The Police were Arresting
A Fenway Reunion for Roxanne and Co
By: Mark Favermann - Aug 03, 2007
The older guys sometimes make it feel just right. Last Saturday and Sunday nights, the now major music venue of Boston's Fenway Park was the location for the reunion of The Police who broke up over personal and professional reasons almost a quarter of a century ago. These concerts were not just nostalgic singalongs, but were serious exercises in musicianship and later in life professional growth by a legendary trio.
Beginning with A Message in a Bottle, Sting improvised and took vocal liberties: creatively stretching, bending, modulating, shortening and lengthening notes, lyrics and fresh sounds to old songs. His sidemen, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland mirrored him in musicianship and musicality.
Though clearly physically not the edgy youthful threesome of 25 years ago, The Police were arresting on many levels. They took their musical catalog of oldies but goodies and added strength, a bit of genius and maturity to them. There was a wiry, self-referential stretching to their sound.
While a few songs were down and dirty almost bluesy in their performance like Don't Stand So Close and Voices Inside My Head, others were hard beating, slamming reworks of some of their oldies like When the World is Running Down. And this is all without a keyboard!
Sting was in high gear, vocally hyper-focused while nodding to his former punk self wearing a premeditated holey white T-shirt and black pegged pants stuffed into his combat boots. Andy Summers, a true guitar virtuoso, spun and crafted a web of textured and highly sophisticated riffs and melodies while dandy drummer Stewart Copeland demonstrated more aspects of percussion than the Boston Symphony at full throttle.
Reggae-infused, pop and punk inspired as well as strategically infused with New Wave heritage, they were brash, yet melodically cool. But, these were not your Rolling Stones or even Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band. They were three clearly middle-aged pros riffing the night away.
Expanding The Bed's Too Big Without You magnificently Copeland's drummer genius and built until Driven to Tears showcased the trio's artistic chemistry. His Wrapped Around Your Finger was transnational and even exotic percussion at its best.
Copeland's multiple rhythms and Summer's chord complexities along with Sting's lyrical vocals at times were a blended harmony, but also sounded like three solo performers just individually playing their hearts out. Some in the audience loved the former, while others appreciated the latter. More than a few like me loved both.
Technically, the show was elegantly visually spectacular. Visually the various elements including video screens, LEDs, projections, lighting and smoke surrounding the three musicians were less electrifying than cool. Here was taste over thrills. It was like visiting a space where the owners had impeccable taste rather than trendy art.
Abstract graphics that made references to a wide range of visual artists visually mirrored the music and intertwined with the best large format video screens that I have ever seen. No cheap theatrical tricks here, just professional highly controlled but quite state of the art visual pyrotechnics. It was very tasty minimalism.
Bits of musical technical magic drifted through renditions of Invisible Sun and the encore King of Pain where Sting was allowed to vocally mix and harmonize with a secondary vocal. Giving a nod to Sting's ecological/environmental passions, some wild animal noises introduced his Walking in Your Footsteps.
And of course, there was their anthem, Roxanne with her red light on. De Do Do Do , De Da Da Da was audience participatory as well, and both seemed to just end, if not a little tired, but by softly floating away.
Yet, when the three got it rocking, it was truly great musical moments. Sting's vocals were vibrant, Copeland's beat was pulsating and even sensitive and Andy Summer's rocked the night away. Unlike the times with Stones and Bruce who were occasionally artificially hot, this was a cool event.
I was warned not to get to the concert too early. Sting's son Joe Summer, is the frontman and the bass player for the disappointingly mediocre opening act, Fiction Plane. It sounded more like a garage band on watered-down steroids than an emerging serious pop act. Unfortunately, young Joe and the trio give nepotism a bad name. So much for rock and role dynasties.
The ticket prices were high: $95 was around the average ticket while. $250 was the top end with even more costly packages that included meet and greets and other goodies. Like college tuition prices and baseball tickets, rock and roll revival tickets seem to go up and up. Unfortunately, there were not many scholarships offered.
After three or four songs into the concert, Sting said a few words to the crowd. He thanked the City of Boston for the group getting their start here. He mentioned that WBCN, during the 70's, the edgy Rock radio station played their first record ever, and that they played at the Rat (Ratheskeller) in Kenmore Square, The Paradise and The Orpheum. He went on to say that he was only a schoolteacher before, but then things changed. Along with Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland are still teaching us.
To mix metaphors of rock and roll and baseball, this was a Hall of Fame performance during Hall of Fame week-end at Fenway.
Book 'em, Dano!