Police concert review
 

I just got back from the Police Concert in Oakland. A good but not great show. It was certainly very loud. They were not exactly exciting but they were steady. A few minor errors here and there and Andy Summers looked like he was constantly afraid of making a mistake, but he was alright. Gordon Summers (what grown man calls himself 'Sting?') was in fine vocal form. I was actually surprised, he sounded pretty good and the few places where he avoided high notes (e.g. chorus of Roxanne) might have been because he chose to instead of because he had to. Copeland was pretty good on the drums. One thing that bothered me is that they were either using tape loops (for example, backing vocals, congas that could not be seen) or they had musicians off stage. My guess is the former. I think they should either avoid this or bring in musicians to do it live and show them on stage.

They played all the favorites, did not do anything from Sting's solo career (not that I recall) and played for just over 2 hours. all in all not a bad way to spend a weekday evening. As a bonus, it was a beautiful night by the Bay.

I wish they'd come to SLC.

It doesn't surprise me that they were loud. They rival Ted Nugent and The Cars for the loudest concerts I've ever attended.

They may not be what they used to be, but know that I'm jealous and don't like you right now. ;)

Creek, honey, they weren't loud, you're just old.

No, I just say that because I'm rather jealous. That's just not fair. Did they play Da doo doo doo? I'd love to hear a 55-year-old guy singing that one.

I heard Hillary wants to use "Every little thing she does is magic" as her campaign song. Ick.

I've heard U2 "Beautiful Day" is also among her finalists. Which doesn't even make sense...don't the lyrics say "what you don't have you don't need it now"? That's the opposite of Democrats, right? With Democrats it's "what you don't have we'll get it for you and have Archaea pay for it." I think that's right.

No, it makes sense. The theme of Beautiful Day is to enjoy life though horrible things are happening around you.

On balance I think htey were a lot closer to what they used to be than I expected. One think that impressed me was that they never changed instruments for the show. A lot of their stuff is in unusual or difficult keys. Many artists, esepciallyt as they age, will change guitars, use 5 strings, drop and open tunings of various types or use capos to make it easier to play in the various keys. Not here. Andy played one guitar for two hours and that was actually pretty cool. THey were better than I expected.

I considered whether to mention the loud part knowing that some-BG-one would probabyl make a crack about my age. But, true is true and they were loud. Thanks to Il Pad for supporting the probabuility it was more than my age.

They did sing Da doo doo doo and it seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, although I thought the song about the dinosaur (walking in your footstpes or whatever it is called) didn't come off quite as well.

We love you, Babs, but you have this nasty habit of continuously reminding us of how old we are. What's your point?

sorry. will stop.

Ignore Lebowski, old guys are just crabby in the morning.

My wife tells me that I need to have my bubbkle burst periodically to avoid becoming too arrogant and age is a sure way to do it. Plus, truth be told, I really did wonder if they were that loud or if I had just gotten old. I kept thinking "If I was running the sound board I would turn that down about 10%" and then realized this is exactly what I always want to do to my kids' music and so, maybe, it is just me getting old.

No worries. Actually, I was hoping to bait you into another jab by setting you up like that. But I suppose that after that Lavell gaffe yesterday, you must be a little gunshy.