The day after The Police played the second show of their much [over] hyped world tour, drummer extraordinaire, Stewart Copeland, ripped the band's performance on the band's web site. From Reuters ...
Copeland started the show off on the wrong foot, literally. He tripped as he took to the stage, and then banged his gong at the wrong time so that "the big pompous opening to the show is a damp squib."
He did not hear Summers' opening riff to "Message In a Bottle," and Sting in turn misheard Copeland's drum intro -- "so we are half a bar out of sync with each other. Andy is in Idaho."
They quickly recovered, but then Sting got his footwork wrong as he leapt into the air to signal the end to a shambolic version of their rat-race rant "Synchronicity II."
"The mighty Sting momentarily looks like a petulant pansy instead of the god of rock," Copeland reported.
"And so it goes, for song after song," he wrote, with tunes such as "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" and "Don't Stand So Close To Me" reduced to ruin.
"It usually takes about four or five shows in a tour before you get to the disaster gig. But we're The Police so we are a little ahead of schedule," he said.
Fortunately, no fists flew backstage as they did back in the Police's heyday. The threesome fell into each other's arms laughing hysterically, Copeland said.
"Screw it, it's only music. What are you gonna do? But maybe it's time to get out of Vancouver."
"Screw it, it's only music. What are you gonna do?" Here's one thought ... how about refunding the ungodly ticket price to all 20,000 fans who came to see you that night?! The nerve!
I was just as excited as anyone to see The Police, but after reading this article, watching their performance at the Grammys [and realizing I had seen Sting twice already and both times he performed The Police's greatest hits] I've decided to sit this one out. I'm not fueling this train wreck.