Ghost In The Machine: 1981/82

It Takes More Than Rain To Stop The Powerful, Arresting Police...

Sting wields a supernatural touch.

No sooner did the eagerly-awaited Police set commence Saturday night at the State Fair grandstand than clouds turned thick and threatening, and heavy droplets of rain thumped the teeming crowd like sporadic bass notes. Not a good omen, especially at $16 a ticket.

Many in the audience of 23,000 plus - a surprisingly well-behaved group that completely filled the grandstand and poured out onto the race track like a human deluge - visibly stiffened in preparation for the torrent. Others, perhaps of stronger faith, raised their hands to the swirling, spitting night sky and screamed in delight.

Sting, for his part, dressed in white party pants and a light yellow jacket, ignored the odd summer shower and merely continued singing his stirring, evocative hit, 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'. His voice, which can only be described as staggering, could part clouds.

Finishing the song (to a thunderclap of applause), Sting strode to the apron of the covered stage, held his hand out like a comic weatherman and remarked in his flip British clip, "Looks like a bit of rain!"

He then shrugged, moved back to his microphone, raised his space-age bass, and, searching the moist, murky sky, inquired of the crowd, "Is the moon still out?"

There wasn't a light in the sky, of course, but still Sting plucked the fetching first notes to 'Walking On The Moon', a slow, haunting ballad with a pitching reggae beat. As the Police played, theatrical smoke engulfed the stage, and a glistening shower of rain drops was caught suspended in the spotlights.

But, then, almost as unexpectedly as it started, the rain suddenly stopped. Clouds parted, the sky cleared, and the moon burst through. Sting finished the incantation and nearly took a bow.

Clearly, every little thing he does is magic.

Meteorological influences notwithstanding, the Police offered conclusive evidence Saturday night why they're ranked the top rock band in the world and have racked up such enviable stats as five top singles (in the past two years), two platinum albums and total record sales of 12.5 million.

Their 15-song, 90-minute set, accentuated by crisp, flawless sound, an imaginative light show and an adoring crowd which demanded and got three encores, was nothing short of brilliant - a veritable fireworks display of musical virtuosity, flashy stage showmanship, with an impressive oeuvre of compositions that are at once moving and meaningful. The Police play to the head as well as to the body.

Backed by a punchy, three-piece horn section which could flail your skin off with its cracking sax breaks, the three-member Police force Sting (bass), Andy Summers (guitar), Stewart Copeland (drums) - put out a steady, richly reggae-influenced sound (lots of bump and thump) that defies easy categorization. It's a synthesis of themes rock, jazz, even primitive chants that's as much a product of its parts as any cohesive, well-delineated effort at musical accord.

It's been said that the Police are three soloists playing at once. There's an element of truth to that, and fortunately each band member is a veteran musician who can rise to the challenge. Indeed, the Police aren't nouveau punks but classic rock pros.

Stewart Copeland, 29, who formed the group back in 1977, is a precision, non-stop dynamo who has drumming muscle and kick aplenty and provides the band a steady, consistent musical blueprint.

Andy Summers, 39, a former much-in-demand session musician with 15 years experience, is a facile, non-Spandex guitarist who can dig when need be and can needle out provocative riffs that are as sharp as a pin and just as subtle.

Sting (Gordon Sumner), 30, a former schoolteacher and stand-up bass jazz player, is the show- piece of Police. No one plays bass like Sting. He provides a presence that's as steady as a heartbeat, wild and roisterous at times and always lightning-fast and self-assured.

But it's Sting's shivering, gooseflesh-raising vocal qualities - clear, vibrant, evocative - that put him out in front of the group and way ahead of most rock singers today. There's just no shelf for his remarkable voice, and Saturday it soared skyward like an aching message meant for heaven.

Put together, the Police are nothing if not inspiring.

The State Fair concert was part picnic, part romp on the senior class lawn.

Every age, race and shape of rock fan was represented, from teenyboppers with deely-boppers to faultlessly "Valley" style high school girls with their short cheerleader skirts and striped tops to a spectrum of male rock fans that ranged from skinhead punk to mothballed Dead Heads. There were even some blacks and more than a sprinkling of Hispanics.

There was no reported trouble. The crowd, which completely filled the grandstand and had people sitting in the aisles as well as hanging on rails like human laundry, was surprisingly well behaved. It was a polite, largely popcorn and Pepsi crowd, and the darkened grandstand had the appearance of a drive-in movie theater.

