The Police: An arresting performance...
"I want to welcome you to the biggest party in Florida today!" screamed the disc jockey from Orlando's WDIZ radio station.
The Tangerine Bowl, or Rock Superbowl XIX, was definitely the place to be Saturday, a beautiful day to bask in the sun and sounds of the hottest bands in pop music, the Police and the Fixx, and a blast from the past, the Animals.
Coming on the stage late in the afternoon, the recently reorganised Animals started the show sounding awful. That quickly changed as they warmed up, and by the time Eric Burdon & Co. reached old favourites 'Don't Bring Me Down' and 'We Gotta Get Out of This Place', they had convinced many they still had a right to be in the spotlight.
Martha Quinn, the sprite video jockey from MTV, introduced The Fixx, a British band enjoying its share of success with a second best- selling album, 'Reach the Beach'.
Before the show, Fixx guitarist Jamie West-Oram said that outdoor arenas like the T-Bowl "are quite happening for the sound because of the echo you get." Oram-West also suggested the Police receive a bum rap in the press. "They're great to work with because they're so professional. People accuse the Police of the star trip, but I don't think that's accurate. I think we're learning a great deal from their professional attitude. I think we're a pretty good match."
The dozen songs the Fixx offered all confirmed Oram-West's opinion. 'Stand or Fall' from the debut 'Shuttered Room' album was seductive in its live format, the serie keyboards and Cy Curnin's vocals enhancing the band's first hit. Their last songs - 'One Thing Leads to Another', 'Red Skies' and encore 'Saved by Zero' - gave the first hint of enthusiasm that would greet the Police after dark. An adrenalin-filled sea of bodies bounced and sang along with the Fixx at the end, giving them a hardy and deserved roar of approval.
During the hour that passed before the Police mounted the huge T-Bowl stage, two video screens were activated with a prepared program of rock videos interspersed with Martha Quinn announcing that it would be just a few more minutes
Anticipation filled the now-darkened stadium. When Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland took control, the effect of their mere presence was sensational, and their performance was dazzling. Beginning with the title song from the 'Synchronicity' record and through more than two dozen more, Sting was an amazing, effervescent, musical dervish. He bopped, ran, mugged, strutted and strained to put on a tremendous program. His recent work as an actor has no doubt refined his presentation, which used the video cameras that covered every angle of the show and made his every action visible to all corners of the T-Bowl.
Sting, dressed in an outfit reminiscent of the one worn by Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, was the perfect front man for the trio, but guitarist Summers and drummer Copeland were equally responsible for the incredible music delivered. Both seemed content to let their work speak without benefit of Sting-style theatrics, and like the singer, they and the audience benefited from the use of video to highlight key segments. Several times, Sting abandoned centre stage so attention could be focused in on Summers' sometimes intricate guitar play.
All five Police albums received their share of attention Saturday night. Songs from 'Synchronicity' were backed with smoke and red, yellow and blue lights, the colours associated with the record.
After 'King of Pain' was played, Sting led Summers, Copeland, the video crew and indirectly, the audience, backstage for a tea break. He smiled and sipped with Summers, who wore a tall black stovepipe hat, frequently waving to the amused thousands still watching on screens in the stadium. Then, Sting suddenly looked toward a table with dozens of cups of liquid. Like a child practicing to be a magician, he at- tempted to pull the tablecloth out from under the drinks without spilling any. It didn't work. He shrugged, grinned and retook the stage.
Rock Superbowl XIX was a disappointment only to the promoters, who were still shaking their heads after the show because thousands of the possible 60,000 concert admissions had gone unsold. (Cliff Corbett of Beach Club Promotions said he wouldn't have an attendance figure until the middle of this week.)
After a summer of being skipped over by major rock tours, Central Florida was expected to be ripe for a big draw like the Police. After all, this was the band that sold out New York's Shea Stadium in just five hours and topped the record charts for months with the single, 'Every Breath You Take', from their equally successful 'Synchronicity' album.
Perhaps A mistake was made in offering the show as a "Rock Superbowl" event. These are usually loud, high-powered bills drawing large teen-age and pre-teen crowds, known for rowdyism, food fights and heavy partying. The Police show, by contrast, attracted an older, more subdued audience with an average age of 22 instead of the usual 16.
Some who would like to have seen the Police might have stayed away because of the location and reputation of the typical Superbowl events. Too bad; they missed a great show.
(c) The Tampa Bay Times by Bob Andelman
The Police - every little thing they did was magic...
