This is how Harry Potter must have felt during the last task of the Triwizard Cup, the obstacle race, I said to myself, trudging through the picturesque Palace Grounds in Bangalore. It seemed like I had been trudging ever since touching down in the Garden City.
I was trying to locate the right entry for the pass in my pocket, marked 'journalist.' It was not backstage, as I had hoped it would.
I could hear the band sound definitely Santana-ish through the tin barriers. Dominic Miller played the opening bars of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing. But then, it could have been his roadie strumming as well.
There was time for the concert to begin, but I was rushing, because the most life-changing invention since the wheel was giving me trouble. My mobile phone simply would not register any network. A scamper to a shop and buying a local SIM card did not help either.
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"I think we have been over efficient," a member of the publicity team had said when I went to collect my pass. "We did not think Sting would be so big."
The thinking man's rock star was being hounded by 300 cameras. Interview requests arriving with every SMS, mail, call, visit.
"No, no, no, no. I will get murdered," said another publicity manager. Pleas that I was from faraway Mumbai did not cut any ice. "No interviews please." Media partners were, of course, exceptions.
Ah, there was Dominic Miller in the hotel lobby, but before I could ask him about the Grateful Dead sticker on one of his guitars, in fact even before I could make a dash for him, he was gone.
A thousand attempts at talking to people and calling from my obstinate phone later, I was waiting, like the rest of the estimated 15,000, for Sting. People must be tired of me, I thought, I certainly would if a guy kept asking me questions when I was there to have a good time.
I wanted to ogle at Miller's sunburst Fender Stratocaster (in fact, I was trying hard to think of some way to nick it, but hey, please don't let my editor know). I wanted to see how Keith Carlock treated Vinnie Colaiuta grooves. I just wanted to watch the band play. But here was I rushing from one corner to another, apologising to perfectly justified angry people, trying to spot someone I needed.
"Travel writer," said a guy when I asked him what he did. Wow, you have the best job in the world. "But it doesn't pay, as you can see," he said from behind the barrier that separated Rs 1,500 from Rs 2,000 tickets.
By the time Sting began the haunting Thousand years, I had traversed the ground about 200 times and by the time he shouted Roxanne, I decided enough was enough. Let me just watch now. Bang, gig over, thank you Bangalore.
The police, not the Englishman's former band but the cowboy hat wearing Bangalore kind, got into the act. Out everybody, out, out (actually, the Kannada equivalent of it. But you don't need to be a linguist to understand the language of batons being waved at you).
Moral of the story: If you want to watch one of your favourite musicians live, spend your own money, buy the best ticket, land up early with friends.
Don't go as a journalist.
Photograph: Tekee Tanwar/Getty Images
Image: Uday Kuckian