The Police 1982 Tour

The 1982 Police, Ghost in the Machine Tour, was a dream come true, at least, for me. Twelve months earlier, I was making a living nailing up aluminum siding, and now here I was working on The Police Tour rolling across America at rock & roll speed. You can imagine the feeling of pure euphoria traveling with one of the hottest rock bands of 1982 and having all the great perks of touring amplified by the band's huge success. It was truly AMAZING!!!!

I'd like to share a few snippets of that tour, excluding when Sting gave me the finger and Larue and Eric had bad blood between them. Our boss, Guy, was in so tight with the band and management that when The Police were on stage he would sometimes watch their dressing room. With crystal clarity, I remember nights hanging with Guy in the dressing room, vibe sucking, and thinking is this real? I'm Twenty four, and getting paid to do this, my god, it's good to be alive!!!

Stingo and the boys always had top shelf items. They had fun things to do while waiting to go on stage, like, arcade games and a ping pong table. The dressing room had bottles of fine wine, platters of gourmet food and a four course dinner waiting for them after the gig. The Police could do no wrong and were enjoying themselves in every way possible!

Another visual I have from that tour was when we were counting large sums of money from the merchandise sales of the night's concerts. I would watch Guy walk out of a gig night after night with a t-shirt box full of cash and just take the money and run! Like I said in my book, Guy loved flying on the band's private plane and when he walked on board with a box full of cash it only added to his high flying times.

 This tour had a lot of learning episodes for me. One that stands out in my mind is the time I made the naive mistake of leaving an after show party before my lady friend. At the next concert, the band's bellboy read me the riot act because the chick had tried to get friendly with Andy the guitar player. When Andy found out how she had gotten into the after show party, that was all she wrote. Looking back, I must say the first couple times out on the road I was star struck and green. After getting my ass chewed out, I learned this was a business and one little misstep could derail your career permanently! That tour changed me and allowed me to grow up quickly and get ready to climb my way up the ranks. On a happier note, I remember when we all got our tour jackets and how everyone was so proud to be part of the experience. The amount of blow on that tour reached the point where Guy, as a goof, had a black t- shirt made for the band and entire crew that said GAKK ATTACK. Gakk was the nickname for coke. The shirt had a picture of a shark that looked identical to the shark in the movie Jaws. Blow consumption was off the charts and the drink of choice was single malt scotch.

One night, all popped up on a long overnight drive Larue reflected the same unreal thought on how his life changed, compared to his previous job of running an ice cream distributor. He told me a great road story from when he was on tour with Peter Frampton. It was the night the band played in Little Rock, Arkansas. Sweet Connie the queen of groupies, who, was immortalized in the song We're an American Band by Grand Funk Railroad came to the show and performed her act. Larue didn't need to go into detail; I'd heard all about Sweet Connie, though, I'd never met her. As we drove into dawns light the both of us wanted this lifestyle indefinitely and saw nothing but a bright future. As I've detailed in my book, it was hard to believe two years later we would become bitter enemies.

As far as the women on that tour, Sting appealed to babes from all walks of life and the girls hanging around the backstage door didn't look like the chicks on The Pretenders Tour. These young ladies were dressed in hot, sexy, trendy clothes of the eighties and wanted to party wildly! There's more in the book about this tour, what I've written about here were some additional things I thought worth mentioning. One last story…..while flying on the band's plane in rough weather Guy was concerned they would crash. He told me Sting assured him in a very upbeat voice that the plane had Rolls Royce engines and handled brilliantly in bad weather. Plus, the plane had such a large wingspan that if the engines were to die out it would be able to glide to the ground safely, that's how confident Sting was!

Next installment, on the road with The Clash!

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