The Police in Concert

After 24 years of dormancy, the premier New Wave act of the early 80's has reformed with drummer Stewart Copeland, guitarist Andy Summers and of course, Sting. After sitting through a decent performance by the new band The Fratelli's (think the Strokes meets Wolfmother) The Police took the stage. The set list went:

Message In A Bottle / Synchronicity II / Don't Stand So Close To Me / Voices In My Head - When The World Is Running Down... / Spirits In The Material World / Driven To Tears / Walking On The Moon / Truth Hits Everybody / Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic / Wrapped Around Your Finger / The Bed's Too Big Without You / De Do Do Do De Da Da Da / Invisible Sun / Walking In Your Footsteps / Can't Stand Losing You / Roxanne

Encore: King Of Pain / So Lonely / Every Breath You Take (assumed performed)

The Police came to town on a comfortable Wednesday evening at the MacAfee Coliseum in Oakland. I had seen the Police in 1983 at the same venue on what was Day On The Green #3 (included the Thompson Twins, Madness, Oingo Boingo and The Fixx) and remembered it as a fantastic show. The Police folded up camp shortly after so I had the added bonus of saying I saw them live because many people my age missed seeing them before they stopped. We had great seats, the memorabilia was plentiful and aimed at nostalgia (only the tour program included recent pictures of the band, everything else was pics from the 80's) and all of the rowdy New Wave fans of the 80's had turned into the laid back super wealthy. It had the makings of a spectacular concert.

The Police took the stage and started off with a solid version of "Message In A Bottle". It was a strong start, but then thing's got dicey with a sloppy "Synchronicity II". A new arrangement seemed to baffle the band, fortunately the audience sung along with the words (even the ones Sting didn't sing) so it wasn't as noticeable. "Don't Stand So Close To Me" followed next, which was played a little seductively like the slowed down '86 remake.

A few things stood out to me at this point. One, this was The Police in the raw with no backing musicians and a minimum of flown in tracks. Two, this included replacing what were originally synthesizer parts with Andy Summer's guitar and changing many of the original song arrangements. I respected them for this though I was taken by surprise with their newly loose and ragged sound. The band simultaneously recalled their earlier Punkier sound while adding a bit of Jazz in the mix to mellow things out. It created a new approach that was inventive but a little hard to take in: Punk Adult Contemporary.

On the fourth song they started to hit their stride with a great medley of "Voices In My Head" to "When The World Is Running Down...". "Voices" was a good album track at the beginning that led to a sped up version of "World". The song ended with a Jazz fusion crescendo, Andy Summers soloing furiously while Sting laid a fat, muscular bass line underneath. By the end, Stewart Copeland was grinning visibly.

Then followed a guitar driven "Spirits In The Material World" that was pretty good. The great "Driven To Tears" was next but sounded a bit disjointed. An excellent "Walking On The Moon" followed, as Sting's rubbery reggae bass line bounded across the coliseum. The band rocked on "Truth Hits Everybody" which is a song I really liked from their second album.

The lack of synthesizers made some of the songs unpredictable to me. Apparently, the audience didn't always follow either as some seemingly random playing morphed into "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic". Without the keyboards, it seemed like an entirely different song. The audience shot to their feet once they recognized it.

A heavily rearranged "Wrapped Around Your Finger" with Stewart Copeland hitting a variety of percussive instruments was pretty enjoyable. Then, the high point (for me), "The Bed's Too Big Without You" came up in it's original arrangement. One of my favorite Police songs, with that deep reggae groove unchanged and the rhythm section locking in like they did in their prime.

"De Do Do Do De Da Da Da" was also performed in it's original style and sustained the momentum. "Invisible Sun" benefited from rearrangement (in my opinion), the cavernous synths replaced by Andy Summer's guitar added muscle and intensity to the tune. The always fun "Walking In Your Footsteps" kept their streak going and was the most fun number of the evening.

The main part of the show ended with a strong "Can't Stand Losing You" with a bit of "Regatta De Blanc" thrown in the middle for good measure. "Roxanne" closed out the first part of the set in style.

The encore began with "King Of Pain", another keyboard driven song altered to guitar. I left during "So Lonely" to avoid getting stuck in parking lot traffic.

Although it wasn't the phenomenal concert I hoped for, I had a lot of fun listening to these classic songs live and appreciated that The Police opted to challenge themselves musically by playing everything as a three piece band. The band struggled to stay on the same beat for half the concert, but were close enough to keep the songs from falling apart. This show had me doing the closest thing I know to dancing (shifting weight on my feet back and forth before they fall asleep) to the songs that didn't have arrangement changes. Those songs that have changes (mainly the synth driven songs like "Spirits", "Every Little Thing", "King of Pain" etc) sounded bare without that key instrument. For all the missing synthesizers, I just want to say...Squonk! (synthesizer noise)