Don't Sing So Close to Me...

We went to see The Police at Key Arena last night.  Firstly, I had screwed up dinner reservations and we ended up going for a curry, sadly we didn't end up having one, at least not a recognisable one.  The lowest point, for their were many lows, was the chilie chicken starter.  Hmmm...  I thought, tasting the flourescent red mass - this is bits of fried chicken in a hot wings sauce.  

Anyway, then onto the concert.

Hmmm...  Not great.  Sadly.  The accoustics were dreadful, I'd be interested in knowing if this is a general problem for the arena.  Certainly the distortion on Sting's vocals could have been bad sound, but the venue itself seemed far too small for the size of the sound rig.   Then the 25 years since they last played together were really showing, there were some mistimed bits and some really bad missed queues.  Finally, for a full on live gig, I'm not sure that Sting's voice was up for it, it was especially telling in Roxanne.

I saw the Stones a few years ago, when they were probably about the same age as The Police are now and they were fantastic.  They played all their stuff, they played it well, they sang well and they entertained.  At points last night I found myself looking at my watch wondering how much longer we had left.  They were improvising bridges in the middle of songs that meandered so far from the song itself that in one instance, I think during Walking on the Moon, I was surprised when they came back into the original riff.  

Not great, sadly, not great at all.

Changing Markets

Working in the tech sector I'm always seeing how markets change and adapt over time and how business practice has to alter.  We've been watching some old old Sopranos to catch up, and one scene had me chuckling over the irony.

In the "old neighbourhood", a couple of the boys go into a new coffee shop to introduce their range of security options.  The dorky manager apologises and says its all handled by corporate out of Seattle.  The mob guys shrug, "so, how would corporate handle a brick through the window?"
The manager shrugs, "they'll get a new window.  They've 10,000 stores, they probably won't notice."
"And what if something unfortunate should happen to one of their staff?"
Again a shrug, "we'll quit, they'll replace us.  Frankly, they just don't care."

The mob guys leave shell shocked muttering, "there's just nowhere left for the small businessman..."

Well, it made me laugh.

Unexpected Productivity

Had a burst of relatively unexpected productivity today and late yesterday despite the pain in my tooth.  As there's no nerve in there, and apparently hasn't been for some while, I'm not sure what is unhappy.  The dentist suggested that the whacking great hole in the chin would probably be full of bugs which will run riot and they certainly seem to be.  Sadly he didn't give me any serious pain killers which is annoying.  Hopefully it will start to settle down tomorrow.