Mitch, The Police, Ho Hum...

So I saw “The Tubes” last night and came back to the hotel and slept relatively well until about 5:00 am. I sat around, went down to get a paper and showered until I blew enough time so I could go out to breakfast. I went to a kosher style deli in Southfield. That’s one of the things I always liked about the Detroit area, the restaurants. I’ve always loved delis, must be in the blood, and there are a number of good ones down here. By the way the show was great. Man I love those guys.

So after breakfast I had to go to Best Buy to fix my Sirius radio. I had tickets to “The Police” and Elvis Costello tonight and I had plenty of time to just get stuff done that I’d been wanting to do. While my car was being worked on I was just walking around the store looking at cd’s and stuff when I saw someone that looked familiar. I stared for a second and realized that it was Mitch Albom, the writer. He was on the phone so I waited and approached him and introduced myself and told him I had sent him an email a few years ago and was very impressed that he replied. I told him I wrote about it in my blog and that he was an inspiration to me. He was very gracious and we talked for a couple minutes. He asked if I had moved back to Detroit and I told him East Lansing but I come down a lot for Tiger games and concerts. He asked if I was going to the game tonight and I said no, “The Police”. He told me it seemed everyone was and we shook hands and I thanked him for whatever it is we thank people like him for and off I went. I thought that was so cool I started calling everybody to tell them about it.

So the stereo got fixed, I chatted with my buddy Mitch and I still had a concert to see. Pretty full day. I went back to the hotel to watch the Yankee/Red Sox game and get ready for the concert.

Everyone I spoke to about going to the concert kept saying how great Elvis Costello was going to be and giving “The Police” very little credit. I kept thinking that this should really be a special evening. The band had no new album to promote so that meant they would only be playing songs they’d already recorded. The body of work they have to choose from is pretty impressive and I told one of the friends I went with that they could literally play a greatest hits set and fill a whole show.

That’s what they did. Don’t get me wrong, Elvis was really good, but The Police” were something special. I think everyone there felt the same. From the minute they hit the stage 15000 people got on their feet and we never sat back down. 18 songs and not one was something the crowd thought was worthy of taking a break during. It’s really quite impressive if you think about it. Each of the songs played are well known by you, me and pretty much everyone we know in our generation. That’s even if you’re not a big fan of the group.

I’m real happy I saw them tonight. I don’t see them doing another tour after this and it was nice to see them at the top of their game as it were. This was the only real super group of the eighties and it’s nice to see they still have it. It would be impossible to say they played all their hits because they would never have enough time. On the other hand, every song they did play was a hit and the crowd at the theater tonight surely didn’t leave disappointed in any way.