But it was out on the race track, covered with a large tarpaulin for the occasion, where the real fun was and where diehard Police fans were found sprawled.

There were blankets and backpacks and even some ice chests of beer, and the track had the appearance of being a one-world, one-family slumber party. People necked openly, guys beat drum rhythms on their girlfriends' hips, and couples danced the night away behind the behemoth sound-mix stand. The pleasant evening air was rife with laughter, romance, and, of course, thick clouds of pot.

Santana, the opening act, put on a thoroughly proficient, at times sentimental, show that drew on more than a dozen years of material. Carlos Santana lovingly played guitar as lush, complex, and piercing as ever, and his three-man percussion group sounded like a beating of hoofs rounding the back stretch. By the time they neared the rail, the crowd was roaring at what was a commanding gate-to-post performance.

After a 45-minute break, the Police appeared on stage at precisely 11 p.m., and predictable pandemonium broke loose.

In fact, the whole show, produced by Rock'n Chair productions in conjunction with KZAP radio, bore the mark of clockwork planning (with the notable exception of an inexcusable concert/carnival ticket screwup).

The stage was well-constructed, boasting some 40 10-foot speakers, with 16 smaller ones on top. The sound, despite some community complaints, was clear and tolerable, and the lighting was artful, even extravagant. About the only complaint to be found with the show had nothing to do with its promoters, but with KROY radio, which had hired a plane to continually buzz the concert site, flashing repeated KROY station promos. It was a distracting, tawdry display of radio rivalry and small-mindedness.

Following their opening cuts of 'Message In A Bottle', 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic', and 'Walking On The Moon', Police effortlessly played one hit after another 'Spirits In The Material World', 'When The World Is Running Down', 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da', 'Demolition Man', etc - stopping only for Sting to engage and conduct in a little banter, audience sing-along, and jubilant cheerleading. Sting can make the simplest nonsense lyric, like "yiiii-ho- yooooo", take on mystical qualities that seem to emanate from another world. And the crowd eagerly answered his every plaintive plea.

His rousing rendition of 'One World (Not Three)' which sounded like it was transmitted live from Kingston, and the Police's agonizing hit, 'Roxanne', which the band performed for what seemed like a joyous eternity, put the cap on a show that was a steal at any price.

(c) The Sacramento Bee by Bob Sylva

Police draw 23,000 to the fair - And give their fans a rousing good concert...

The question that was asked upon entering the Cal Expo Grandstands after hour's wait in a half-mile-long line Saturday evening was "What's the capacity of this place?"

"Twenty-five thousand," the ticket-taker said, "and they'll all be here."

Reportedly, the audience for the Police and Santana concert at the State Fair Saturday night was a little shy of the capacity (ticket sales totalled 23,259), but I don't think I'd want to be there if any more people squeezed in. Luckily, it was a large and friendly crowd.

The line that started forming before 7pm for the 9 o'clock concert snaked back from the entrance of the grandstands, around the livestock exhibition area and back to the far side of the grandstands themselves. The mostly young people in attendance were patient and generally well-mannered as they stood and stood and stood. chatting, waiting to be admitted. Once inside the arena, they packed the open area in front of the elevated stage and filled the bleacher seats all the way to the top.

Their patience and manners were repaid with an excellent concert which began barely two minutes late. Opening act Santana provided a full hour-long set of percussive, Latin-influenced music. Although much of the music tended to run together and sound alike each song was heavily layered with various types of drums and a surging keyboard line the set was a perfectly polished gem of Santana's musical statement.

Best songs of the set were 'Black Magic Woman', an early hit for the San Francisco Bay area band in a slightly reworked arrangement with nice, sharp guitar notes and a very clear sound. 'Oye Como Va', another oldie from the band's repertoire, and a combination of the Traffic song. 'Dealer', which, after a rambling musical interlude opened into a sterling 'No Where to Run'.

Few rock concerts feature Broadway show tunes at all, but one of the highlights of the Santana set was a Latin-rock instrumental version of 'My Favorite Things' from the 'Sound of Music'. The percussionists really knocked themselves out on this one, and there was exquisite jazz electric piano prominently featured.

Although the crowd waited patiently and applauded vigorously at the conclusion of Santana's set, it clearly had come to hear the Police, a British trio of bottle blond rockers. To paraphrase one of the band's songs, every little thing they do is magic.

