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August 1, 2007
The Police in Hartford
For a concert tour more than two decades in the making, there seemed to be a lack of electricity attached to the show by The Police Tuesday night at Rentschler Field in West Hartford.
The set list was solid, the musicianship was as good as it ever was and Sting’s vocals sounded fine. In fact, it was a very good concert and the crowd of about 30,000 seemed pleased. Still, there was a missing intangible, a spark that was lacking, that kept the show from being labeled a great concert.
It would have been foolish to head into the stadium expecting the trio of bassist-singer Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland to bring the energy they possessed on their last tour, which ended in early 1984. Maybe the excitement captured on the “Synchronicity Concert” video from that final tour is too ingrained in my memory for me to accept the rather stationary, and decidedly middle-aged, men on stage before me Tuesday.
And it’s also quite possible that the return of The Police doesn’t measure up to other much-hyped reunions. The band only released five albums in its six years together and broke up right after achieving its greatest success with the album Synchronicity.
Of the three, only Sting has found solo success, but that, too, has been flickering. When last we saw him, he was further confusing fans by singing Elizabethan-era songs to the accompaniment of a lute player. If any good comes out of this tour, hopefully it will be that Sting remembers his rock roots are decades old, not centuries.
The set lists on this Police tour have been pretty constant, with a song substituted here and there, but there is nothing wrong with the group’s choice of material. Some fans might have had a personal favorite left out, but the 20 tunes selected give a very good overview of the band’s career in the 105-minute concert.
Fans of early Police walked away happy as five songs were included from the debut album of 1978, Outlandos d’Amour, with the main portion of the concert ending with the group’s first worldwide smash, “Roxanne,” and the encores closing with “Next to You.”
The Police also performed five songs apiece from Synchronicity and 1980’s Zenyatta Mondatta, with some attention going to 1979’s Regatta de Blanc (3 songs) and 1981’s Ghost in the Machine (2).
Pre-tour talk of radical re-workings of classic Police cuts turned out to be just that – talk. The songs were done mostly as originally arranged, maybe a shade slower. “Wrapped Around Your Finger” seemed the most revamped to me and the differences were, again, basically negligible.
Only one song from the group’s greatest hits album was missing and that was “Spirits in the Material World” off Ghost in the Machine, a minor hit. That’s the beauty of seeing a band on a reunion tour (or a greatest-hits tour), you know the bulk of the show is going to be comprised of the best that act has to offer.
And so it was Tuesday night as the Rentschler Field crowd got the best of The Police. It may not have been the 1984 Police, but it was still good. Just not great.
FOR OPENERS: Fiction Plane, a trio led by Sting’s son, Joseph Sumner, 30, opened the show and was a bit of a disappointment. The group started off OK with a solid power-pop song, but seemed to lose its way in the course of its eight-song set. Fiction Plane never seemed to grab an identity, with sounds varying from new wave to prog-rock to classic power-trio rock, often in the same song. Not awful, but d finding a the band probably would benefit from narrowing its focus and finding its definitive sound.
The set list
Message in a Bottle/Synchronicity II/Walking on the Moon/Voices Inside My Head/When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around/Don’t Stand So Close to Me/Driven to Tears/Truth Hits Everybody/The Bed’s Too Big Without You/Every Little Thing She Does is Magic/Wrapped Around Your Finger/De Do Do Do De Da Da Da/Invisible Sun/Walking in Your Footsteps/Can’t Stand Losing You/Roxanne
Encores: King of Pain/So Lonely/Every Breath You Take/Next to You
Posted by Sean on August 1, 2007 3:59 AM
Comments
I think part of the reason the crowd at the show was missing a little spark was due to the horrendous traffic trying to get into Rentschler Field. If that wasn't bad enough, once you managed to work your way through the maze and park your car (and pay $15 for the experience on top of almost $100 each for tickets to the show), you then had to walk the long way around the track only to have to wait for a break in traffic to cross a road to get to the gates. We totally missed the warm-up act (thanks for letting me know we didn't really miss much) but barely made it to our seats before the main act started. The whole mess played in reverse on the way out. You would think the State could have put a little more effort into planning how to handle traffic better for a 30,000 seat arena.
Posted by: Chuck at August 1, 2007 5:01 PM
