Forty years after a controversial performance at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival, former Police drummer Stewart Copeland has issued an apology for the band’s behavior in Chile during the 1982 event.[[1]] The band’s actions,occurring under the shadow of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship,earned them the festival’s “Lemon Award” for their lack of press cooperation and sparked meaningful local backlash. Copeland addressed the incidents in a recent interview with La Tercera, as he prepares for a December 15th performance in Santiago.
Stewart Copeland, the former drummer for The Police, has issued an apology for the band’s behavior during their historic 1982 performance at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival in Chile.
Speaking with La Tercera ahead of his upcoming return to the country – with a performance scheduled for December 15th at the Teatro Municipal de Santiago – Copeland reflected on the band’s infamous and unconventional stay at the summer festival, where they received the “Lemon Award” from the press for their reluctance to participate in interviews.
“I remember everything very vividly,” Copeland said of the band’s first visit to Chile, explaining that they were under constant surveillance due to the political climate at the time – the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet – in an effort to “not do anything that threatened the government, and we made some mistakes.”
He recounted an incident during a press conference at the airport, where, in front of the assembled media, they tossed aside the Chilean, British, and American flags that were displayed on the table.
“The press conference at the airport, when we arrived after a long flight, goodness knows from where, we walked in and there were three flags: the American, the British, and the Chilean. And with our punk rock attitude, we smashed them all. I wasn’t interested in that, what was okay for the American and English flags, but not for the Chilean one, which didn’t deserve to be mistreated or disrespected,” he said, offering a self-critical assessment.
“That was our mistake, and I apologize 40 years later for that stupidity we did in Viña, but it upset people, and now I understand why,” he added. “We were just thoughtless rockers, and that was a mistake we made.”
Copeland also recalled another point of contention: “Before our concert, there was a female singer who was very good, and it was said backstage that she had a bad cold, so Sting asked for a different microphone; you know that when a singer sings, they spit all over it, so this request to disinfect the microphone or use a different one, turned into a huge insult to the darling of Chilean pop music, and people got upset about it. Once again, it was our mistake.”
The list of missteps in Chile continued, as Copeland remembered another episode: “During the concert, we could see that all the rich and powerful people of Chilean society were in the front rows, and Sting looked over their heads and told those in the back: ‘Come on up, come on up, come on up.’”
“Those in the front didn’t like that, so once again, we made another misstep. But it was a great concert. When we returned many years later, we realized it was a different country,” he said. The Viña del Mar festival remains a significant cultural event in Chile, often serving as a launching pad for Latin American artists.
