Scoring a ticket to experience Sting with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra was one of those wonderful perks of my occupation, the kind that makes the bad parts disappear. It was, however, an event I anticipated with some hesitation and fear. I’d seen this before; the early '90s, Johnny Cash, Chastain Amphitheater and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. While the concert advertisements promised a great night of music, it was more like the train to Folsom Prison had jumped the tracks and squashed a busload of nuns. It was a horrible experience that took many months to forget, and I still can’t hear a Johnny Cash song without the painful memories coming back. Since Sting, and The Police, hold a much more important place in my musical memory banks, the thought of somehow tainting those memories was disturbing. Luckily, I had nothing to worry about.
[Photos by Jeff O'Kelley]
This article appears in Jul 1-7, 2010.