Reggatta de Blanc: 1979/80

New Wave flavoured by Reggae makes Police among the best...

On The Beat - The band's first world tour was run on a frayed shoestring. Using royalties from its first single, a love song to à prostitute that was an 11,000 copy failure, The Police boarded one of Freddie Laker's cheap flights for New York in January 1978 with their instruments as baggage.

A few dates were lined up for New York, Toronto, and Boston, but A&M, which signed the group several months earlier and released the failed single, wasn't interested in promoting a band without an album.

The tour, however, brought in enough money to pay for a van, expenses, and return tickets to England. Meanwhile, Sting, bass player and vocalist of The Police, landed the role of Ace in 'Quadrophenia', the film version of The Who epic. Founding member drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers were already cult heroes. Copeland, before forming The Police in January 1977, was drumming in Darryl Way's Curved Air and Summers had played with the Animals, Soft Machine, Kevin Coyne and Kevin Ayers.

A&M, in late 1978, finally realized it had an album option on two cult figures and a movie star. Consequently, 'Outlandos d'Amour' was released in January 1979 and 'Roxanne' the single that had failed, became a top forty success.

"Can't Stand Losing You," which was first released about a month after the initial "Roxanne" pressing and suffered a similar fate, was also re-released and became the band's second hit.

An international tour followed early this year, after which The Police returned to the studio for the 'Outlandos' follow up, due in local records stores any day now.

Paving the way for the new album, The Police headed a three act show at the Stage West in West Hartford on Oct. 4 that clearly defined their artfully meandering New Wave/Reggae as enjoyably emotive, creative, good old rock and roll.

Populated by the usual rock club set and several handfuls of punk poseurs, the concert was a tribute to the professionalism of The Police. Their raw energy, lightly veiled by maturity of their craft, kept the audience under fascinated control throughout a set of most of the selections on 'Outlandos' and many from the new album.

'So Lonely', which magnetized about a hundred patrons to the stage front, kicked off a series of selections from 'Outlandos' which featured Sting's unique vocals. Sting's affinity for the Rasta way flavours most of his work as The Police's principal songwriter and vocalist. The tasty Jamaican rhythms and Marley-esque wailings make The Police unique in New Wave and make Sting unique among rock performers.

Sting ended 'Hole in My Life' in choral chant with his people, much like Marley, without the political consequence, on his first live album with The Wailers. His island yodels, occasionally modified through echo, not only displayed his abilities, but showed a feel for the music that more articulate communication couldn't convey.

'Walk on the Moon' and 'Message in a Bomb', currently Great Britain's number one song, were the best new songs played. 'Walk on the Moon' is particularly effective for Sting, who puts his voice to the Floydian task, establishing a hypnotic rhythm with what sounds like island scat.

'Message in a Bomb' displayed the talents of Summers and Copeland, who traded the lead throughout the set while Sting most often fronted for the group.

Like all the evening's selections, 'Message' was faster than any of the first album's tracks, confirming reports from abroad Copeland, Sting and Summers traded the forefront in concert. Summers, particularly in his flashy distorted metal leads, shows a contempt for Punk in his playing. This band isn't into decadence as escapism, it's into reaching out. best Sting, unfortunately, had to reach out once too often during the show. A hyperactive fan in front kept splashing beer on the Aryan bassist, which might have been a shock for both of them, despite request from the unusually mellow  Stage West security folks to cease and desist.

Reaching his limit, Sting stepped from the mike to stage front, grabbed the fan, whose condition was belied by the fact that he was facing away from the stage, lifted him by the hair, inquired what the hell his problem was and threw him to the ground. A bit mystified, the dazed dude was finally dragged off by security.

The Police, one of New Wave's best, show what is the best in the genre. Although the music's simply composed and direct, it is imaginative enough to keep interest and easy enough to listen to for any rock fan.

Hopefully, with the coming of artists of the ilk of Elvis Costello, The Dead Boys, Rockpile, and The Police, New Wave will get, and merit, more positive attention.

Fashion, the opening act of the evening, could set the movement back five years. The London band lolled through a dreary set that held no surprises, but showed a talent that may develop with experience and a new guitarist.

