Synchronicity: 1983/84

Help! The Police! - Perfect pop for the '80s at the Capital Centre...

It's little wonder that The Police have a lock on the top of both the singles and album charts. Their buoyant and compelling rock - lithe, sensual, irresistible - hits heart, mind and feet all at once, challenging and enticing at the same moment.

The 18,000 fans who jammed the Capital Centre last night danced in place, swayed and swirled with relative abandon, sang along knowingly and exuberantly, punched the air in affirmation and all but spent themselves by night's end. They entered believing and left confirmed. The Police, who will repeat the concert tonight, are something of a throwback to the power trio concept of the late '60s, but instead of basing their sound on pyro-technical bravura, they achieve an astounding organic unity that is at once raucous and refined.

Bassist Sting, drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers - all of them bristling with self-confidence as if the business of being No. 1 is still a joy - create a seamless pulse, a dense rhythmic and melodic weave that incorporates the raw energy of new wave, the insistent lilt of reggae and Afro-pop, the expansiveness of jazz and the seductiveness of pure pop. In this context, there are few flashy flourishes but loads of tremendously rich textures. Summers is an inventive yet eclectic guitarist whose playing combines rhythmic and lead functions. His particular strengths are lush, simmering chords that jolt the hall. Sting's fluid, elastic bass lines and yearning yet forceful vocals ride vibrantly above Copeland's razor-sharp percussion.

The result is perfect pop for the '80s. Better yet, the exceptional quality of the band's latest album, Synchronicity, comes at a time when commercial and critical expectations have been most sharply focused. Make no mistake - The Police have latched onto a whole series of irresistible pulses. The throng at the Capital Centre provided a chorus to humble the Mormon Tabernacle Choir - and even sang relatively in tune on the frequent sing-alongs. What's surprising is that while many of The Police songs dip their hooks in Stings' ethereal melody lines, the lyrics are tough; the haunting and elusive edges of the music frame a search for deeper places.

Sting is obsessed with collapse - things fall apart on both the personal level and the cosmic one - and while his songs are deceptively simple in structure, they are like Russian nest dolls, with more revealed by time and investigation. The concert was a comprehensive overview of old and new material. The live version of many songs seemed to race a bit, a pleasant urgency suggested partly by the size of the venue and the charge of a live audience. One sensed the adrenalin flowing onstage, particularly from the unflaggingly energetic Sting and Copeland - the latter seemed nothing less than a hyperactive octopus, his long arms swirling and striking with precision and power.

Over the course of their 90-minute show, The Police covered most of their familiar bases, including their current No. 1 hit, 'Every Breath You Take', its spooky beauty shattering testimony to romantic obsession. Other highlights included 'Roxanne', 'Spirits in the Material World', 'Can't Stand Losing You', 'Don't Stand So Close', 'Invisible Sun', 'De do do do, De da da da', and 'King of Pain'.

The songs were expanded and bent with new energies without becoming self-consciously inflated. The three musicians laid down strong, bare bones and wrapped them with the flesh of their vision. The resulting body of work was pure, churning power, washes of sound that cleansed the soul and perked up the feet. What more could you want?

(c) The Washington Post by Richard Harrington

Police put on rousing show...

As a taped version of 'Voices Inside My Head' cut through the darkness of the Capital Centre last night, Police guitarist Andy Summers quipped, "Dark in here, isn't it?"

It wasn't very long, though, because the Police immediately ripped into an incandescent version of 'Sychronicity I & II' that lit the hall up like fireworks on the Fourth of July.

Given the audience's eagerness to enjoy the concert, it wouldn't have taken much to generate an explosive reaction. But the Police neither pandered to nor coasted on that goodwill; instead, they used the obvious sympathies of the crowd to take them and the songs into uncharted territory.

'Walking on the Moon' found drummer Stewart Copeland churning rhythmic eddies and crosscurrents in the song's basic shuffle beat; 'Wrapped Around Your Finger' featured bassist Sting's inspired vocal embellishments; while 'Hole in my Life' turned into a rousing version of Ray Charles's 'Hit the Road, Jack'. Nor was the extra input solely musical, for the band used the Capital Centre's video screens to show footage of Northern Ireland during 'Invisible Sun'.

Despite all this, it was oddly disappointing to note that the Police tended to hold back from time to time. Even though the general level of the show was far superior to most rock concerts, occasionally there were moments - Sting dancing giddily while playing a crisp, reggae base solo on 'One World (Not Three)' or Andy Summer's generating exquisite clouds of guitar chords behind 'Tea in the Sahara' that made it clear that the Police are capable of greater heights still.

R.E.M. opened the show with a convincing demonstration of how well basic garage band rock translates to coliseum size. Thanks to a canny sense of dynamics and the general integrity of the band's material, R.E.M. easily bridged the gap between the immediacy of their sound and the vastness of the venue.

The reason R.E.M. succeeded so well was the sheer simplicity of their approach. Rather than clog their sound with excessive guitar or show-off drumming, the band made every little bit count as it layered melody on top of counter-melody.

As guitarist Peter Buck executed Townshend-styled leaps, singer Michael Stipe hunched over the microphone, singing in his resonant baritone. It was impossible not to be captivated.

Police and R.E.M. will perform at the Capital Centre again tonight at 8 o'clock.

(c) The Baltimore Sun by J. D. Considine