Not A Fair Cop
Last week we went to see the reformed Police in Croke park. This was one that we had all been looking forward to. The Coff, as a drummer, has been a fan of Stewart Copeland since he was a young lad and I had just finished reading the rather fine
"One Train Later" by Andy Summers, it's a great read and the best book I've ever read about the joy of learning how to play an instrument. Taking all this into account, it's very sad to relate that the concert was a huge let down. The pacing was all wrong, a lot of the songs seemed to be taken at a canter rather than a sprint and Sting (what the hell happened to Sting after the Police broke up?) didn't seem that bothered. In fact, Copeland and Summers both played very well but were let down by Mr. Consciousness. Of all the concerts we went to this year, the weather was the best we got and the stadium is fantastic but it just didn't make it. If I could compare it to the U2 shows in the same venue a couple of years ago, when they set the stadium on fire, it really came up short.
2 comments:
I never really 'got' the Police. For every half-decent track, there were half a dozen really awful/throwaway tracks. I know that Copeland/Summers insisted on a degree of democracy in the song inclusion stakes, but that meant the quality control was very shabby. And the cod reggae was only one step up from Dreadlock Holiday in its awfulness. And the decent tracks were just that - not a bona-fide classic amongst them. Every Breath you Take - nice tune and mood, but the '...ake' rhyming scheme really grates after a while. And the only other half-decent song they did, they decided to trash by doing a '86 remix that stripped out everything that was good about the song in the first place!
Rant over.
Similar reaction felt here for their show in Denver earlier in the year. Looked forward to this gig for a long time and with a ticket price of 250 squids thought I was in for a momentous once in a lifetime evening. Not the case. The Sting was way to busy admiring himself and checking out his “meditation-table” not to mention keeping his distance from Summers, whereby both stood at the complete opposite ends of the stage for the entire show. Summers looked like he needed to go back to guitar school or at least figure out how to stay in time with the others. Copeland, well he made up for it, true brilliance on the drums and playing all the bits and bobs of instruments around him, and a very proudly wearing his bandana and tracksuit bottoms - a true "Rock Star Drummer". Needless to say ONE hour and fifteen minutes, yes 1hr 15min later they were done, encore and all. A lot of pissed off fans. I even have a friend that went the following night for their second Denver show hoping to hear many of the classics that were left out the night before – they played the exact same set (500 bucks later – ouch!). As we all know, and to be expected, they only did this for the money.
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