July 27th, 2007Police Reunited : rockers ready to burn
Which is in itself surprising. After all, the 64-year-old guitarist for the Police is a well-traveled rocker. He gigged with psychedelic pioneers Soft Machine in the ’60s. He spent a decade in the Police rocking arenas and stadiums and making platinum records. He even played Carnegie Hall as a solo artist.
But the mad fervor surrounding the Police’s reunion tour - which makes a two-night stop at a sold-out Fenway Park on Saturday and Sunday - is unlike anything he’s ever experienced.
“Everything is so different from when we were carting our own equipment into little clubs,” Summers said moments after rising at the crack of noon from his bed in a Dallas hotel. “It’s even different from our last big tour in the 1980s. The whole music industry has developed so far beyond where it was when we started. Now somebody dresses me! And there are all these wardrobe details and hair and makeup. And someone putting the guitar on me and ear monitors and wires taped to my neck and down my shirt and into the thing at my side. Then after all that we’re walked out to the stage.”
The guitarist isn’t complaining, but after 20 years away from the spotlight his return to the world of big-time rock ’n’ roll was more nerve-racking than expected.
TOP “Police” Songs :
Fuck The Police (Sodom, Til Death Do Us Unite, 1997) Fuck The Police (Sodom, One Night In Bangkok (Cd2), 2003) Police Truck (Nailbomb, Proud Commit Comercial Suicide, 1995) Policestate (Frackville Police Squad Mix) (Birmingham 6, To Protect and To Serve, 1996) Policestate (Barbaque As The Goa Police Squad Mix) (Birmingham 6, To Protect and To Serve, 1996) Police Bastard (Doom, Police Bastard, 1990) Police Bastard (Doom, Doomed From The Start - The Demo’s Album, 1996) Police Bastard (Doom, Total Doom, 2002) Police Helicoptor (Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, 1984) Police Skit (Sean Paul, Dutty Rock, 2003) Karma Police (Radiohead, O.k. Computer, 1997) Whirl-Y-Reel 2 (Folk Police) (Afro-Celt Sound System, Volume 1, 1996) Jazz Police (Leonard Cohen, I’m Your Man, 1988) Roxanne (Puff Duddy Remix; Sting and The Police) (P.Diddy, Platinum Collection’2000, 2000) Police Disco (Edgar Froese, Kamikaze, 1989) Police Therapy Center (Edgar Froese, Kamikaze, 1989) Call the Police (Thin Lizzy, Shades of a Blue Orphanage, 1972) Every Breath You Take (The Police) (Ballad - Various Artists, Ballads, 1998) Police Story (The Ventures, Tv Themes, 1977) Police Woman (The Ventures, Tv Themes, 1977) Police (Angelo Badalamenti) (Soundtrack - Various Artists, Lost Highway, 1997) Police and Thieves (Junior Murvin) (Soundtrack - Various Artists, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, 1998)
“There are a hundred people on the road with us watching every technical aspect of what we do,” he said. “With this megasuccess and these expensive tickets and high expectations, everything needs to be perfect.”
Alas, everything hasn’t been perfect on the year’s biggest tour. Many critics panned the early shows.Police drummer Stewart Copeland went so far as to call one of their first dates “lame” and added that Sting performed “like a petulant pansy.”
Summers won’t deny that it’s taken the Police a while to get its rock-star legs back.
“A lot of the set is improvised and so some nights are going to be better than others,” he said. “We’re not making hamburgers up there. Some nights the muse will hit us and it will be magical.”
Since the band’s ’80s breakup, all three Policemen have remained active with tours, solo albums and side projects. While Sting has been the most successful and visible, both Copeland and Summers have toured the world and released CDs spanning jam rock, jazz, world and classical music.
When asked how each player’s musical evolution has changed the reunited sound, Summers laughed.
“That’s not really for me to comment on,” he said, “because I’m the best player.”
Then he paused to a moment to think.
Another pack of “police” music :
Police Chopper (John Williams, Black Sunday, 1977) Sound Of Da Police (KRS-One, A Retrospective, 2000) Echo Police (The Legendary Pink Dots, Asylum, 1985) Love Police (Phil Collins, Dance into The Light, 1996) Police Shit (The Exploited, The Massacre, 1990) Police TV (The Exploited, Beat The Bastards, 1993) Securitron (police state 2000) (Fear Factory, Obsolete (Digipak), 0) Space Police (Mclane Explosion, Space Music, 1977) Petrushka, Scene IV: The Police and the Showman (Stravinsky, Igor, Petrushka, 0)
“We’re all different players,” he said. “I hope better players. But we’re still the Police. Obviously we’re playing the old hits from the Police because that’s what people have paid to hear. But we never take any piece of material as sacrosanct. We change things up, not beyond recognition, but we try and fire them up with new energy and make them sound hip and modern.
