'The Police' too cool for comfort...
What was missing from the book of tricks that The Police threw at the giant crowd that packed Le Centre Sportif of University of Montreal for their concert here on Wednesday night?
It was most certainly not technical brilliance. This three-man British band has developed a reputation for style and ease of execution that is the envy of the rock world, and they lived up to that reputation on Wednesday.
With a highly sophisticated sound system that literally muscled the bulky acoustics of the sports centre into submission, The Police hammered out a 65-minute non-stop show that displayed their curious blend of white pop music and reggae in the best possible light.
Led by blonde bassist and lead singer Gordon "Sting" Summer, and admirably assisted by blonde guitarist Andy Summers and blonde drummer Stewart Copeland, The Police parlayed their set into a textbook exercise on the merits of mixing image and talent.
This band is cool, you understand, and not cool simply because most of their music is of the vaguely distant, vaguely hypnotic school of homogenized white reggae.
No, their coolness is of the calculated variety, and it's this sense of premeditation that prevented their show from being the total success they had so obviously planned it to be.
Everything went according to plan. The Police played all the hits from a brief but brilliantly orchestrated career that has thrust this band into the forefront of world-wide pop in less than three years, and they played them very well.
Stewart Copeland is the most consistently inventive, rock-steady drummer in rock today, Summers makes creative use of a bundle of electronic sound-shapers that are wired to his guitar, and Sting's strong vocals, full bass lines and personal magnetism completes an overall image that is a packaging executive's dream come true.
Yet the whole thing felt curiously off-centre, as if too much organization had put out the spark that is essential to any cathartic rock 'n' roll experience. When all was said and done, and it was done far too quickly for an audience that had paid scalpers as much as $50 a ticket, The Police came off as just another band, albeit a highly intelligent one, that took the money and ran.
(c) Montreal Gazette by John Griffin
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