Outlandos d'Amour: 1977/79

Police call the shots at Headliners...

There was a police whistle in the audience and a woman in the road crew.

That's progress.

The Police are now a rock'n'roll band from England. They used to be arresting or on the beat Actually they still are.

You know what a woman is The Police have a song about one of them. It's an underground classic, a banned by the BBC hit in Merry Old, 'Roxanne', a song about a semi-successful attempt at reforming a French prostitute.

Police did it twice last night at Headliners. They also opened and closed with the same song. 'I Can't Stand Losing You', although they did it quite differently each time. And, their second encore was 'Born In The Fifties', likewise an earlier staple of their hour-and-a-half set.

That's my only complaint. Don't these guys know something besides their record (one long player on A&M) and a few earlier singles Can't they do 'Rock Around The Clock', 'Wake Up Little Susie', or even 'White Rabbitt'. I can see opening and closing with the same song, it's like a Hemingway novel (see 'The Sun Also Rises') but three strikes and you're out.

That aside. The Police are kind of like Mose Allison, they don't do much but what they do do they do oh so well.

Featuring great vocals by everybody but especially bassist-chief song writer Sting. The trio, Sting, Andy Summers, guitar, and Stewart Copeland, drums, come on a la The Who, The Jam, The Kinks and all those other reasons to love rock'n'roll.

More raw and raucous live than on LP, yet no less accomplished. The Police employ those reggae rhythms mon. Not since Mr Costello - Elvis not Lou - joined Dashiell Hammett and Bob Marley on 'Watching The Detectives', have they been put to such good use by a non-Jamaican band.

"I'll tell you a story, we just came from Texas. It's hot there. It's like Africa." Sting introduced "our first single in England, 'Fall Out'. "This is not like Africa," he continued, referring to Wisconsin's latent spring.

But, the music was like Africa, that is. The Police are not punks. The Police are musicians. Though they skate dangerously close to the threshold of pain volume-wise, their songs stretch out from raw rock and reggae to include the rhythms of the Dark Continent, a dash of salsa, and the beat of the Beatles.

'Born In The Fifties' is a classic rock anthem, the kind that keeps rock'n'roll young and simple. 'Be My Girl-Sally', a song about an inflatable rubber girlfriend, features both a lovely early Who chorus and a recitation by guitarist Andy Summers in the grand tradition of eccentric English poet-musicians like Adrian Henri and Vivian Stanshall.

Something for everyone: 'Message In The Bottle', a new song about "loneliness, the curse of modern man" or 'Truth Hits Everybody', a song with a message, one delivered twice, in case you didn't get it the first time out.

The Police have just about cornered the market on songs about semi-successful attempts at reforming French prostitutes and inflatable rubber girlfriends. Meanwhile some woodshedding would definitely improve the size of their piece of the rock.

Madison's Spooner, a band in its third of nine possible lives, opened the show.

With a writer like Doug Erikson in the group. Spooner doesn't have to rely on other people's material, yet their covers are every bit as grabbing as Erikson's originals.

Erikson, on guitar and vocals, with cohorts Dave Benton, guitar, Butch Vig, drums: J. Rolf Walker, keyboards, and Jojo Tapps, bass; runs the gamut in his own tunes from a sympathetic look at the woman's point of view on'She's Not Gonna Cry', to the wasted male nymphomaniac of 'Poor Harold Fallen From Grace'.

Erikson's songs, grab an audience. hooks, lines and sinkers. He's an articulate David Byrne (Talking Heads) who doesn't swallow half his words and then regurgitate them in a different form.

Spooner, not the town, not the street, but the band, left a lot of people rockin' to that roll and rollin' to that rock.

'The Great Imposter', '96 Tears' and Jonathan Richman's phenomenal 'Roadrunner', revealed their grip on rock 'n' roll's roots. Spooner, as good as any and better than many. Besides, they know more songs.

(c) Capital Times by Gary Peterson