Synchronicity: 1983/84

The Police can do no wrong...

The music started with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and hardly stopped until The Police came up for air exactly seven songs into their set at the Civic Arena last night.

The pause must have proved refreshing the best part of the concert was still to come. And when it did arrive, The Police lived up to their standing as today's No. 1 rock band.

To be sure, the band's opening "medley" had its share of highlights, particularly 'Synchronicity I and II' and 'Walking in Your Footsteps'. In the latter, green lights and a fog machine combined with the eerie, African-influenced music to give the Arena stage the ambiance of a primordial jungle.

As the non-stop introduction continued, however, the performance became a bit too pat. Guitarist Andy Summers, rooted in one spot, concentrated intensely upon his work. Drummer Stewart Copeland ably drove the band with his intricate rhythms. The singer, Sting, sang well. But there was a lack of feeling, and byplay between the band and the audience was limited.

Maybe that's because songs like 'Message in a Bottle' and 'O My God' are so complex and full of meaning. These are not exactly four-beat, three-chord rockers, and their subtlety suffered in the rigid framework in which they were presented.

But, like a rain shower that relieves the heaviness of a humid summer night, the simplicity of 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da' seemed to loosen up the band. Summers started coming out of his shell and Sting displayed some nimble footwork, looking like Pan in his woody glen, cavorting madly on tiptoe.

The band started taking time to explore the slower material and made it worthwhile at such times as when Sting segued from 'Hole in My Life' to 'Hit the Road, Jack'. And as the singer started chanting 'One World's Enough for All of Us', he drew a response that pulled most everyone in the packed house into one intimate sphere.

From then on, The Police could do no wrong. 'King of Pain', which may be the best song on their current album, came out clear and sharp.

A deluge of hits followed - 'Every Breath You Take', 'Murder by Numbers', 'Don't Stand So Close to Me', 'Roxanne' all rendered so muscularly that one had to wonder what was in the spot of tea the band went backstage to drink between tunes.

The audience showed its appreciation in more than the usual ways. At one point, a brassiere was slung neatly onto Sting's bass guitar in mid-song. The next time it happened, he picked it up and dryly commented, "It's things like this that made me give up teaching."

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts started the show with a set of straight, unadorned rock'n'roll. They play loud, and they play simple tunes with titles like 'I Love Rock'n'Roll' and 'Bad Reputation'. The group really doesn't have the range to do much more than that. They compare musically to The Police like an amoeba compares to a mammal. And indeed, the combination of the two on the same bill seems incongruous.

But Jett and her group work hard to deliver the best show they can, and it's hard not to like a band that actually earns its pay. And this kind of music is fun in person, when the drumbeat pounds through your body and the guitars pulse at full throttle. The Blackhearts are much more likable live than on record.

So is Jett, who feeds on the energy of performance and on the support of her bandmates.

(c) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Ron Weiskind

The Police Offer An Arresting Evening...

When you're hot, you're hot. Jerry Reed sang it in 1971, and the Police, who for the third straight week have both the top single and album in the country, proved it in two ways last night at the Civic Arena.

First, they bettered their attendance of April 1982 by almost 1,000: 15,750 to 14,887. Second, they deserved every fan who showed up. This trio played loads of winning music and sported a big show.

Musically, the Police are the band of the '80s. They blend rousing rock, infectious syncopation and Latin undertones, just enough of Andy Summers' unusual guitar effects, bassist Sting's commanding voice, and a variety of percussion instruments played by drummer Stewart Copeland into a heady brew both interesting and enjoyable.

Some of their best songs followed a near-formula, starting slowly, sparsely and almost spookily and building to catchy sing-along choruses: 'Message in a Bottle', with its folk influences at points, 'Don't Stand So Close to Me', 'Can't Stand Losing You', 'So Lonely', which is downright joyous when it finally erupts.

Other songs don't follow the near-formula you don't pigeonhole the Police. 'Synchronicity I' was a hard-rocking humdinger of a set-opener, while the slow, clever anti-war statement, 'Walking in Your Footsteps' (the footsteps are those of a dinosaur), featured Sting playing primitive wooden pipes and faded out quietly.

Railroad-beat 'Demolition Man', on which Summers cut loose a little more, was exactly what the title suggests, and 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da' had a very good melody and another of those good-time choruses.

'Spirits in the Material World' was rowdy reggae, 'One World' was what you'd get mixing reggae with country-rock bass lines, and 'Every Breath You Take', their current chart-topper, was basically a ballad, although played with more power in concert than on record.

Not every little thing they did was magic, however. For starters, 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic', their second biggest hit, was one song they didn't play. For another, slightly funky 'Hole in My Life' was too repetitious.

For show, there were dry ice fog and coloured lights. Wisps of fog that wafted languorously above them under green lights during 'Tea in the Sahara' looked like the plague of the death of the first born in 'The Ten Commandments'.

There were banks of lights on overhead trusses which, when turned on, were almost as bright as the house lights, and there were floodlights crisscrossing the fans.

The piece de resistance, however, was a large screen high above the stage on which were projected the Police - live via hand-held cameras. Closeups. Shots from behind them and beside them. An excellent touch, especially for the back-row gang.

There were very few pauses in their 20-song set. Number usually followed number without introduction; Sting's chatter was minimal.

The most arresting was when a member of the front-row gang threw a bra at Sting as he danced across the stage during 'One World'. The garment landed smack-dab around the neck of his bass, stopping the music for a few moments and almost cracking up him and Summers.

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts opened the concert with a solid set of rock at its most basic: two guitars, bass and drums. Bland-voiced Miss Jett, who dressed in the proper Pittsburgh colours of black and gold and who had no aversion to salty lyrics, always sounded like she was pushing already strained pipes, and the quartet's overall effect was very much like kids in the garage.

Still, that simple, straight-ahead, slug-it-out approach was quite appealing, whether on their own numbers or other people's oldies.

Tops of the former were 'Bad Reputation', 'Victim of Circumstance', 'The French Song', 'Handyman' and their big hit, 'I Love Rock'n'Roll'. Best of the latter were the Rolling Stones's crude 'Star Star', Tommy James and the Shon- dells' 'Crimson and Clover' and the Halos' little-heard 'Nag'.

(c) The Pittsburgh Press by Pete Bishop