Police put on powerful performance...
It's been quite a year for that little old band from England.
You know the one... the three-piece guitar-bass-drums outfit that first came to prominence a few years ago singing about a lady of the evening and now ranks among the most popular bands in the world.
Yes, the Police are indeed bad and worldwide, but that's where the similarity to that hard-rocking "little ol' band from Texas," ZZ Top, ends. Roxanne didn't hail from La Grange and the Police are like no other band currently making the arena-stadium concert rounds.
Here's a group that records thoughtful, introspective songs that sometimes are quite mellow, occasionally aren't danceable and quite often include strains of reggae, funk and an African beat mixed in with the rock. It's not exactly the standard formula for super-star success, but it has worked quite well for the unconventional Police.
Their current album, 'Synchronicity', has started its 17th straight week at No. 1 on Billboard's pop LP chart and there appears to be no stopping the enormous success of the three Policemen - bassist-lead vocalist Sting (Gordon Sumner), guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland.
They added another notch to their list of conquests Sunday in the first of a two-night stand at Reunion Arena where they delighted a crowd of 16,000- plus with a solid display of their musical prowess for 105 entertaining minutes.
The charismatic Sting was the undisputed group leader on stage. He grabbed the spotlight at the start of the show and held it the rest of the way in guiding the group through 20 numbers that included most of their hits, although 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' was conspicuously absent from the songlist.
Despite Sting's strong, dominating presence, though, the importance of the other two group members shouldn't be underestimated. The show benefited from the members' spontaneous three-way interplay. Summers especially would have to be a candidate for most valuable player honours because he really was the glue that held everything together with his dynamic guitar-playing.
Except for one number (Invisible Sun) when another guitarist appeared on stage, Summers was left with the task of recreating the Police's often-complex recorded sound almost single-handedly, and he did just that. Thanks to various electronic modifiers and other tricks of the trade on his guitar, Summers almost was a one-man band himself as he reproduced the group's mysterious, watery and dramatic music.
And Copeland, the lone American in the band who formed the Police in England some six years ago, also made his presence felt with a fierce attack on the drums. Three backup singers also helped recreate the recorded sound, especially on the chorus of 'Roxanne'.
With smoke filling the stage, the Police opened with three songs from the current album - 'Synchronicity I', 'Synchronicity II' and 'Walking In Your Footsteps' - before dipping back into the past for an early hit, 'Message In A Bottle'.
Sting (who earned his nickname from an old habit of wearing black and yellow striped sweaters) played a standup bass on 'Walking On The Moon' and switched to keyboards for 'Invisible Sun'. Both Summers and Sting did some spirited dancing on 'One World (Not Three)' and, in the surprise department, they threw in a few verses of Ray Charles' 'Hit The Road Jack' and the standard 'Home On The Range' during the course of the evening.
The hit singles 'King Of Pain', 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' and 'Every Breath You Take' helped lead into the set-closing Roxanne, which was followed by two different encores - 'I Can't Stand Losing You' and 'So Lonely'.
English reggae band UB40 opened for the Police with a 50-minute set that featured its remake of Neil Diamond's 'Red Red Wine', which recently was a No. 1 single in England.
(c) The Fort Worth Star Telegram by Roger Kaye
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