Don't stand, don't stand, don't stand so close to me

Yes, after a sweltering occasion of music, bodies, heat and more bodies I report safe and sound on Sting's concert in Ramat Gan National Stadium, Israel. No, not a sting concert in order to capture criminals under the guise of a musical event, but rather Sting - the famous musician. I went with three friends, and the rest of the world.

There were to be two warm up performances. The first by Sting's own son's band, and the second by a Jewish American rap artist of some kind called Matisyahu (no, not Kinky Friedman). While everyone was waiting for the warm up acts to start, all of us on the grass bank in front of the stage spread out, sitting, and in some cases lying on the ground - this was bloody fantastic, I actually had illusions of being comfortable during the event.

As soon as there was a glimpse of an idea that the first warm up act was about to start, everyone stood up, this of course cleared a lot of space, due to the fact that vertically we are simply larger than horizontally. So, everyone moved in more and more and suddenly we found ourselves closer to the stage, but much closer to other people at the same time. I decided that I hated the person in front of me, and than I realized that everyone hates the person in front of them, and my person in front of me wasn't unique, and anyway - he wasn't in front of me for very long either, as people seem to have been born with ants in their pants and have to constantly move around.

Sting's son Joe and his six pints of beer were indeed a warm up act, but Matisyahu was too big for a warm up. He sang for an hour, and people were getting quite agitated, although he was very liked by the crowd, and why wouldn't he be - who wouldn't like a religious Jewish guy from Brooklyn singing reggae? Anyway, the agitation seemed to get the crowd really warmed up for Sting which I suppose is the point. I myself was suffering so much at that early point that I really couldn't wait for Sting to rock up – warm up act successful. Of course, they had to get the stage ready for Sting, so the crowd needed some form of entertainment. This was supplied by the best warm up act of all - the scanning of the crowed with the cameras and displaying them (Ok, Ok - us) on the big screen so that they (this time it's just they) can wait with a half a smile and a half raised hand and get very excited when the camera was on them - ring any bells parents? Peek-a-boo!

The stuffiness was unbelievable, it just got worse when Sting was performing. I couldn't understand why people found it necessary to move around from place to place and squeeze into places that were clearly impossible to squeeze into. I got to know a lot of people very closely, while I was trying to figure out who on earth lights a cigarette during a music concert, which coincidently happened when a romantic song came on and couples immediately started vulgarly making out as if to symbolize the meaning of the song. Apparently holding hands and hugging is not enough now days. I have to say that couples are absolutely the worst, you would think that a couple would take up less space than necessary due to them being embraced, this is not the case however as they irritate by being very open and free and uncaring of the rest of the world - why would they care? They've found the love of their lives, they need not impress others. Also, people seem to stand like bridges which is extremely annoying and uncomfortable due to the fact that I'm not too fond of their heads, necks and bags which they have on their backs instead of on the floor, or preferably at home (actually bags on the floor could be a good manner of separating people). I must mention the lack of caring for the world by irresponsibly twisting hips and heads. At some point, with someone's head right in front of my face, I turned to my good friend who looked at this, I made a sniffing sound and declared: "Natural Formula".

Sting was great as I knew he would be. He sang around 19 songs, mostly the well known ones naturally. He does seem somewhat over cooked, but that is only natural when you've been singing about a prostitute for 30 years. Talking about singing about prostitutes - Mathisyahu came out while Sting was singing "Roxanne", and they had a bit of a jam together - the good old Jewish boy from Brooklyn singing about putting on the red light, who would have thought. The atmosphere was good albeit from very up close. The performance of the music was every good, although not special (again, how much can you do the same thing over and over again...) and he finished off with one of my favorites - "Fragile" which I was almost worried he wouldn't sing.

The relief of sitting, and in particular lying down in bed later was wonderful - well worth it if you like to torture yourself for the feeling of relief - like not going to the toilet for a long time on purpose.

I had a good time all in all, it's not something you do every day, and I really like Sting. So, with one of the pictures we took that now sits on my desktop, I can happily say that I have seen the two people I most wanted to see sing in concert - Phil Collins and Sting, Next is Johnny Clegg and Juluka, and my everlasting hope that ABBA shall return.

(A recommendation from me – Sting's Jazz style album – All this Time)