JAMMING WITH STING
Most of you know me as the guy who sang with Sting. Few of know what it's
like to have such a moment with an artist you've admired all your life. Even
fewer have that moment on video. But Ed Citroen knows. Ed too, has captured
such a joyous event on video. He is probably the only other human being on
earth, who knows what this means to a fan. He even "jammed" with
Sting. Ed tells us his fabulous (and I do mean fabulous) story!
My gig was kind of unique because Sting is never so pleased with a couple of hundred people in a small venue. He likes big audiences and huge stadiums. In my case he was really nervous, so that was an obstacle to overwin. Anyway I was a complete lucky bastard on 9 march 1996. I'm a (amateur)guitarist and a singer since I was raised with The Police. On that particular date Sting played in Amsterdam in a small venue called Paradiso. He was kind of nervous for that gig.
I was invited by the Dutch Sting Association to come on stage and play a couple of Police-songs on the Sting fanclub meeting. When I arrived at the pub the organizer was sweating caused by nervousness and whispered that Sting would arrive on 12.30 a.m. to meet a lot of fans.
I stood on stage singing ''Roxanne'' and just on that particular moment a grey bus stopped before the pub and two bodyguards cleared a line between two sides of the audience in the pub. An enormous yell by the people was heard and there he was: Sting himself! He wrestled himself through the screaming fans and jumped up on ''my'' stage and shook hands with me. I was complete stoned by the experience meeting your hero ever since. He sat down quite comfortable on a piano seat on the left side on stage. Because I was complete in shock I had to do my guitar strap in a good position and that took a while before I could hang my guitar on a good position.
I write Dutch songs and on of my songs is about my youth experience adoring The Police. I started my song ''Tijd Tijd'' and felt every molecule in my body at that time, watching Sting on my left side sitting there complete in concentration listening to MY song.
After the last cord I asked Sting to join me for singing Message in a Bottle together. ''No problem'' he said and there we stood: fan and Sting behind the same microphone in an Amsterdam pub. After this gig he said:''Really well done Ed, you can do my work for me now, what a fantastic voice you have''. Thereafter he answered a lot of questions out of the audience and disappeared shortly after that in the grey bus again.
An
hour later I walked completely in shock on the streets of Amsterdam just to
gap some fresh air while tears were running down my face. Some people came
up to me and asked what was wrong, while I was crying. ''OH I just have played
with Sting''. A man looked my in the eye and ran of thinking I was a complete
looser hahaha.
Now, 10 years after that fantastic moment I have my own site now on www.edcitroen.nl and I'm still thrilled by Police and Sting music just because I'm a songwriter myself. The experience have made Sting more human to me instead of a myth, but he still is my musical guide in songwriting.
Ed Citroen
Holland
ps: guide for the fans: Click on www.edcitroen.nl
on the Sting picture on my opening page. Then you go straight to my ''songwriter''
page. On the bottom of that page you'll find a link (or
lick here for a direct link). If you click on it you can watch the video
on wmv by Windows Media Player.