Ghost In The Machine: 1981/82

Cops on the beat...

The Police, who just a few years ago were driving between U.S. club dates in a station wagon, are now selling out 20,000-seat arenas. Remarkably, their music works better than ever in its new setting as they proved at the Meadowlands Arena this week.

On stage, away from the keyboard and vocal overdubs of their albums, the Police are a different band unhampered by studio clutter, and free to explore the melodic and harmonic possibilities of their songs. Besides which, they get to concentrate on their best material.

All the Police's albums are diluted by uneven songwriting hastily conceived experiments, filler instrumentals, tuneless failures. Each side of 'Zenyatta Mondatta' starts out strong and trails off; on 'Ghost in the Machine' side one is great, side two negligible.

The band's concerts used to suffer from a version of this phenomenon: short on material, they would turn every song into an extended jam. But time and an increased output have solved the problem. They still stretch out instrumentally, but each song has its payoff.

At the Meadowlands they entered to a tape of 'Voices Inside My Head', then plunged right into 'Message in a Bottle', bassist-vocalist Sting swinging a strange, skinny, electric version of a stand-up bass and greeting the audience between verses.

By the second song, 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic', the band's concert strategy had emerged. Sting allowed himself to alter his melodies as he saw fit, while the absence of other instruments left guitarist Andy Summers ample space to do as he wished. Both were cushioned by the rhythmic sup- port of three guest horn players (all from New Jersey) known collectively as Chops.

As for drummer Stewart Copeland, he has absorbed the rhythmic lessons of reggae (principally the stressing of beats that would normally go unstressed) better than any other rock drummer. 'Spirits in the Material World' and 'Every Little Thing' were typical: on both Copeland kept time with his cymbals and hit his bass drum on the off-beats during the verses, then slammed into a more conventional rock beat for the chorus.

Sting remained the on-stage focal point, using his considerable charm to warm up the crowd, and asking them more than once, "What do you think?" At one point he even joked about the size of the arena. "It's really just like a big Capitol Theater," he said.

Well, almost. It helped if you were sitting next to someone with a pair of binoculars. But the sound which varies wildly from show to show at the Meadowlands was so good that I found myself catching lyrics that had escaped me on record. (I was delighted to hear that nuclear-war survivor in 'When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around' entertains himself with a videocassette of James Brown on "The TAMI Show.

Toward the middle of the set the band offered a series of tunes from 'Reggatta de Blanc', their most reggaefied album. Several times - most effectively on 'One World (Not Three)' they allowed the backup to dwindle away to practically nothing while Sting (and the audience) continued singing. Then, bam! in came the instruments for the finale.

For the climax of 'Roxanne' they turned powerful stage lights onto the audience, eliciting screams and a thunderous ovation. Back for an encore, Sting played some seat-rattling bass notes on keyboard to introduce 'Don't Stand So Close to Me'. And on 'Can't Stand Losing You' he had everyone singing along deliriously to an improvised chorus of "Would you be my, be my, be my girl?"

The show was well-paced and just the right length (about 90 minutes including encores). It was a model of how such things should be done. Now how about a live album?

SPONJI REGGAE: It took a certain amount of nerve for the Police, whose music owes so much to reggae, to choose the reggae vocal trio Black Uhuru as their opening act. After all, the Jamaicans might easily have made their British admirers look foolish. Instead the two groups complemented each other perfectly.

Though vocalists Puma Jones and Duckie Simpson are nominally equal partners in Black Uhuru, writer and lead singer Michael Rose dominated their live set. With his impressive dreadlocks and powerful voice, Rose prowled about the stage and wailed one song after another, while the others did little more than chime in with harmonies on the choruses.

Rose even overshadowed the band, led by drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare, reggae's most illustrious rhythm section. Still, the musicians were predictably excellent: Shakespeare played rumbling bass notes, Dunbar and a second percussionist wove arresting cross-rhythms, and a keyboardist and two guitarists further amplified the mesmeric beat.

The political portent of Rose's lyrics were somewhat obscured by his accent, though reggae fans could easily surmise what 'Puff She Puff' and 'Sinsemilla' were about. The sound quality was much better than on the group's current live album, 'Tear it Up'. In fact, the superior sound and inspired performance made me wish this set could have been the album.

(c) The Daily Record