SHOW POSTPONED
Portland gone but not forgotten by Police...
The Portland debut of the Police was postponed for at least six months Tuesday when the group's vocalist, Sting, lost his voice. The English trio, which has built a solid local following on a pair of albums released during the past 12 months, were certain to have sold out their Paramount performance.
Disappointed fans can get refunds at the place where they purchased tickets.
After being informed of the concert's cancellation Tuesday afternoon, A&M Records in Hollywood was called for a comment. After a brief discussion with the company's publicist, Andrea Accardo, the phone was given to Stewart Copeland, drummer for Police, who happened to be visiting A&M Records, I.R.S. (International Records Syndicate) office.
Stewart, an original member of the Police along with Sting, said he was disappointed by the cancellation because Portland was to be the last stop of the mainland American tour. For the next. three months the band is scheduled to perform in Hawaii, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Egypt and Europe.
Sting's voice, which had been strained by a hard American tour, was hampered even further by the cold weather in Seattle, where the group performed last Friday. At Monday night's performance in Los Angeles, Sting finally lost his voice. The show was recorded for Don Kirshner's Rock Concert TV program. Copeland was disappointed to learn the syndicated series is not broadcast in Portland.
The Police were not pleased with the quality of the TV show, which Copeland described as an amateur hour production. It seems American radio has not overly impressed the trio either. The band has discontinued live broadcasts over local stations they used so successfully last year.
The broadcasts were pointless because the sound quality could not be counted on, so the people at home might not get to hear the real thing," Copeland explained.
While touring about the globe the band will be recording in local studios on their days off. Their next single will come from these sessions because the band feels two singles from its current album, "Reggatta de Blanc," is enough.
"We'll shoot for something else, we certainly are not running out of ideas," Copeland said.
"It is too bad about Portland. We were just too greedy and tried to cover too many cities and too much territory, but we will remember Portland next time we are in the States, in the fall," Copeland concluded.
(c) The Columbian by Fred Seegmuller
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