The letter-writer was miffed and clever. ''We know every breath they take and every move they make,'' he wrote to a national magazine, sending up ''their'' latest mega-hit. ''Sting is weird and The Police are touring America. We KNOW that, so give us a break, will you?''
Welcome to the real world, Jailbait: You cannot expect everyone to roll over and play dead just because you're tired of hearing about The Police.
The Police were either the most intelligent or the most palatable to come out of the British New Wave music movement that hit the States in the late '70's. It was in 1979 that the three bleached blonde men who are The Police - Sting, Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland - shredded our buzzsaw-rock complacency with their sad paean to 'Roxanne'.
''Raaaahhhxxxxxanne,'' Police singer Sting yowled to a startling ska - cultural cousin to reggae - rhythm, ''you don't have to sell your body to the night.''
The Police set us on our, er, ears.
And in the years since, we Americans have handcuffed ourselves to the Police, buying up each of the group's albums as soon as they were made available to us, and sending their singles racing ever up and up the charts. (A little humor that, in chart lingo, bullets accompany The Police's ascent.) And we've watched every move they make, and listened to every breath they take.
Yes, The Police are touring America; and Saturday night - a superbly balmy night on which the group's globally inspired waves of sound seemed to shimmer in air that had all the cool vigor of, say, a Moet Chandon; though most there, because of their age, would have described the evening as ''awesome'' - The Police laid waste to Orlando. Every little thing they did was magic.
But their bag of tricks is hard to understand. Don't get me wrong: They are good - oh, they are good. But it was Sting who has said, ''You can entertain people and still educate them.'' And so the mystery intensifies when The Police's appeal is compared to those of its Orlando opening acts: The Animals and The Fixx.
The Animals, a '60's ''message'' group whose legacy is a string of defiant, danceable, tunes such as 'It's My Life' and 'We Gotta get Out of This Place', has recently regrouped. If the Orlando crowd was any indication, it was not by popular demand. It was not too unfair to say that the attention given the FLEA WORLD aerial ad doing lazy loops around the Tangerine Bowl was more generous than that accorded The Animals. While the group's set was all right, it should be noted that there's something not entirely convincing about a middle-aged, barrel-chested man - The Animals' lead singer Eric Burdon - wailing ''Oh, Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.'' The Police's guitarist Andy Summers once played with The Animals.
Members of The Fixx look like a set of Ginsu knives: blade-thin, full of long angles, with even their faces laying in sharp relief to everything around them. I think their image is their substance. This is the second time I've seen The Fixx - incidental occurrences, both times - and I still don't know what the shouting is about; I cannot find either the entertainment or education value.
They sing songs called 'Red Sky at Night' and 'Reach the Beach' and 'Saved by Zero' and 'One Thing Leads to Another' and I can make no sense out of them. Maybe it's because I'm not an alienated teen-ager any more; and, I suspect, neither are members of The Fixx. But the crowd loved them.
And then came The Police.
Do you know that The Police once toured the Third World, a region whose rich musical heritage plays significantly in The Police's own best-selling music, and visited areas where no one knew who they were, and where few spoke their language? And that, even in those places, they were a hit? The Police's 'Zenyatta Mondatta' album is a retrospective of that experience. The words 'Zenyatta Mondatta', by the way, don't mean anything in any language. And that's an important point that will be dealt with, clumsily, in a bit. Theirs is the music of esoteric jazz rooms of America; and the brawling, iconoclastic rock found in British music halls; and the incantatory percussive punctuations of far-flung countries populated by dark people.
Theirs is a musical panoply that is original because of the parts chosen to become the sum of those parts. Coupled with that sound are lyrics which alternate between complexity and simplicity, between the refinement of the literate and the crudeness of instinct. It is a combination that is both magnetic and unsettling.
In 'Wrapped Around Your Finger' Sting sang, ''You consider me the young apprentice, Caught between the Scylla and Charibdes; Mephistopheles is not your name, But I know what you're up to just the same; Devil and the deep blue sea behind me, Vanish in the air you'll never find me.''
In 'Hole in My Life' as performed Saturday night, The Police galloped through what should be an introspective subject. But noooo. Picking up the bass beat and shouting ''There's a great BIG hole in my life,'' Sting provided the greatest moment of inspiration belonging to that evening by swinging into Ray Charles' 'Hit the Road, Jack' and doing several minutes of that - ''and doncha come back no more, No More, No More, NO MORE'' - before easing back into 'Hole in My Life'.
