Zenyatta Mondatta: 1980/81

Police Pound A Powerful, Hypnotic Dance Beat...

After spending an evening listening to an endless string of "yoo-hoos" and "whoa-ahs" echoing and reverberating from the stage of the Bayfront Center Arena on Sunday night, it was easy to imagine I was somewhere in the Swiss Alps listening to some quirky yodellers hooting across mountaintops to one another.

But, no, it was The Police, a trio of energetic and talented musicians at work on stage. The band used lots of electronic effects and a thunderous, pounding rhythm to produce an evening of diverse and hypnotic music that had a good dancing beat.

The band appeared to be a lyric lightweight but the sounds it created couldn't be passed off as those of just another overrated rock band cashing in on its popularity with the party-down teens of America.

The main force in the band was vocalist/bassist Sting. His wailing, limited style was initially unimpressive, but as the evening progressed, this style seemed the proper complement to the electronic, jazz-rock-reggae rhythmic repetitiveness of The Police.

The band never gives a clue where it's coming from or going to musically. Reggae cross-rhythm beats opened many songs in the band's one-hour-plus set only to give way to jazz and, on a couple of occasions, even some trendy triple-time rock.

But it's just this diversity and the relentless, deafening beat that gradually grab the listener and make the music worthwhile.

Drummer Stewart Copeland provided some well- placed backbeats, straight out of Rolling Stones skin man Charlie Watts' bag of tricks, that cut through at times when Sting and guitarist Andy Summers let electronics get out of hand. The band was best when it was musically short and to the point.

Two songs were representative of the wide-open approach The Police took.

'Shadows in the Night' was a wandering, jazzy song that used plenty of echo and wafting electronic effects. If you have trouble sleeping at night, this song should do the trick. But the effect was sedating rather than boring.

The loud, choppy chords of 'Roxanne', one of the group's first radio hits, showed the powerhouse dimension of the band's sound. Here again, there's not much offered lyrically, but the endless rhythmic pounding grew so impressively in volume and strength that it was possible to feel physical effects from the throbbing bass notes. You can't just toss power like that aside without its registering somewhere in the ol' thinking cap.

These guys play at maximum decibel level. They rely heavily on pounding rhythmic repetition, and they seem partial to singing nonsense syllables.

But somehow this dire-sounding musical recipe usually works. It's meandering but precise. It's overdone, but it won't let you go. Anyway, what the heck? Just dance and have a good time.

Zenith Nadir opened the show with a good representation of its own brand of musical diversity. It was a smart choice as an opener for The Police because its style fell right into the musical mold of the headliner's there was no mold.

(c) The Tampa Tribune by Ames Arnold

The Police are on their way to arresting America's attention...

The Police, a marvellously entertaining trio from England, were tagged "new wave" a couple of years back because of their ragged, untamed pop sound. They became stars in England, Japan, Holland, Australia, even India, with such hit singles as 'Roxanne', 'Can't Stand Losing You' and 'Message in a Bottle'. In two years' time, The Police grew into one of the world's biggest recording acts, pop heroes everywhere except America.

Apparently, American disc jockeys looked at The Police's new-wave tag and lumped them with the Sex Pistols, the New York Dolls, and Elvis Costello as forgettable and unplayable.

Musicians depend upon radio airtime to gain fame and record sales. Without that airtime, no popular following forms. Though The Police are finishing a tour that has taken them to Egypt, Burma, Thailand, India, Hong Kong, Yugoslavia, and Mexico, they drew only about 3,500 to the Bayfront Center Arena Sunday night less than half the capacity. Many of those who did attend costumed themselves in a cross between Halloween and punk rockers: orange hair, green hair, blue hair, tattered clothes and safety pins. All of which had nothing to do with The Police's music, an indefinable blend of pop sounds.

The group's leader, a sandy-haired Englishman named Sting (real name: Gordon Sumner) plays bass guitar, sings all lead vocals, and writes the bulk of the band's material. Sting's songs deal with loneliness (Message in a Bottle); cosmic consciousness (Walking on the Moon); everyday situations (Don't Stand So Close to Me); and the grim topic of world hunger (Driven to Tears).

The current tour inspired much of the group's newest album, 'Zenyatta Mondatta', which provided many of the highlights Sunday night. 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da', the song that may actually provide them with their first hit in this country, was a big crowd pleaser, along with Zenyatta's centerpiece, 'When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best What's Still Around'. Although The Police present a strong live show, there were few spots in the cavernous Bayfront where it sounded anything but garbled.

What was audible was delightful. 'Message in a Bottle', unquestionably the band's finest song, was breathtaking, as was 'The Bed's Too Big Without You' and the mostly instrumental Death Wish. Drummer Stewart Copeland provided a solid backbeat to the guitars of Sting and Andy Summers.

The Police are too good to be ignored in America. Listen to 'Zenyatta' or the earlier 'Regatta de Blanc'; they prove that The Police are fun, brilliant and, most of all, undefinable.

(c) St. Petersburg Times by Bill DeYoung