Mad about Sting

A stone's throw from Jerusalem
I walked a lonely mile in the moonlight
And though a million stars were shining
A heart was lost on a distant planet
That whirls around the April moon
Whirling in an arc of sadness
I'm lost without you
-- Mad about you, Sting
These words were the first sign that Sting was actually somewhere out there, in the desert, on that fated night when I went to hear him perform. The words wafted through the darkness from somewhere behind those very large -- and at night, very ominous-looking -- Giza pyramids. Like the Pied Piper, Sting drew his followers through the darkness of the desert towards him, and on that clear night I hummed back:
And from the secluded valleys
I heard the ancient songs of sadness
But every step I thought of you
Every footstep only you
And every star a grain of sand
The leaving of a dried up ocean
Tell me, how much longer? How much longer?
But why I and a group of friends, joined by a group of strangers, were out at 9.00pm last Wednesday night in the middle of nowhere is a story that should start from the beginning. Sting was coming to town. No really, Sting -- you know, the tall muscular guy who writes songs that make sense and sings like a dream? Now, people like my father could scoff and say "So what. Who is Sting anyway?" And people like my younger brother agreed that Sting was "cool", but then all they know about him is his latest single "Desert Rose." But for the likes of me, from an age group somewhere in between, Sting means the Police, the Soul Cages and a shining beacon of what yoga can do for a man. And as if all of this was not enough, Sting was in Cairo singing for Palestinian children.
So with all engines roaring at full gear, I ignored my father's remarks on how inane it is to put your evening in the hands of local organisers just to "see someone like Sting." I put on svelte red silk pants (you never know how close to the stage you might get) and ran to pick up my friends before heading out to the pyramids.
We had read instructions printed by the organisers in the Wednesday papers to park our cars at Al-Rimayah Square and get on buses that would transport us to the location of the concert. At Al-Rimayah there were no signs, no parking and no buses. A policeman told us to head down the Fayoum Desert Road about four and a half kilometres, where we would find the desert entrance to the plateau. The short distance took half an hour because of the traffic and when we reached the plateau we found the source of the congestion: a group of policemen and officers were simply turning people away -- including two of the organisers' buses.
A young European-looking woman got out of her car and started dancing for the group of officers and won herself and her friends a free ride in on one of the official trucks. Now, dancing I was not, so I stomped over to the group of officers and started arguing. "What do you mean you won't let me in. I have paid a lot of money for these tickets and it is my right to get in." This course of action got me nowhere. "It is not our problem," I was informed by officialdom. "The organisers have sold way over the number of tickets agreed upon. We have already let too many people in and that is it." The man next to me screamed incredulously, "But I have VIP tickets [these cost around LE500]!"
Well, as I was saying, this was not getting us anywhere and it was too late to change tactics and start dancing so we took the officer up on his "magnanimous" offer: he would turn a blind eye and let us walk it. "It is four kilometres. If you want to walk, it's that way," he told us, pointing in the direction of the black void behind him.
So we started walking -- one kilometre, then two. At what must have been the fourth we found an abandoned checkpoint. Some cars were leaving the plateau. "Go back," counselled one such driver, "It is so crowded it's like the hagg." Still we moved on. No lights on the road, no signs and no one to tell us where we were or how much longer we had to go. At the second inhabited checkpoint leering policemen told us they, too, would turn a blind eye and let us walk "for the remaining two kilometres." Their empty trucks and cars stood parked to the side of the road, but the pleas of one woman to give us a lift fell on deaf ears. Still we moved on. "You know, some people are stupid, and some people are even more stupid," said one member of our party. He waited a few minutes for effect before announcing, "We are stupider." He would repeat this piece of wisdom for the next 45 minutes and he would have made my father proud.
At some point in this hour-and-a-half walk, which turned out to be six kilometres long, someone swerved off the road and headed out towards the desert. The hundred or so people walking behind blindly followed. "For sure he knows a short cut," we said as we stumbled over stones and panted up sand dunes. It was only until he swerved once again towards the road 20 minutes later that we realised he was as clueless as we were. Stupider.
At last, we arrived. We had purchased LE65 tickets (the most basic category) and found ourselves herded into an area where you could not see the stage. We also couldn't see the sole screen they had up because it was placed too low. Worst of all, we could not hear. "The sound was better in the desert," complained our wise friend just before he put down his little carpet, curled up and fell soundly asleep. Phew!
We tried. We jumped up and down, walked left and right and attempted to move forward -- all in vain. And all the while we were inundated with smoke from the "Egyptian tent" behind us, where meat was being barbecued and "traditional" sweets were being sold. The smell was enough to turn me into a vegetarian.
I sadly watched the top of Sting's head on the screen and later found out from friends who had paid for more expensive tickets that their experience was not much better. As one woman summed it up: "The Sting concert? Great biceps, lousy acoustics."
Since we could not hear or see, we started panicking about how to get our car and get home -- we were not walking back through the desert. Again, none of the promised buses were available, so we tried to get out through nearby Nazlet Al-Siman. After another half-hour walk we finally got a taxi, who, the wise one would later repeatedly remind us, "took advantage of us and took way too much money."
I will never forgive those who deprived me of the opportunity to enjoy Sting in my very own hometown. But from the safe haven of my office I tell him:
My enemies may walk free
Though all my kingdoms turn to sand
And fall into the sea
I'm mad about you
By Fatemah Farag
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