The Police, Or Busting the Surprise With That Pesky 'Ol Series of Tubes

PRACTICE MAKES perfect. We've all heard that since we were in short pants. But recently, this wonderful series of tubes has been getting me twitterpated.

What if all the info floating around out there just makes things worse?

I muse on this (I can't help it, staying in a hotel makes me all muse-y) largely because of the events of the last few days. It's got a screenwriting application -- but it'll take a few 'graphs to get there, m'kay?

So, Sunday night I went to see the fan club show for THE POLICE at GM Place in Vancouver. It's billed as the first time the band has played together for 25 years, even though that's stretching the truth a bit. Somewhere on a dusty VHS tape I still have a recording of the set they did at the Amnesty International show back in 1986. But that's probably too Poindexter-y a point to make.

Moving on...

GM place was fun and kind of eerie looking. They had only sold some of the floor and some of the stands -- 4000 total, so the entire show was dwarfed by a maw of empty seats staring down at you.

It started low key, with the three band members coming out and saying 'hi' and 'thanks for coming to our final dress rehearsal.'

They explained that there probably would be mistakes, and that they might even have to stop and start a bit as the night wore on. Then they went backstage, and a few minutes later the lights went down and they ripped into "Message in a Bottle."

It was great to see them. I had an ear-to-ear grin on my face most of the show. I had great seats, dead center floors, about fifteen rows back.

The set is stripped down, minimal...most of the effects are limited to lighting and live projection above -- one screen for each member.

They walked through the set and there were glitches, but none that could make them stop. Stewart Copleand in particular showed a rangy, puckish energy that really make you believe that he's been dying to be able to play these songs again, this way, for a very long time. He bounced around from giant gong to percussion (put to its best use on "Wrapped Around Your Finger" and "King of Pain,") and hit the drums hard. That's the thing the fifteen year old me always loved about Copeland..he beat the shit out of those drums. When that hormonal anger crested, somehow watching him do that helped.

Andy Summers scowled his way through the whole performance. He kept bringing the guitar tech on -- he obviously wasn't happy with the way the guitar sounded. And to be fair, it was pretty low in the mix. You also read a lot into these situations, and part of me thought, "wow, Summers really has the hardest job here..." remembering all those solos and whatnot.

Which is entirely separate from my realization that drummers are to rock and roll what writers are to film and tv. Sure we don't get respect, but take us away, buddy. See how you fuckin do then.

Sting, for his part, seemed loose through the first part of the set. He wasn't pushing his voice, so a lot of the old Police material that was sung in that high falsetto -- well, for the 2007 version you would just have to get used to the 56 year old, down octave version. But he also experimented with singing ahead of the beat, and giving the songs a more jazz-inflected feel.

A few of the songs seemed to be played a bit slower than you wanted. Especially "Truth Hits Everybody", which I remember flailing around to in my basement bedroom more times than I care to recount, back in the day. Yes, his guns were buff. But this is not a band of 25 year olds anymore. Copeland's youthful face, set against his completely gray hair (good for him for keeping it) was an often potent reminder of just how much time has passed. As was the projected images of Iraqi devestation combined with imagery of playing children during "Invisible Sun." I had to reach back to remember that this song was originally written about Northern Ireland. Now Eire is at peace, mostly. And the song takes on new meaning. Plus ca change...

Anyway, by the second half of the concert, things had kicked into a different gear. Copeland's energy became infectious. Summers cracked something that could forensically be described as a smile. By the time they finished up, they seemed satisfied, and relieved, and ready.

Time was that would be it. We would wait and wait for the news reports on the first concert. But that was before the series of tubes, you see. I got on the tubes briefly Sunday night and saw that there was a lot of carping and disappointment. Sting was singing too much like his jazz days, the band was sloppy, etc, etc.

Flash ahead to last night.

The lights went down to the sound of "Get Up, Stand Up," and a few moments later, there they were, kicking into "Message in a Bottle."

Except...

Holy SHIT. The song was faster, the bass more muscular. Stewart still beat those skins like a red headed stepchild, and Andy actually cracked a smile. Maybe because his guitar sounded good.

The set list was exactly the same...but the show was completely different...there was nothing eerie about GM Place now. The din was deafening, the band was louder. And the songs that had seemed slow now found their tempo. Sting lay aside the jazz phrasing and accepted the mantle of rock singer ...maybe the falsetto was gone but that doesn't mean he didn't hit the high notes. The bass chugged along in the mix, and songs like "Don't Stand So Close To Me" reached for what I thought was a nice blend of time gone by..the chorus had notes of the '86 remake, but the verse was pure Zenyatta Mondata.

People ate it up. They tore through everything...the songs that clicked the night before were even better. And even the mistakes were fun. Sting, setting up the call and response for "Walking on the Moon" started in a key so bizarre that the incredulous expression on Copeland's face said it all. But they got past it. They got past it all. This band, who seemed to be forever defined as the band who didn't seem able to get past anything. One after another, like a freight train, they delivered the goods on some of the tightest, smartest, most muscular pop of the 1970's and 80's -- from the era when Pop was smart.

By the way, Sting, I never did thank you for Nabokov, The Sheltering Sky, and Jung.

All in all, the two shows were like night and day. Because, of course, they were night and day. One was a rehearsal. (Yes, they charged for the tickets, but at $50 instead of $250 a pop,

I wonder if in our desire to lift the curtain in entertainment -- not just the gossip sites, but the ET insiders, and the Aint It Cool Previews and reviews of early drafts, and forensic pick-aparts of test screenings and trailers; the endless machinations of trying to divine spoilers for TV shows by their upcoming guest stars and TV loglines -- have we turned into a bunch of people ripping the paper off the presents before Christmas morning?

And what happens to we who actually, you know, need to work some stuff out before we push our little darlings out into the world to be judged? What happens when we don't have the cover to do that anymore?

Can anything live up to scrutiny before it's truly on its feet? Time was, your Chicago or Toronto tryout would proceed in the shadows, giving you the freedom to work things out, to tinker, to make things better. Now, you've got negative reaction the moment you do your very first, pre-pre-preview. And I'm worried that it's not making anything better. I think it may be making people less willing to test. Which would be disastrous, because the last thing we need is more first drafts out there.

Also, the minute we spend more time trying to keep things from getting out, rather than make things good -- something's lost. Take Battlestar Galactica. The way they managed leaks of Starbuck's fate and the shocking reveal in order to protect the true ending of the season - well that was a post internet, 2007 style P.R. masterstroke. But at the end of the day, don't you think that time might have been better spent if Ron Moore and co. could have just taken more time to make the show?

In the end, all the pre-hype over SNAKES ON A PLANE couldn't make it a crossover hit.

I think of the movies I saw when I was first into The Police, like the one I went to see at a sneak preview with my Dad back in 1981. It ran one Saturday night two weeks before it opened, and from the opening frame, this thing, this thing I had never heard a word about -- with a guy with a hat running from arrows and afraid of snakes and fighting guys with a bullwhip...

..I mean, I went insane. I spent two weeks babbling about this show that no one had seen yet, and got to say, "just you wait, just you wait..."

So there, the impulse to be the first to weigh in, it was there, even then. It's just that the lack of info everywhere made it easier for things to be a surprise.

I miss surprises. Don't you? Truth?

After all...Truth Hits Everybody, y'know.

(And there's no names on the photos, but you can see a whole selection of Vancouver Police photos on Flickr .)