My wife and I went down to Giants Stadium this past Sunday to check out The Police on their very famous reunion tour.
The Police were huge when I was in high school. And I actually saw them play one of their last shows ever in the summer of 1986 at Giants Stadium. It was the Amnesty International concert that had a killer bill including U2, Santana, Peter Gabriel and Bryan Adams. They only played a handful of songs at that show but I was definitely impressed an became more of a fan after seeing them live.
Fast forward 21 years. It just so happens that I've married a huge fan of the band. So when we saw The Police perform at the Live Earth concerts I decided to try my hand at getting couple of tickets. Thankfully Ticketmaster had tickets available in section 333 which was billed as side stage seating with a limited view at the price of $95 each.
Juliet and I spent the weeks prior to the show playing all four CDs of their official box set. It got me into some of the less popular tracks and helped give me a greater appreciation for some of the unconventional stuff that The Police play.
The weather for the show was great. Temps in the low 80s and a nice breeze. Thank heavens because my friends at the Virgin Festival in Maryland were getting rained on.
Our seats were high up but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the view was not limited at all. We were right on the side of the stage. Check the pics to see for yourself.
A group called Fiction Plane opened up at 6:30PM sharp. A three piece band with the bass player as the singer. Hmmmm, sound familiar? They had a very nice sound. Rock with a jazz bend. You could hear U2 and Coldplay in their music. You could also hear The Police.
Towards the end of the set my wife spied Sting with her binoculars. He was in a stairway on the side of the stage stretching and getting into the music. Later I did some research and saw that the lead singer of Fiction Plane is Sting's son Joe Sumner. The resemblance between father and son is pretty striking and I even commented early in the set that he looked like Sting Jr.
After Fiction Plane another band got their shot to wow the growing crowd. The Fratellis are a three piece from Scotland. They are best described as The Proclaimers meet AC/DC. They had lots of energy with the feel of a bar band. They're probably not destined for major success but I could see them having a strong career with a tight fan base.
Everyone was waiting for The Police and thankfully we didn't have to wait too long. The band finally took the stage at 8:25PM and kicked off with Message In A Bottle. We could see everything. Stewart Copeland's drum kit was just far enough forward that we had him completely in view. We only lost him for parts of a couple of songs when he went behind his kit to play a variety of percussion instruments. The large video screens on the side of the stage helped out at well. So much for the "limited view" seating. We were closer to the action than at least half the people in the building.
The second song in the set was Synchronicity II. This is my favorite song by The Police. There's just something about it. It sounded great to me. The crowd was very into it. I actually took a clip of the start of the song with my phone.
A lot of blogs are posting the entire set list so I won't bother with that here. The band sounded great and played just about all of their big hits and a smattering of their more obscure material. I know that Sting flubbed a lyric on at least one song. And Sting's voice is definitely not what it used to be. He was avoiding the high notes wherever possible. Happens to the best of them though. The crowd provided lots of support especially with the "ay-ohhs" that Sting so often inserts into songs.
Stewart Copeland hit the hell out of his drum kit. The energy and excitement is obviously still there for him. Here's a 55 year old guy jumping from his kit to his percussion rig and back with the dexterity of a 25 year old. Andy Summers got a couple of nice chances to solo during the show. Man, what chops this guy has.The guy plays the most intricate riffs of any mainstream "rock star" guitarist. And I love some of the industrial bent to his solos like the scratchy one on Synchronicity II.
The band took a pair of encores, coming back to play King Of Pain, So Lonely and Every Breath You Take the first time then charging back on stage at the last minute to play Next To You. The concert finished at 10:30PM on the dot.
The show was very satisfying. We got to hear the hits. We got some sing-alongs and some cool jamming. Two hours was just right. I'm even thinking about trying to score a pair of tickets to the Garden gig at the end of October.