Sometimes, The Police's romp with the Orlando crowd sounded like the old phonics courses that used to be offered in elementary schools.
Sting - who is, like it or not, the flamboyant focal point of The Police - was the plumed-out, ribboned-out and spiky-haired Mister Rogers who led his thousands of eager students through sing-alongs that went something like this: Can you say ''Eo-ao-eao,'' Sting crooned.
And looking at his larger-than-life image beamed onto the twin video screens flanking the stage, looking at those cheekbones that could slice bread and have torn asunder many hearts, the crowd chanted, ''Eo-ao-eao.''
''I like it,'' Sting said.
Sting told Life magazine that pop music should be ''sexy, danceable and carry a social message.''
The Police's pop music is more than all the above. The sexiness Dan the danceability are easy to explain, the dance-music-sex-romance - which is how another Prince of pop succinctly puts it - that is the siren song of rock, is easy to define their stuff.
So, what does the rest of it mean?
Something as trite as: music really is the universal language?
That it's not so much the words, but the intentions, that are important in musical art?
That, as The Police sing, ''One world is enough for us''?
That, by our overwhelming acceptance and approval of The Police's one-world sound, we are ready to accept that notion?
Hell if I know.
One thing is certain: We are going to be hearing a lot more about The Police because even The Establishment - Life magazine, in this case - proclaims the group ''has come closer to matching The Beatles' international glory'' than any other. Indeed, The Police's recent triumph at Shea Stadium has been likened to The Beatles' 1964 shake-rattle-and-steamroll stomp there.
And we are left to wonder, while we're tapping our toes and humming along, just what it is about The Police that has much of the music-listening world going bonkers.
Maybe The Police said it best in one of their greatest hits: ''De-do-do-do, De-da-da-da, that's all I want to say to you.''
(c) Florida Today by Pam Platt
Police live up to super billing at Tangerine Bowl...
Dwarfed by their sound system and barely visible from the far end of the Tangerine Bowl stage, a trio of musicians collectively known as the Police arrested the attention of more than 30,000 fans Saturday. It was, in no uncertain terms, a fine concert.
The Police were headliners on a bill that included Eric Burdon and the Animals (remember them?) and The Fixx in a late-afternoon gathering dubbed Rock Superbowl XIX. I enjoyed a certain smugness knowing that Orlando has staged more ''Superbowls'' than the NFL, thought I'm not sure that the three-band lineup - even a high quality one like this - qualified as a ''Superbowl'' event until MTV's Martha Quinn announced that the Police performance would be getting video coverage.
Giant video screens flanked the stage, the weather was perfect, the concert began.
First up were Eric Burdon and the Animals. As one of the best known rhythm-and-blues bands of the mid-'60's, the original Animals briefly contended for popularity with the likes of the Beatles before disbanding at the end of the decade. Burdon's style hasn't changed. His voice still has its old, raspy power but took a few songs before it regained its subtlety. Burdon can still do ''House of the Rising Sun'' better than anyone else.
The Fixx, who appeared in Orlando for the first time last June (as the opening act for Flock of Seagulls), continue to show great promise. Their music was funky, angular and dramatic. Two of their best efforts were ''Red Sky'' and ''The Fall.''
The Police of course have received giant amounts of self-perpetuating publicity on a nationwide tour that has included virtually nothing but stadium-and arena-sized audiences. Not bad for a group that has turned out only five albums in as many years.
At the heart of the Police success story is Sting (Gordon Sumner), the band's spokesman and main songwriter. Though there are a few exceptions, his lyrics don't exactly send me, nor does his music. But he has been smart and tasteful enough to avoid overexploiting any one pop-rock idiom. Add to that the band's excellent musicianship and you have one of the most popular bands of the past six years.
Their appeal is broadened by Sting's ability to mix bits of rock, jazz and reggae in varying concentrations.
''Do you know me?'' he asked the crowd from a darkened stage before the concert began. The answer was obvious.
The Police started with ''Synchronicity I'' and found themselves, nearly 90 minutes, later singing ''Roxanne.'' The guitar playing was handled with enchanting, soaring excellence by Andy Summers. The delicate and complex drumming that anchored Sting's bass playing was performed by Stewart Copeland.
The Police made their arrest, then sent their suspects home satisfied.
(c) The Orlando Sentinel by Richard Defendorf
The Police highlight an arresting triple bill...
Bands from the '60s, '70s and '80s combined for a rare event at the Tangerine bowl a truly super rock superbowl.
