After only two songs into the Police’s debut Vancouver B.C. concert of their reunion tour, Sting was feeling comfortable enough around his old fellow band members to joke around. He laughed that they hadn’t played together for twenty five years, and he wanted to introduce their band. Not that any introduction would be needed for the summer’s most highly anticipated rock tour, a tour that reunites Sting with Andy Summers, guitarist, and Stewart Copeland, drummer. Sting said, smiling, Andy meet Stewart, to the 64 year old Andy Summers. Unlike the last tour for the Police in 1983 rife with inter-band tensions, Sting’s quip brought smiles to everyone’s faces.
Except for the performance at their induction into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame, the band had not played an official, entire Police concert since their Synchroncity tour. However from their ramped-up opening of “Message in the Bottle,” it was easy to imagine that they had never broken up. Sting, perhaps befitting for the reunion, wore a holey ancient white t-shirt that looked like he had had it since the 1980s, showing off his well tone abs. Copeland sported a headband, and Summers looked the part of the professional jazz musician in his slacks and shirt.
The hallmark that always made the Police successful was their professional musicianship. It was evident once again as they were able to give new life to their well-known hits. They removed Roxanne’s reggae-lilt and replaced it with a jazzier, slower tempo. They were comfortable enough re-imagining their well-known catalog, which proved them to be confident, seasoned veterans. It wasn’t exactly like it was “the Police Unplugged,” however the frantic punky edge of some of their early hits such as “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and “Can’t Stand Losing You” was swapped out to provide more room for the improvisations of Copeland and the guitar solos of Summers done in Wes Montgomery style. Extending the songs also provided Sting with the space for widening the choruses out. He turned the song “Roxanne” into a form of call-and-response with members of the audience, which was something reminiscent of Van Morrison’s repertoire. When Sting sang the song “The Bed’s Too Big Without You,” he sounded like he really meant it, even though his wife was sitting rather obvious in the eighth row’s center.
The most successful reinterpretation was the re-imagination of the hit “Wrapped Around Your Finger.” It was turned into a plaintive, haunted ballad that the solo catalog of Sting is best known for. Only hits from the Police repertoire were included and new and solo material was skipped, although the night had more of a celebratory feel than a nostalgic one.
The Police always were quite the populist band. That’s exactly why their fans, which included Penelope Cruz and Eddie Vedder, had coveted tickets so much for the tour’s debut concert. Some of the inter-band tension that had propelled some of the early tours of the Police, when the internal implosion of the band was happening and Copeland had swear words written on his drums, appeared to be absent during a set both predictable and generous. When the Police did their encores with “Every Breath You Take,” and “King of Pain,” along with “Next to You” as their finale , the familiar yet resurrected hit songs were delivered with the conviction that had made the Police originally such a sincere rock band we could all love without any guilt.
