By Oliver Tuercke
It was 1983 the last time The Police played a concert in London town; right when they were the most popular rock’n’roll band in the world. With two sold-out concerts at Twickenham on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th September 2007, the trio around Sting demonstrated impressively that they haven’t lost any of their popularity.
Sting (bass & vocals), Stewart Copeland (drums) and Andy Summer (guitar) presented their famous punky, reggae-loaded pop/rock playing all their big tunes. And that was right what the audience was asking for. When the musicians opened with their classic Message In A Bottle, there were 55,000 fans singing the chorus back. From there, the concert became a hit parade of Police songs including 'Walking On The Moon', 'Don’t Stand So Close To Me', 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic', 'Can’t Stand Losing You', 'So Lonely', 'Roxanne' and 'Every Breath You Take'. Just hit after hit after hit.
Bass-player Sting and drummer Copeland kept a magic groove throughout the whole two-hour concert. Sting’s vocals were powerful yet clear and Copeland almost showed off behind the drums playing polyrhythmic beats always right on the spot. Guitarist Summer did a fantastic job when it came to the melodies and guitar-riffs within the songs, however, every time the band created spaces for instrumental trips breaking up the standard song, it felt that Summer couldn’t quite keep up with Sting’s and Copeland’s brilliance at their instruments. Summer’s solo performance became almost embarrassing as he hit the wrong notes just a little bit too often– unfortunately not those wrong notes that sound so good in jazz. But that might have been something that only the trained musician’s ears might have heard or, perhaps, hurt.
Overall, the concert was an experience not to miss. For all of you that were not amongst the 110,000 fans in Twickenham: The Police will be back in town soon. This time in the new Wembley arena on 20th October.
Rating: 8 out of 10
David Jensen Photography:
https://www.davidjensen.co.uk/
