Fact #167532
When:
Short story:
The Police, Joan Jett and R.E.M, play to 70,000 people at Shea Stadium, New York City, USA.
Full article:
Bertis Downs : When we pulled up outside Shea Stadium, there were all these huge tractor-trailers for the other bands, and all we had was these two little vans, a green one and a tan one.
Martin Porter (New York Post) : Going to see The Police at Shea Stadium last night was an act of musical faith. The rock event of the New York summer was greeted by a downpour right before opening act REM was due to take the stage…
Ian Copeland : It rained like you wouldn't believe from start to finish of REM's set. After that show REM wanted to strangle me, it's true, but I think it was a motivating experience for them.
Michael Stipe : Watching all those umbrellas going up and realising that the audience loved it – the rain that is – it was real strange.
Peter Buck : Shea Stadium with The Police was kinda fun, 'cause no one in New York really knew who we were at the time and we only played 20 minutes - that's all they wanted us to play - and it rained during our set and so everyone was screwing around with their clothes off when we played, which made it kinda neat... But every other date was kinda, sheesh...
Keith Altomare : (Talk About The Passion): At various shows Michael would mumble different things. If you would be at more than one show, it would be different words. He might know the phone book in the town they were in or he would throw in whatever he was reading. He liked my name and he would scream it during the bridge. The first time it happened in Milwaukee I was in the audience and I heard, "Altomare, Altomare, Altomare." I'm going whoa, this is really neat. They played in Shea Stadium opening for Joan Jett and The Police and it was their first big show. Thousands of people were there and Michael sang "Altomare" in the bridge. It was so touching. It really showed they were conscious of their people and their fans.
Ian Copeland : They didn’t hear what I heard, from out in the audience. When they played Radio Free Europe, the whole crowd went fucking berserk. I looked up on the stage and there was these two kids I used to hang out with (Bill Berry and Mike Mills). My heart was going crazy. That was the moment I finally realised, ‘Shit! This isn’t just my buddies out there. This band is going to make me rich! And I’m going to make them rich!
Peter Buck : I don’t think anyone liked us. I really don’t think anyone did. I’m glad I got to play Shea Stadium. It was cool, but the other dates were just boring.
Ian Copeland : What they probably had no idea of was that it did them an incredible amount of good in terms of their perception in the business. Remember, every band in the world wanted to be in their slot. DJs and Police fans didn't know I made the choice, but rather assumed The Police made the choice, and it didn't hurt for REM to be getting such an endorsement.
There was no rivalry between them and The Police and, although my brother Miles was involved with both bands, they were not on the same label. The Police were signed directly to AAndM, nothing to do with IRS. I do think the band felt neglected by Miles sometimes, as do all his bands, including Sting, but they loved the label.
Sting : Shea Stadium was kind of the apex of what we’d set out to do. We played this huge, historic stadium, we were the biggest band in the land, biggest record, biggest single - it doesn’t get any better than this. All you can hope to do is keep repeating it.
We all went back that night - we had a house in Long Island, all of us, with our families - and we sat round, put the fire on. And we’d just had this huge triumph, and I turned to Andy and said, ‘It doesn’t get any better than this. We should really stop.’ And, surprisingly to me, Andy said, ‘Yeah, you’re right. It can only go down from here.’
Bertis Downs : We did our first merchandising deal – two t-shirts - at Shea Stadium, with a company called Niceman. It’s kind of indicative of the way R.E.M.thinks that one of the t-shirts didn’t even have the band’s name on it, just some kind of inscrutable signal. There’s a line in the song 9-9 which goes, “Got a stripe down his back, all nine yards down her back”, so this t-shirt just had a stripe down the back, and people could figure it out for themselves.
(Source : not known)
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Martin Porter (New York Post) : Going to see The Police at Shea Stadium last night was an act of musical faith. The rock event of the New York summer was greeted by a downpour right before opening act REM was due to take the stage…
Ian Copeland : It rained like you wouldn't believe from start to finish of REM's set. After that show REM wanted to strangle me, it's true, but I think it was a motivating experience for them.
Michael Stipe : Watching all those umbrellas going up and realising that the audience loved it – the rain that is – it was real strange.
Peter Buck : Shea Stadium with The Police was kinda fun, 'cause no one in New York really knew who we were at the time and we only played 20 minutes - that's all they wanted us to play - and it rained during our set and so everyone was screwing around with their clothes off when we played, which made it kinda neat... But every other date was kinda, sheesh...
Keith Altomare : (Talk About The Passion): At various shows Michael would mumble different things. If you would be at more than one show, it would be different words. He might know the phone book in the town they were in or he would throw in whatever he was reading. He liked my name and he would scream it during the bridge. The first time it happened in Milwaukee I was in the audience and I heard, "Altomare, Altomare, Altomare." I'm going whoa, this is really neat. They played in Shea Stadium opening for Joan Jett and The Police and it was their first big show. Thousands of people were there and Michael sang "Altomare" in the bridge. It was so touching. It really showed they were conscious of their people and their fans.
Ian Copeland : They didn’t hear what I heard, from out in the audience. When they played Radio Free Europe, the whole crowd went fucking berserk. I looked up on the stage and there was these two kids I used to hang out with (Bill Berry and Mike Mills). My heart was going crazy. That was the moment I finally realised, ‘Shit! This isn’t just my buddies out there. This band is going to make me rich! And I’m going to make them rich!
Peter Buck : I don’t think anyone liked us. I really don’t think anyone did. I’m glad I got to play Shea Stadium. It was cool, but the other dates were just boring.
Ian Copeland : What they probably had no idea of was that it did them an incredible amount of good in terms of their perception in the business. Remember, every band in the world wanted to be in their slot. DJs and Police fans didn't know I made the choice, but rather assumed The Police made the choice, and it didn't hurt for REM to be getting such an endorsement.
There was no rivalry between them and The Police and, although my brother Miles was involved with both bands, they were not on the same label. The Police were signed directly to AAndM, nothing to do with IRS. I do think the band felt neglected by Miles sometimes, as do all his bands, including Sting, but they loved the label.
Sting : Shea Stadium was kind of the apex of what we’d set out to do. We played this huge, historic stadium, we were the biggest band in the land, biggest record, biggest single - it doesn’t get any better than this. All you can hope to do is keep repeating it.
We all went back that night - we had a house in Long Island, all of us, with our families - and we sat round, put the fire on. And we’d just had this huge triumph, and I turned to Andy and said, ‘It doesn’t get any better than this. We should really stop.’ And, surprisingly to me, Andy said, ‘Yeah, you’re right. It can only go down from here.’
Bertis Downs : We did our first merchandising deal – two t-shirts - at Shea Stadium, with a company called Niceman. It’s kind of indicative of the way R.E.M.thinks that one of the t-shirts didn’t even have the band’s name on it, just some kind of inscrutable signal. There’s a line in the song 9-9 which goes, “Got a stripe down his back, all nine yards down her back”, so this t-shirt just had a stripe down the back, and people could figure it out for themselves.
(Source : not known)