4 thoughts on “The Day After Sting Dropped By”

  1. Thank’s Barry! Right now, I’m fanning the plastic smoke out of my DELL with a Zucron-Encrusted-Python-Booot! It’s good to hear an unadulerated 1988 concert! I’m so glad that I got to see him at the CLEVELAND MUSIC HALL at that time!!

  4. OK, I’ll copy the few sentences Mike Keneally wrote about this particular show, about Sting:

    “It was a very cool set; it was long and quite impressive, and Sting was in the audience and he thought it was great. Since Sting was there, Frank wanted all of us in the band to do the same artificial saxophone-playing gesture that Sting did during one of Branford Marsalis’ solos in this Showtime TV special they did. But, before we had a chance to mock him, Sting came backstage to congratulate us after the first set, he thought it was fantastic, and Frank asked him to do something with us. Originally the idea was for him to come out and scat-sing during “Stolen Moments.” But then, and I don’t think anyone knew he was gonna do this, he came out and did a rap about Jimmy Swaggart, who had said a few years ago that the song “Murder By Numbers” was written and performed by the devil. And while we were playing “Stolen Moments” under him, Sting started singing “Murder By Numbers” and it was impressive. The audience, as you might expect, went completely insane. Frank apparently had met Sting – oh, here we go…

    Kevin: Yeah, now you, uh, I – I…during the break you, uh, you did, uh, the first portion and you came back, after the uh, after the uh, half-hour break, and I was still out in the lobby and I, I, I’m hearing “Murder By Numbers” and I’m going, “Why, that’s, uh…Frank’s really, uh…that sounds exactly like Sting!” Then I get in there and, uh, Sting’s up on stage.

    Frank: Yeah, well, it was kind of odd because I’d never met him before, and I just ran into him at the hotel yesterday and I invited him to the show, because they had a day off. He came down and he watched the first part of the show from the audience, and then during the intermission he came backstage and I asked him if he wanted to come out and do something with us. First he said no, he didn’t think there was a way to do it, and I said “There’s no way that you can lose, because this band will always make you look good.” So I said we’ll just make up what we’re gonna do, and I gave him a yellow pad and a pen and I said, “Here, just write out what you’re gonna do, and we’ll do it.” No rehearsal. So he did it.

    (1998 comment: Something I didn’t mention about Sting: I talked to him backstage for a couple of minutes during the intermission and was struck by the fact that he admitted to being nervous about singing with us. He’s one of less than a handful of people I’ve met whose charisma is absolutely undeniable, whose presence completely changes the energy in a room the moment they step in. One of the others, of course, was Frank.)”

Comments are closed.