Ghost In The Machine: 1981/82

The Police arrest 16,000...

Okay, so this is one of the best concerts of the year, I say to myself, but why? I'm standing on my floor-level seat, one of al- most 16,000 people-a few tickets short of a sellout who have filed into the Coliseum Tuesday.

I'm standing 36 rows back from the stage, gazing up at the Police, wondering why this band, of all the new groups to emerge from the '70s, is the most popular, the most successful, and the most enigmatic.

After all, here they are, a British trio of fake blonds (they dyed their hair for a Wrigley's chewing gum ad, later deciding to keep it that way) that rose from obscurity to international stardom in 18 months.

And now, almost two years later, they're still on top - the real key to success in the whimsical world of rock and roll.

But the question returns: why?

The answer is tripartite. First there is drummer Stewart Copeland, the son of a former American jazz musician who later became an army intelligence officer stationed overseas.

Copeland is a innovative drummer with a frenzied style all his own. Sitting at his silvery drum kit, illuminated from behind by blazing white spotlights, he lashes at his drums, whapping the cymbals, cracking the snares, jamming the bass pedal to the floor, sending a thump that vibrates deep into the solar plexus.

Then there is Andy Summers, 39, a war baby who first learned piano but switched to guitar at age 14, becoming a class guitarist by age 16.

Assisted by a custom-built pedal board of special effects, Summers can play anything. You want power-rock chords? You want a hard-rock guitar solo? Whistle him the tune and he'll send it back, zinging past your ears.

And then there's Sting: real name. Gordon Sumner, age 30, his father a milkman, his mother a hairdresser. Sting is the band's bassist, the beat modulator who alternates between a pegless bass "stick" and an odd-looking electric stand-up bass.

But Sting is also The Face.

All eyes focus on him, especially when he opens his mouth, revealing the Golden Voice: a wide-ranging, plaintive, arresting voice which doesn't try to hide the fact that it's unusually high.

"Ee-yo-o," sings Sting, and the standing, swaying crowd bursts into musical reply: "Ee-yo-o."

Above all else, however, Sting is The Source: the songwriter from which the creative forces flow.

His role as hitmaker is evident in song after song. From the opening chords of 'Message in a Bottle', to the string of hits that follow: 'Everything She Does is Magic', 'Walking on the Moon', 'Spirits in the Material World', 'De Do Do Do De Da Da Da', 'Don't Stand So Close', 'Invisible Sun'.

The lyrics are intelligent, the arrangements are brilliant fusions of reggae, punk and rock. And nowhere is that brilliance more apparent than in 'Roxanne', with its beautifully plaintive tone and pregnant guitar pauses.

Roxanne was easily one of the evening's highlights, and the crowd let Sting know it, greeting the song's end with a deafening, concrete-vibrating cheer.

The crowd also joined in singing the Police's anthem of global unity, One World. Mid-song, the stage lights were aimed at the audience, bathing an undulating sea of waving arms in unearthly high-intensity light.

Why are the Police the best new band of the '80s?

Simply because they are not the Beatles, they are not the Rolling Stones, and they're not the Kinks, J. Geils or any of the perennial oldie bands who dominate today's rock scene. Nor do they try to be.

The Police are a new sound for a new generation. A generation weaned on the sounds of New Wave, punk, reggae, and electro-pop permutations.

The Police have certainly borrowed from the past. But they have repaid what they borrowed and are now forging a slightly different course for rock and roll.

(c) The Vancouver Sun by Neal Hall

Police as good as rock can get...

At this moment The Police are the most written about band in rock and roll.

Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers may be the only major contemporary band to emerge during the past five years that is known instantly not only by sound but also on sight. Individually they may be the most influential rock instrumentalists of this decade. There is a chemistry, and a tension, within The Police that is so right and adds up to a totality that has few peers.

If this sounds a bit much, you should have been party to Tuesday night's hysteria at the Coliseum, where 16,000 fans were treated to a show that was as good as rock and roll gets - or at least as close to great as anyone can expect at The Coliseum.

The Police have earned their accolades, but being a questioning bunch of achievers they tend to feel uncomfortable with their own success as if their popularity is the result of selling out their own artistic ambitions and musicianly integrity. Such awkwardness in the face of blind public adulation keeps them honest. They're exploring even further the limits of their harmonic structures, textures, tones and rhythms, what to leave out and how little to keep in. 
 
This year the inner drive resulted in the lyrically topical, mould-breaking 'Spirits In The Material World' and paved the way for the inevitable solo projects that will appear following this quickie summer tour. Onstage the confidence in their individual magnetism and the soundness of the group brings out a controlled dynamism that can be tapped at will when Sting wishes the audience to sing along, unleashed in a slashing guitar solo or propelled by one of Copeland's syncopated rhythms. It adds up to some unusually sophisticated, intelligent arena-rock and truly exciting rock and roll.

(c) The Province by Tom Harrison