the police

After a 24 year absence from the road The Police are touring again, selling our arenas even faster than they did for the record-setting 1983-84 concerts. Through the generosity and foresight of my friend and old roommate Warren, I was about 15 rows back dead center for last night’s show in Oakland.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. Stadiums tend to have bad sound – and Stewart, Andy and Sting are getting old. Fortunately, my fears of an over-hyped performance were completely unfounded. Although guitarist Andy Summers might have been a tad rusty, Stewart Copeland anchored the trio with precision percussion and Sting was incredible. His vocals on the challenging Roxanne and So Lonely were spot on, and his energy fed the crowd all night long

The show was a hit-packed 2 hours. Wikipedia has all the details, including the set list. As critics have noted, the intros of most of the songs were reworked to keep the fans guessing, and many were nicely updated. However, the changes didn’t stop all 46,500 in attendance from signing along to hits which have proven timeless. The tour moves East hitting all the major cities before starting the European leg in Sweden August 29.

Bonus link 1: a great SmugMug gallery
Bonus link 2: Stewart’s drum set-up