Moon Martin and the Ravens, sandwiched between the good and the bad, was not really the ugly. Martin, a back alley John Denver with Dutch-cut blonde hair and glasses, is touring to support his new 'Escape From Domination' album. The set, featuring Ravens Jude Cole on guitar and vocals, Dennis Croy on bass, and Rick Croy on drums, was top notch club rock and roll with a heavy helping of good old rhythm and blues. Martin's cover of Robert Palmer's 'Bad Case of Loving You', and his own 'Dangerous' and 'Gun Shy' were simply fun. And, in the words of the time withered sage, I like fun.

It was apparent from the banter on the floor that Martin is developing a deserved cult following and will probably make an impression of his own in the metamorphic popular scene.

(c) The Morning Record & Journal by Ted Drozdowski

Police Good for New Wave...

It would be friendly and fun to say that The Police were arresting in their Thursday night appearance at Stage West in West Hartford. It would be swell to wax eloquent about their siren-like qualities and to hope they get booked at Stage West more often.

On the other hand, had they turned in a bad performance, it would be neat to read them the riot act. It would be nifty to charge them with reckless endangerment of the audience's eardrums and breach of the reviewer's peace of mind. Unfortunately, however, The Police were merely predictable. They are better than most New Wave bands, but that's somewhat like saying that croup is better than most childhood diseases.

The band's strengths lie in its use of reggae and calypso rhythms and its occasionally thoughtful and provocative, lyrics. The band's weaknesses lie in the inability of the three musicians to sing or play their instruments with more than skill.

Their Thursday night appearance was, however, a testimonial to the band's un- deniable appeal to the growing New Wave audience. Devoted followers crowded around the stage, bouncing to the music, shouting imprecations and gesturing to the players.

On one occasion, Sting, the band's single-named bassist and lead vocalist, became perturbed with the caperings of one of the closest fans and reached down to give him a sharp cuff on the head.

The band frequently uses concert technology to alter Sting's voice, giving it a reverberating or echoing quality. This is a rather good idea since his voice alone is unexceptional, sounding a bit like Yes's Jon Anderson trying to imitate The Who's Roger Daltrey.

During several of the longer numbers, the band engaged in what might be termed long "vocal jams," which involved frequent repetition by Sting of the syllable "yo"-sort of a primitive scat singing-while technological tricks were used to make the singers voice sound as though it were emanating from an oubliette.

The best number of the evening was the group's newest British hit 'Message in a Bottle', an eerie melody with unusual combinations of notes set to a rhythm with elements of both calypso and reggae.

West Indian beats played a large role in much of the group's music. Songs like 'Bring on the Night' and 'Walking on the Moon' create sort of a Space Age reggae sound.

'Roxanne,' the trio's biggest hit, was performed with more complicated drumming than the two-two monotonous beat Stewart Copeland used on the recorded version. It thus sounded pep- pier, without losing the poignancy of the lyric, which is the lament of a young man enamoured of a prostitute and begging her to quit her streetwalking ways.

But overall, The Police are not outstanding musicians. Sting is a merely adequate bassist and vocalist.  Copeland's drumming had its high points, but often grows tedious. Andy Summers displayed rather unimaginative guitar skills.

However, they should be credited with trying to write imaginative songs and succeeding on occasion.

The Police are, unfortunately, locked into the high energy formula of New Wave music and will find it difficult to maintain any creative diversity unless they liquidate some of the stock they have placed in New Wave heavy metal hysteria. 

The opening group was Fashion, an abysmal New Wave Group which seems intent on trumpeting its mediocrity to all listeners within a five-mile radius by means of unnecessary amplification.

Fashion was followed by Moon Martin and the Ravens, a group with its feet firmly planted in rock and roll's earliest traditions. 

Martin and his band are all solid musicians who weave such old favourites as  'Please, Please Me', 'I Saw  Her Standing There' and 'Heartbreak Hotel' into a repertoire consisting largely of Martin's eerie, urgent and interesting compositions.

Martin himself is a diminutive fellow who looks like a cross between Woody Allen and Paul Simon.

He is an able guitarist with a rather average voice. But he has a genuine feel for old-time rock and roll and the ability to translate that tradition into a form more appealing to a young audience. He should go far.

(c) The Hartford Courant by Colin McEnroe