with a lot of open space meant it was impossible for the band to connect to the crowd in any meaningful way other than with the hits that everyone had come to hear them play.

And this is where the promoter really screwed the pooch.

By overstating demand for tickets, both in the hiring of Suncorp Stadium as the venue, and in setting the ticket price at an average of $150, the promoter essentially said to the punters “It doesn’t matter a damn to me what would work best, I’m going to bleed you all dry”… which backfired, since most people I know that were interested in going took one look at the situation… the venue, cost, support acts… and decided that it wasn’t worth it.

I’m glad I got to see them, but I’ll not be going to Suncorp for concerts in future. No atmosphere, pitiful acoustics… and woeful support from Suncorp Facilities Management.

With rain likely tonight, a lot of people brought umbrellas. Suncorps policy is, wisely enough, to not permit them inside the stadium. Think about it; terraced seating and how many thousand people opening umbrellas… doesn’t add up to a situation where people can see. The only problem was that they forgot to make it plainly visible on the ticket “No umbrellas”… so people brought them.

A lot of people.

Which meant a lot of umbrellas were put in cloak at the start of the night, and just as many people pushed to get them back at the end.

Suncorp fell down at this point when they had no control, system, or organisation to quickly get everyones property back to them, or to get them safely out of the venue.

At a sporting event, they only have two ways into the arena, the North and South entrances. When the event is finished, they also open a series of exit gates along the sides. So far this has worked brilliantly in rapidly emptying the venue after an event.

Tonight, all 30,000 people had to exit through 4 gates at the South end… at the same time that a few thousand of those people had to return binoculars and retrieve cloakroom items directly in front of said exit.

Idiots!

Simple things that could ultimately leave a good or bad impression on what would otherwise have been a fantastic gig. Ultimately, I’d love to say the music was spectacular, but to be perfectly honest, the PA was so overwhelmed by the mixing being pushed constantly into the redline, that Sting could have been yodelling the entire time and I’d be none the wiser.

Bottom line: if you’re planning on seeing The Police, do so in a sub-10,000 seat venue and take earplugs. Then you’ll be able to truly appreciate how talented and tight these three musicians really are.