Music / First Live Show

What Was the First Live Show You Went To?

Mine was Sting. July 18, 1988 / BC Place Stadium / Vancouver BC

1983 was a very big year for me. I turned 10 and it was around this time that I began to make my own choices when it came to music.

My father was never really into music, so until then my early education in it was up to my mother. She would sit my sister and I in front of the stereo, facing each other, with nothing more than a record cover between us and naturally, she would put on what she wanted to hear. ABBA, the Grease Soundtrack, Roger Whittaker, Neil Diamond, the Seekers, Nana Mouskouri, the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack.

There was never any arguing. And I still love all that music.

But as I said, things changed in 1983. That was one hell of an auspicious year to begin exploring what else was out there. It seem like there was just so much of it and countless bands put out their biggest albums that year.

Prince, Purple Rain

Billy Idol, Rebel Yell

ZZ Top, Eliminator

Michael Jackson, Thriller

Genesis, Genesis

Eurythmics, Touch

David Bowie, Let’s Dance

But the one that stood out head and shoulders above all the rest of these was Synchronicity by the Police. That was the first LP that I ever bought on my own. I still have that copy although I don’t have anything to play it on. Huge album. In the world at the time, and in my life since then.

The songs on it included Every Breath You Take, King of Pain, Wrapped Around Your Finger and Synchronicity I and Synchronicity II. From the urgency of the opening title track, I was captivated for some reason. And just as I realised that Sting, Steward Copeland and Andy Summers had made four albums before this one that I had yet to get into, it was announced that they had broken up.

I was heartbroken. But there’s no better time to learn that nothing lasts forever, eh kid?

I’ll jump ahead here about five years. There were no more Police albums, but there was Sting’s first solo album in 1985, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, which was a decided turn in a more jazz oriented direction. I didn’t care, I ate it up. A few years later, his second, Nothing Like the Sun, turned down the jazz and turned up the pop once again. I ate that one up too.

Even more crucially, a train line had been constructed for the 1986 World’s Fair held in Vancouver that connected my outlying suburb to downtown. This meant a kid of 13 or 14 would have no problem navigating his way into the big city, to and from the show.

Shows. Can I go?

How do I get tickets?

Rock and roll.

Freedom.

I remember a flickering of images from that night. I remember the excitement from the anticipation of seeing one of my idols. I probably remember more the feeling of being able to do this on my own, with the friend I went with. I remember thinking that BC Place was an odd place for a show as a 65,000 seat covered stadium. The Police could have filled it in 1983. But in 1988, for Sting on his own, expectations were managed down to a curtained off concert bowl for 16,000. More intimate and all.

Aside from Every Breath You Take, I don’t really remember the individual songs that he played. A search on Setlist.fm was only somewhat conclusive, but proved that this did actually happen and it was not just my imagination. The setlist it provides from Calgary a few nights before indicates a majority of solo stuff and a minority of Police songs. It says he finished with Message in a Bottle and that, I do remember.

(Did I just sail past the fact that I can look up a concert I went to 35 years ago and it can provide me with all the details I can’t remember?)

I can’t say if I had good seats or bad ones or what they cost. $25–30 Canadian dollars would be my guess. I don’t remember if I sat or stood — I probably would have taken my cues from the people around me, as a young concert going neophyte. Did I have a beer? Unlikely, one thing at a time. What I do remember is the high of seeing my musical idol in person, surrounded by like minded people.

I remember that he played. And I remember that I saw him do it.

I was hooked. Going to shows was going to be my thing. I think next was the Who the following year and then the Rolling Stones Steel Wheels tour the year after that. I remember REM on the Green Tour at the Pacific Coliseum in my Grade 12 year. Midnight Oil outdoors that summer and also Robert Plant with an unknown Black Crowes that year too. The first Lollapalooza in Seattle in 1991 with Jane’s Addiction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Henry Rollins, Ice-T. Mind blowing.

Hundreds and hundreds more since. Now, living abroad, the thing (Covid times aside) is to plan travel around shows. Festivals in Denmark, Hungary and Japan. Manic Street Preachers in Budapest, Kings of Leon in Copenhagen, Massive Attack in Tokyo, Slash in Osaka, Kasabian in Naples, Depeche Mode in Bogota, U2 in Santiago, Morrissey in Lima, Richard Ashcroft in Mexico City, Placebo in Barcelona, Psychedelic Furs in Seattle. New Order and Pet Shop Boys together in New York City this September. You get my point.

Hang on. Can you even imagine it, all three parts of that last combination?

Sting is still plugging away out there, though his high water mark came and went decades ago. I think he mostly plays private shows for sheiks in Dubai and the beautiful people in California vineyards. A Police reunion tour happened in 2006 and naturally I went to that. Memorable again, except that this time I was gripped by the blinding skill of Stewart Copeland on drums.

It was a great show, all killer and no filler, but it didn’t come close to the summer night in 1988 when the world of live music opened up to me for the first time.

If I’ve tagged you here, it may or may not be because you’ve written a lot about music, but it is definitely because I read you a lot and I am curious about your first concert experience, if you can remember it! Maybe you’ll even write an article about it.

Sara Burdick Araci Almeida Dana Leigh Lyons Jill Francis Kevin Alexander Paul Combs Frank T Bird Isabella Martin Natasha Nichole Lake David Todd McCarty Franzi Kinzel Victoria Suzanne Belcairn Natasha MH Philip Ogley James Pierce McIntyre Hogan Torah Bernard O'Leary Terry Barr Chris Zappa Billy Hartong Mike Lewis Emily Mark 🌬Mitch kt lee Andy Frye's 90s BLOG EllenEastwood Mark Holburn Kathy Copeland Padden Patrick Metzger J.R. Flaherty🌱 JM Riordan Michael Centrone Brad GB Rogut Kalypso Skitz