With the Police, the Fixx and the Animals providing the entertainment Saturday, and the weather cooperating with a sunny, yet cool and breezy day, 40,000 fans were treated to fine performances by all three acts at Rock Superbowl XIX.
Though focusing on songs from 'Synchronicity', The Police's nearly two-hour-long set included almost every song even the most devoted fan would want to hear.
Additionally, the band is fun to watch, either on stage (for those few fans close enough) or on the large video screens set up on each side of the stage.
Sting, the group's blond, spike-haired singer, songwriter and bassist, is nearly unique: a rock star with true star quality.
His stage presence, particularly in such a large stadium, was something to see, whether he was dancing an improvised jig or darting about between the other musicians.
Musically, the sharp-edged, energetic 'Message in a Bottle' was a showcase for Stewart Copeland's complex, jazz-rock style of drumming, while the reggae rhythm of 'Walking on the Moon' was well-suited to the song's lyrics.
Though consistently evolving their sound, the internationally famous trio blended a variety of styles into a coherent product.
Since forming in the mid-'70s. the Police have followed a pattern of development not unlike the Beatles, beginning with basic, energetic rock (represented in concert by "Hole in My Life" and "Can't Stand Losing") that has given way to a more accessible, pop-dominated sound.
Even the somewhat subdued rendering of 'De Do Do Do De Da Da Da' couldn't dilute its pop appeal. 'Synchronicity', the Police's latest and possibly best album, benefitted most from the live setting.
Opening with 'Synchronicity I' and 'Synchronicity II' got the Police squad off to a fast start.
Both songs were characterized by quick tempos and precise musicianship.
'King of Pain', one of the two big hits from "Synchronicity," was punctuated by guitarist Andy Summers' fine solo, while the other hit, 'Every Breath You Take', was given a more standard reading.
The most interesting aspect of the band's performance was the musicians' ability to recreate music, with much of the subtlety and power of the recorded versions intact.
Also interesting was another change of direction musically, into a mystical sound, on the songs 'Tea in the Sahara' and 'Wrapped Around Your Finger'.
Not forgetting their beginnings, the Police closed with the punchy, yet poignant, 'Roxanne'. The story of a man trying to keep a prostitute from "working" anymore, it seemed to touch a chord of sympathy with the young audience.
So far, success hasn't spoiled the Police. The length and quality of their performance marked the Po- lice as superior to most touring bands.
The Fixx was a good warm-up band, with its slick, synthesized sound providing an interesting contrast to the other two acts.
One of the front runners in the '80s synth-pop derby, the Fixx seems to have a large following.
Varying little from the originals, the band's hits were played with precision, though its stage presentation was a bit uninteresting.
High points of the band's set were 'One Thing Leads to Another'. with the song's catchy guitar riff setting it apart from most of the other, moodier songs, such as the melancholy 'Reach the Beach'.
'Red Skies' and 'Stand or Fall' were played similarly to their re- corded versions, though 'Red Skies' was distinguished by Rupert Greenall's synthesizer blips.
Interestingly, the Animals scored most of their hits in the mid-'60s, before many of the people in the audience had been born. But the band's set was a far cry from the lackadaisical oldies shows that often result when bands reform.
Singer Eric Burden's authoritative growl, even deeper and more commanding with the passage of time, breathed life into the Animals' timeless classics and was equally impressive on the band's newer material.
Starting with 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood', the Animals were in excellent form. Burden's influence on a long list of singers, including Joe Cocker, John Cougar and Bruce Springsteen, was evident from this, and other, songs.
Not content to rest on their laurels, the band interspersed new material with the old. 'The Night' recaptured the band's trademark sense of desperation, while 'My Favourite Enemy' was characterized by its black humour.
'House of the Rising Sun' sounded as good and as fresh as it first did. Though it lacked some of its original anguish, Alan Price more than compensated for this with a great, cheesy organ solo.
The group played a great blues rave-up, 'Boom Boom', before closing with a string of hits.
'It's My Life', has a timeless message, as meaningful for the '80s audience as it was during the '60s.
'Don't Bring Me Down' has worn well and was proof of the Animals' faithfulness to their blues roots. The slow build-up to the refrain of 'We Gotta Get Out of This Place' made it a perfect set closer.
Not a nonchalant recitation of the band's hits, the Animals' energetic performance was on a par with the Kinks' recent, much-improved live shows.
Though a football stadium is not usually a good arena for a musical event, for a change the talent of the performers overcame the draw. backs of the setting.
(c) Tampa Tribune by Peter Fiskio
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