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guitartango · October 2023

As my travel into Cambridge seems to be taking Longer now, I have been blasting out "The Police" on my journey inwards.

Any fans of this late 70's Band, or do you need to put on the "Red Light"

ElectricXII · October 2023

I loved them when I was a kid, and have recently been rediscovering them after finding some of my old LPs at my Mum's. Synchronicity is great for example,

DrCornelius · October 2023

A pop band to me as a kid so I ignored them after the first 2 albums . As a far wiser adult I have revisited and love pretty much everything bar de doo doo doo or whatever it’s bloody called

swiller · October 2023

superb. regatta de blanc imho the best album. Man played hamers and telecasters. Not a lot to dislike and copeland on the drums was stellar.

RocknRollDave · October 2023

Their reunion live DVD is an excellent watch.

maharg101 · October 2023

A great band. What a sound from a three piece ! I like to think of them as somewhere between reggae and punk. As individual musicians, they are all excellent, together they seem to be more than the sum of the parts.

RobDavies · October 2023

Outstandingly good at times. I liked Rush’s 80’s period best - when they tried to sound like The Police.

I realise that makes me a heathen.

guitartango · October 2023

Not many dud tracks either, and the band grows on each album

Fishboy7 · October 2023

Wikipedia says Andy Summers is 80 years old. That can't be right?

hollywoodrox · October 2023

Absolutely outstanding band all of them . Stewart is one of my fave drummers along with Jeff porcaro ,vinnie colaiuta & Greg bissonette . Andy has an amazing approach move all his little tapped harmonics etc & sting is a genius too .

Outstanding tracks ,how do you pick ? I’d go for ,walking on the moon ,Stewart’s amazing drumming ,that big chord and the bass & vovpcals .

regatta de blanc a great instrumental made greater when live with even more yaaaaaayo vocals

they are the coolest thing alive in this video

https://youtu.be/QduIzhh4M8A?si=jhtp6BpCMFVH2bZS

stufisher · October 2023

Tis right @Fishboy7 he was already into his 30s when the Police formed. There's a thread on tFB about this already ... quite recently IIRC.

I never really got The Police when they were in their pomp because I was a Zep-head / Sabbath / Gallagher type. However, I now play Message In A Bottle and Every Breath You Take because I do appreciate a much wider range of music as a crustie.

Great band

Kebabkid · October 2023

Loved them and was lucky to see them a couple of times and a fan of Sting's solo stuff, too up to 10 Summoner's Tales and I think Dominic Miller has done a fine job for him.

Andy Summers remains a big influence on my pop playing and sounds. One of the greats IMHO

bloodandtears · October 2023

Awesome band, watched them live on the Reunion tour.. just magical.

@RobDavies I'm with you there!!

axisus · October 2023

I liked the singles Roxanne and Can't stand losing you, but then I grew to mostly dislike their output. My sister was a fan and would play the albums. Over the years I came to realise that they were an amazing band, just not really my kind of thing. Now in my old age I see them as stellar musicians who I really should look into again.

boogieman · October 2023

Fishboy7 said:

Wikipedia says Andy Summers is 80 years old. That can't be right?

Probably is, he was getting on a bit (relatively) when he joined The Police, he’d been in various bands since the 60s. His autobiography is a great read by the way.

I saw the Rock Goes to College gig they did, it was shown on BBC4 recently (maybe on iplayer now?) They were a superb live band… one of those bands where you swear there’s an invisible extra member. Well worth a watch, if only for “heres a new song that we’ve never played live before, it’s called Message in a Bottle”.

digitalkettle · October 2023

boogieman said:
...
They were a superb live band…one of those bands where you swear there’s an invisible extra member...

Sometimes there was! Moog Taurus used to help them out

EricTheWeary · October 2023

maharg101 said:

A great band. What a sound from a three piece ! I like to think of them as somewhere between reggae and punk. As individual musicians, they are all excellent, together they seem to be more than the sum of the parts.

Especially the earlier material you can hear the reggae influence (delays on the drums for example) but there’s very little, if anything, they did that was actually reggae as a,err, reggae musician would have known it. Paying homage without cultural appropriation (maybe) and even covered by reggae artists. Arguably not all that punk either in the sense of gnarly guitar riffs. Absolutely on the hilighted bit, just very clever/ inventive. In his Beato interview Sting talked about wanting to be surprised by music and The Police albums are full of surprises.

hollywoodrox · October 2023

boogieman said:

Fishboy7 said:

Wikipedia says Andy Summers is 80 years old. That can't be right?

Probably is, he was getting on a bit (relatively) when he joined The Police, he’d been in various bands since the 60s. His autobiography is a great read by the way.

I saw the Rock Goes to College gig they did, it was shown on BBC4 recently (maybe on iplayer now?) They were a superb live band… one of those bands where you swear there’s an invisible extra member. Well worth a watch, if only for “heres a new song that we’ve never played live before, it’s called Message in a Bottle”.

I used to watch a few of those rock goes to college when I was about 12 it was good

merlin · October 2023

Has anyone else listened to Stewart Copeland's The Police Deranged for Orchestra. Really worth it.

https://londoncoliseum.org/whats-on/stewart-copeland-the-police-deranged-for-orchestra/

steveledzep · October 2023

Yes, fan of The Police here. I followed AS post Police too. A couple of projects with Robert Fripp (I Advance Masked and Bewitched). Also, the following albums: Earth + Sky; Green Chimneys; Peggy's Blue Skylight; Synaesthesia; The Last Dance of Mr X; World Gone Strange.
Here's a novelty track with RF:

blobb · October 2023

Canterbury off shoot band. Summers was in Soft Machine for a bit, started Strontium 90 with Mike Howlett from Gong then became the 3 piece band we know and love. Copeland is probably the best drummer of them all (well maybe not the best, Pierre Moerlen from Gong is THE best), Sting I'm not too bothered about.

digitalkettle · October 2023

This is one of my favourite soundcheck riffs:

AC/DC tribute so I always like to throw in something more surprising

jdgm · October 2023

Sometime in the 2nd half of the 70s I went to see Spirit live at the Rainbow in London.

Support was Alternative TV and The Police.

I can't remember if the 4th guy was still in it but I thought "this lot will never get anywhere"...!

By that time Spirit were down to a trio with Randy California upfront.

Half-way through their set it turned into a Hendrix tribute and I think I left early.

Summers (then with Zoot Money's band) was the 1st guitarist Hendrix met in England apparently.

Funkfingers · October 2023

Fishboy7 said:

Wikipedia says Andy Summers is 80 years old. That can't be right?

It is. He is exactly twenty years older than I am.

guitartango · October 2023

I remember watching the Police on the Old Grey Whistle test and thinking are they punk or 3 white man trying to play Reggae?

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x38mb8

Funkfingers · October 2023

They were pretending to be a bit of both. (At the time, in the UK, there was a strong crossover between Punk Rock and Reggae audiences.) Copeland has admitted in interviews that all three of the classic line-up were trying desperately to hide their musicianship for fear of being "outed" as not pukka Punk Rock.

The same could be said of numerous other veterans of the Pub Rock scene. Spiky haircut, spiky attitude, spiky songs, spiky clothes. Adopt a Lefty political stance, you'll fool some of the audience most of the time.

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