Police play with full force at the Palladium...
Even though it was an American holiday, the L.A. audience turned out in force to see the (British) Police on Thursday night at the Hollywood Palladium, so the group had a good chance to show that they've transcended being just a "hit single band" and have earned our loyalty.
First off, I admit to some prejudice toward the show, since the night before I'd been knocked dead by the performance Police bassist Sting gives in the film "Quadrophenia," one of full-tilt arrogance and incendiary animal magnetism. So maybe I was watching his bit of the stage more closely than the two other times they've played L.A...
Creeping white reggae is what all these newly popular bands are selling. Americans don't want to know about Jamaicans playing their own music but let these bleached-blond Police play 'So Lonely' and extend the song's three-minute rush with a facile "dub" interlude and the kids are knocking their heads together with glee. (Dub employs heavy echo and the alternation of vocals with instruments invented and used solely by reggae acts.)
It's great that the Police still do 'Fall Out', the A-side of their first humble, homemade single on Illegal Records. The song first spotlighted Sting's high rasp of a voice, together with the veteran-status talents of drummer Stuart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers. Tonight it was little Andy who stole the show, his Olympic-tryout jumping and sprinting never causing him to hit a bum chord. Sting was unusually sedate, preferring to skank and sway, spending more time acknowledging the crowd.
The Police have a winning formula, one that's very simple but almost unheard of since the '50s - they take a melody and proceed to chisel off of it anything that isn't THE BEAT. 'Roxanne' and 'Can't Stand Losing You' insinuated themselves in America's primal impulse to dance (and I don't mean disco); in the past few months, those two songs on a car radio probably caused more accidents than alcohol. 'Message in a Bottle', from their second album 'Regatta Du Blanc' (A&M), is every bit as strong. The formula hasn't gotten boring. Yet.
The group called Fashion, much to everyone's chagrin, replaced the reggae band Steel Pulse as opening act. Miles Copeland, the head of Fashion's label, I.R.S., may have taken the Police from humble beginnings to fame and fortune, but there's one vital difference between the Police and this trio: talent.
(c) The Los Angeles Herald Examiner by Lisa Fancher
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