The set opened with Sting (bassist and lead singer) providing a perfectly clear reading of the band's tender 'Message in a Bottle', a song about an attempt to communicate with the world by sending out a you-know-what, and after waiting in disappointment, finding that nearly everybody has seen the message and sent a reply!

The song was followed by one the band's many hits, 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic', and - as if by magic it began to rain. A soft mist became drops of rain which gently showered the crowd during that song and the next.

The Police play a type of music that is unusual in rock'n'roll these days. It's a blend of all the various musical influences found in Britain, from the Jamaican ska and reggae to African rhythms and good old American jazz, blues and rock. The sensibilities of the band seemed tuned, too, to those various influences, providing material for the band to sing about everything from losing a lover to blowing up the world.

The group in addition to Sting, the band includes guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland - has broken ground in the type of material it has placed in the record sales charts and on the radio, not just in the different beat they have made palatable, but in the lyrics they have sung.

'Don't Stand So Close to Me', for example explores the longing between student and teacher, the sexual anxiety and frustration that sometimes exists between nubile young women and older instructors. This is not entirely new ground, of course; 'Mr. Lee', a very early rock song was about the same sort of thing, but the Police take a much more direct approach.

Similarly, 'Roxanne', about a woman who turns on the red light and "sells her body to the night" mines the same material as 'Lady Marmalade', among other tunes, but it does so with a sensibility and style (and strong, direct vocal) that it seems as if no one had done it before.

Sting's presence on stage adds much to the allure of the band. While Summers plays excellent guitar and Copeland is one of the steadiest, most reliable drummers in rock, Sting's thumping bass and his pacing, vocalizing, and roaming of the stage (giving the spotlight workers a run for their money Saturday), keep the eye - as well as the ear working.

There is hardly anything negative (from a reviewer's standpoint) that can be said about the Police in performance. The show was extremely well-paced, heavy on the hits but loaded with less familiar, but equally, good material. The band presents an interesting persona in its songs, from the blue loser who "woke up in my clothes again this morning" (from 'Shadows in the Rain') to the EST-ian encourager, "We can all sink or float, 'cause we're all in one big boat" (from 'One World (Not Three)'); from its African high-life beat to the sophisticated Steely Dan-reminiscent, 'When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around', to the joyously innocent 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da'. The latter song is refreshingly clever in its lyrics (despite the title): "When eloquence escapes me and logic ties me up and rapes me, de do do do, de da da da is all I want to say to you, the de do do do, de da da da innocence will pull me through."

The band played a good hour and 20 minutes before returning for encores, pleasing the crowd immensely, but angering some nearby and some not-so-nearby - residents of the State Fair.

By 12:30 p.m. (at the close of the concert), the Police Department had recorded about 200 calls from residents complaining about the volume of the performance.

One woman, who lives about three miles from the concert site and who asked not to be identified by name, said, "I was shocked by this noise... The fair has been there for years and I have never heard anything like it. I was trying to sleep, my son was trying to sleep, and it sounded like... I don't know what. If your next door neighbour had his stereo as loud as it would go, it couldn't have been any worse at three miles away!"

Although she called the city police non-emergency telephone number, and the State Fair number given to her by them, she said there was no relief. "The State Police were not responsible, the City Police said they had no authority," she said. "There was a special security force at the fair and they apparently wouldn't or couldn't do anything about it. I think it's terrible to think that they can make such noise and make us put up with it, even if it's 'just for one night,' as the State Fair people told me, " she said.

Concertgoers had a few complaints, too, although they weren't about the noise. Several said they had thought the $16 concert ticket entitled them to all the benefits of the $7 all-day State Fair pass, in addition to concert admittance. In actuality (as the ticket itself said), it included "fair access," which meant admission to the fairgrounds, but not free rides, which are included in the fair's new pay-one-price admission policy.

Freda Knudsen Radich, State Fair News Bureau manager, said there had been some misunderstanding about the ticket policy and several complaints had been registered. "People didn't seem to understand," she said, "that if they got the full benefit of our $7 admission, they'd be paying only $9 for the concert, which, these days, is unheard of." Actually, she said, the State Fair got only 10 percent, or $1.60 of the $16 concert ticket price, and that for use of the facility.

(c) The Sacramento Union by Jim Carnes