How Can You Say That You're Not Responsible?
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The Police are categorically my all-time favourite rock band in the history of rock bands. They have been for years and years and anyone who knows me know this. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Sting is easy on the eyes, but that’s not the central appeal. It’s the solid, well-crafted pop magic that’s the appeal, to me at least. And after so many years of listening to their 5 studio albums, hearing any of those songs is like wrapping myself up in my favourite old sweater – familiar, comforting, still awesome after all these years.So it goes without saying that this reunion tour has me crazy excited … emphasis on crazy ‘cause I’ve spent nearly a half a grand on concert tickets. It’s ridiculous! I mean, here I am trying to get my financial act together, get a mortgage, buy a house – and I spend $500+ on The Police!? It sounds illogical, but in my head, it’s perfectly justified. This will (almost) certainly never happen again, and I’ve gone my whole life believing that it never would. Carpe diem and all that shit, right?Anyway, I was watching the Live Earth thing on TV, and The Police played Driven To Tears as the grand finale. It’s one of my faves, that song, but I have to say that I found the Live Earth version a little weak. I don’t blame John Mayer (He almost went unnoticed, no?) and I don’t even blame Kanye West (How awkward was that? I squirmed through all his ‘uh’s and ‘we can save the world’s – just didn’t fit, I thought). I blame the band and Andy Summers specifically. Maybe I’m just too fond of the album version and all its fancy studio twinkle, but there's an awesome little guitar riff in the chorus that was either missing, or drowned out in the Live Earth version. That little riff is an intergral part of what makes that song so fetch. I hope that this song will be on the set list when they play Toronto – and I hope that the riff makes its triumphant return to my eardrums. Not to be total hater, but I'm also getting a little sick of the jam band clusterfuck they call Roxanne these days. I'm all for breathing new life into an old song, but after 3 minutes of "Roxanne, Oh!" callbacks, even I start to lose interest. I'd like to say it'll be different live, but I've seen Roxanne performed this way live half a dozen times before at Sting shows, and I always found it the perfect time to go pee. There is a pretty sweet payoff in the end though, when things kick back in after the Phish-ing is over - a big rock flourish to knock you out of daydream. I love that part.(can you believe i actually slipped 'fetch' in there?)
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