Outlandos d'Amour: 1977/79

Police at CBGBs...

Andy Summers from ''One Train Later'': ''Our second set at CBGB's starts at about two-thirty in the morning, and we repeat the first one with almost no variation. We are so short of material that we don't have much choice except to jam and extend all the instrumental sections in the middle of the songs. This lack of material becomes an important factor in the creation of our style because it means we have to extract as much as possible from each song just to play the required time. Although we have rehearsed a lot in London, playing in front of an audience every night for three weeks will be a different experience. The energy of an audierice gives us the power to take our jams all the way out. We start meshing and pushing toward a new edge in our playing that simply doesn't happen in a rehearsal room, proving the axiom that one gig in front of an audience is worth ten days of practice.

Some people refer to our music as space jams. We are able to hit a place where with a combination of tape delay, Trenchtown beats, dissonant harmony, and Sting's soaring tenor over the top, we start sounding like a punk version of Weather Report. But with no formal agreements or rigid arrangements up-front, the playing develops naturally and we find our way by pushing, pulling, and reacting to one another. From a tight little repertoire of six or seven songs - 'Landlord,' 'Roxanne,' 'Can't Stand Losing You,' 'Nothing Achieving,' 'Next to You,' 'Truth Hits Everybody,' 'Hole in My Life' - we are forced into a new freedom and a way of playing that becomes our style. We leave CBGB's that night with the sound of the crowd in our ears and a sweat-soaked sense of renewal.