This past Friday, Mark and I had a chance to see The Police led by Sting.   I find it kind of amusing that at my age I'm attending all these rock concerts, and even more strange is the fact that many of them are of bands that were big when I was really of an age to attend their concerts.    This week it was The Police and Elvis Costello.

There were a few salient points about The Police show.   Most notably, Sting sounded amazing.   He just keeps getting better and better.   It was quite obvious how his voice has evolved through the years.  It was deeper, more brusque and commanding.   After the concert when I compared some of the original band recordings, his voice was much higher and the band had a more evident punk-influenced sound.   This time, the jazz undertones were brought to the forefront.   Some of the ballads had a jazzier tempo and coupled with a deeper vocal, sounded definitely more "adult contemporary".   Now I don't mean that in a bad way-they sounded great.  In fact I liked the vocals at this show better than the original recordings. 

Sting's voice was beautifully resonant and perfectly pitched, even from our sky box, we could feel the power as he filled that entire arena.  What also struck me was how relaxed he looked the entire time.  Very different from some our recent metal concerts where lead singers find it necessary to portray the angst and anger present in their lyrics.  Sting is the consummate performer, poised, polished and professional.

It is that same calm demeanor that probably led to my biggest criticism, the overall show quality.   I certainly cannot say one negative about the music, but the show was pretty sedate.    Sting pretty much just stood there, sang and played his bass.   Even Sarah (who attended with Karen) commented that the show was overall pretty (yikes dare I say) boring.  

I don't really have any comments on Elvis Costello, another friend commented that his vocals were muffled and indiscernible, and I have to agree.  Although I watched his entire show, I pretty much tuned it out because it is very much NOT my kind of music.

All in all, this show was memorable for the simple fact that it may be the one and only time I get to see Sting play with The Police.    When they played "Wrapped around your finger" the entire audience went crazy.  This was probably the best number of the evening and certainly something I will never forget.