Musical nostalgia knows no boundaries, but cashing in on past magic doesn’t obligate its rediscovery. That unsettling backdrop awaited a pair of potentially iconic performances over the weekend at the Grand Garden Arena—a reunion by perhaps the 1980s’ most beloved former band and a re-enactment of perhaps the 1970s’ most revered album.
First up: The Police, playing show No. 9 of the hit-spewing British trio’s first tour in 23 years. A sold-out crowd necessitating the commission of steel-girdered behind-stage seating confirmed the drawing power of the unlikely reconciliation, but the principals—vocalist/bassist Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland—had surprising difficulty measuring up to past glories and maintaining a consistent connection with those 15,000 primed spectators.
In part, that could have been a result of ticket prices that ran $75 to $250, hardly a prescription for a virile, rocking audience. A somewhat sleepy performance also played a role, however, keeping sections of fans in their seats even as some of the group’s better-known numbers were being rendered.
When The Police stayed tight, it couldn’t have felt more right. The three men demonstrated little personal chemistry—Sting implored the headbanded Copeland to get serious on a couple of occasions and, later, Summers appeared annoyed when Sting attempted to pal around during the diminutive guitarist’s “So Lonely” solo—but spot-on opener “Message in a Bottle” and late-set highlight “Can’t Stand Losing You” (complete with call-and-response “Reggatta de Blanc” chant) hardly suggested the threesome’s musical kinship had taken two decades off. Best of all, Sting was in exceptionally robust voice, seemingly the key element for a successful modern Police outing.
Still, too much of the two-hour affair felt marred, by clumsy transitions, sluggish passages and awkward rearrangements, to consider it a triumph. A jazzy new middle stretch boosted “Walking on the Moon” beyond its original version, but that was an exception, with reworkings of other classic material coming off slow (“Truth Hits Everybody”), circuitous (“Roxanne”) or downright atrocious (“Don’t Stand So Close to Me”). Additionally, logistics hampered the unassisted trio, namely the lack of piano for “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” or satisfactory harmonies for “Spirits in the Material World.”
Roger Waters, who very nearly filled the same room (minus the behind-stage annex) one night later, also arrived minus a significant accessory: his legendary ex-band. Anyone doubting whether Pink Floyd’s one-time ringleader could pull off a straight-through reading of 1973’s monolithic The Dark Side of the Moon (along with another set and encore packed with additional oldies) without his old mates, however, instead left doubting whether a fully reunited Floyd could have somehow eclipsed Waters’ masterful, 2 1/2-hour effort.
Relevancy, not mere remembrance, was the order of business, as fans who arrived giddy to hear “Time” and “Money” stayed on their feet and applauded as Waters reminded them that the themes of his past songwriting—militarism, terror, tyranny, suppression—sadly still apply today, driving his point home with uncompromising imagery during weighty renditions of “The Fletcher Memorial Home,” “Perfect Sense,” “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” and, especially, a gut-wrenching “Bring the Boys Back Home.” Even a new tune, that longtime adversary of concert momentum, maintained energy, with Waters smartly splashing the lyrics to “Leaving Beirut” across his screen, ensuring all 13,500 souls in attendance grasped his every word: “Oh George! Oh George! That Texas education must have f--ked you up when you were very small.”
The show wasn’t only about message, of course; musicianship also mattered. Waters and his crack 10-piece backing ensemble ripped up a well-chosen slate of Floyd favorites, from 1968’s trippy “Set the Controls to the Heart of the Sun” to 1977’s balloon-pig-assisted “Sheep.” Dave Kilminster and Terence “Snowy” White made it shockingly easy not to yearn for David Gilmour’s guitar, and several members of the group took turns at the mic when the silver-haired Waters wasn’t delivering his own emotive vocals.
The quadrophonically administered Dark Side threatened to shake ribs from spinal columns—heartbeats, clock chimes, jangling coins and maniacal laughter raining down from seemingly every crevice. “On the Run” featured a barrage of psychedelic imagery; Carol Kenyon nailed the hallowed vocal to “The Great Gig in the Sky”; and Ian Ritchie’s sax work on “Us and Them” bowed more than a few heads in reverence. Too bad The Police weren’t still in the building to take pointers.
Photographs by Richard Brian