Just saw the police last night outside Sacramento. Stewart Copeland was fantastic–all that could be expected. The band as a whole didn’t appear to psychologically gel, even though they were tight musically. Nevertheless, Stewart played great, his kit sounded amazing. It was true to his sound, yet modern. His snare popped nicely, though lower volume hits didn’t seem to cut through the mix as well. I noticed he was actually playing his blue signature cymbal–it sounded great, especially the bell sound.

I got to see Stewart with Stanley Clark and Animal Logic in ’89. Horrible band, excellent musicians. I was standing about 10 ft. away from the side of the stage in a way-too packed club. My jaw was on the floor while watching, especially when they did a drum and bass solo.

I highly recommend checking out The Police on this tour if you haven’t already. Don’t expect the same edge of their younger years, but you are guaranteed great, updated versions of classic songs with, of course, superb drumming and a couple doses of tasty percussion (the video image of Stewart shot from below and through his gong bass comes to mind).

Pro: Hooch carts in various, strategic locations
Con: Food quality (and price)

Pro: Impromptu drum jams
Con: Impromptu solo drum jams

Pro: Tempus drums
Con: Not enough Tempus drums

Pro: Pearl Power Piccolo Snare
Pro: Black Swamp Snares

Pro: Free earplugs from H.E.A.R.

Pro: Tons of drum celebrities
Con: Not knowing who most of the celebrities were
Pro: Getting to shake Steve Smith’s hand

Pro: WorldMax Drums and products

Pro: Drum vendors willing to talk about their product (Hansenfutz, Dunnett, etc.)
Con: Drum vendor personnel who knew little about their product

Con: Drum vendors who didn’t bother to keep their drums in tune

Con: The Ludwig drum selection

Con: Kits displayed in such a way I couldn’t play them
Pro:  Kits displayed in such a way that others couldn’t play them

Pro: Price points and sound quality of most mid-range kits
Con: Price of pro-line kits that don’t match the sound quality

Pro: Getting PR pitches from various vendors
Con: Not getting a single PR pitch from a drum vendor

Pro: Odd drum products (bucket drums, square drums, metal drumsticks)
Con: Reality of actually buying odd drum products

Con: Sore feet
Pro: Carvin booth (a place to sit)

 Day 2 (Saturday) pics are now posted here.

I toured the NAMM floors today in Anaheim, Calif. You can view all of the drum eye-candy here. I’m hoping to have videos up on Youtube tomorrow and Sunday. Enjoy.

 For those who are less saavy at drum tuning, and for snobs, like myself, that try to take the extra time to tune our drums–and still struggle with doing it correctly–there’s an excellent go-to resource to remedy the problem of poorly tuned drums.

It’s Prof. Sounds Drum Tuning Bible, and it’s available here: http://home.earthlink.net/~prof.sound/. Sound also has excellent drum buying tips. I recently downloaded the bible and found it immensely useful and realized that for more than 20 years now, I’ve been doing some things incorrectly. Please check it out.