Preliminary Police Report

Clay Akin, Sting, Stewart Copeland

Oh Happy Day, Tyson Cantrell (the Prodigal Son of a Bitch) Returns with his colorful account of the Big Police Reunion.

MGM Grand Hotel/Casino Las Vegas, Nevada

Usually I don't like to be around the police. They make me nervous. A friend somehow finagled five tickets off the internet for the "sold out" show, which were up in the nosebleeders. I quote that because I saw about 200 empty seats. The high seating was offset by three Jumbotronish monitors centered in front above the stage. They were great seats for back of the arena seats thanks to the big screens. Without those the show would've lost much of it's magic.

Touring with The Police as opening act was Sting's son's band Fiction Plane, a British alternative pop/rock trio where Sting's son Joe Sumner plays bass and sings, just like his daddy. They were alright but my pops didn't like em because they said the F-word too much. I went to get an $8 drink when out of nowhere "Message in a bottle" started. I hurried back into the now darkened arena only to get lost in a different aisle. My group called me back and I nestled in for the amazing pop nostalgia overload The Police delivered. I mean it ,they were writing tickets to rock.

The Guinness Book of World Records should've been there for the largest number of people with simultaneous hard-ons. Instead the Book was stuck in Cedar City, Utah to document and establish the largest number of people wearing balloon hats and…wait it gets better…THE LARGEST GAME OF SIMON SAYS! The monster truck rally style of radio announcements went something like this, "WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING THIS WEEKEND - CANCEL IT! - RESCHEDUAL IT! QUIT YOUR JOB! - DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO BE A PART OF HISTORYYYYYY!" More like be part of the largest gathering of tards in the world being the most retarded ever.

Always bringing the cool grooves, Sting came out toting his very original bass embellished with aging. It looked awesome and shitty and sounded stunning. I came to the conclusion that it was the bass that he used during his younger days with The Police, it's only fitting. And even though he couldn't hit those high notes anymore, the chicks loved every minute of it, but shucks so did I, I was practically fanning myself. On a strange note however, when I happened to look around during one of Sting's gratuitous wobbly bass jerk-offs, I saw several forty-somethings actually dropping trow and masturbating back. Sting has very passionate fans. They're a very controversial band, either you love them or you hate them.

(((Ed. Note A few minutes ago My roommate's, dog who is usually very charming, was just humping my brand new pillowcase on a brand new pillow. Talking about pillowcases isn't very interesting and or cool but what the hell? It's like there was fresh meat in the house and he had to get his rocks all up in it…deep. But now what should I do with the pillow, take it back to Wal-Mart only for it to be repackaged and sold to some sorry sap who has no idea that his sleepy time drool is mixing with pure Tibetan spaniel jizzum. Probably so. But I digress)))

Reefer madness! I saw old dudes hitting pipes and passing cheebers around. The smell was distinct, and surprisingly, security was pretty lax. As it turns out I didn't have to keester the goods in after all. I read on the interweb beforehand that the drummer was talking shit about a show in Alberta a few weeks before. He said something to the degree of the show being completely LAME, and that Sting's emasculating dancing resembled that of a fairy. Since they basically broke up because they couldn't stand each other anymore, I was very interested to see how these old fucks were going to get along after all these years. But to my dismay they seemed to be severely enjoying themselves. Sting had his muscle-shirt and boots and didn‘t dance like a fairy, Andy Summers had on a suit and South Park "Oh my God they killed Kenny" guitar strap, and drummer Stewart Copeland flared out his ever intense drummer-face with a running suit and head band. Seriously though, this guy was fucking running shit. He had the most snarled of drummer faces I'd ever came upon, and a very intense percussion set up to boot including a gong, xylophone, seashells on strings, everything. The dude was getting agro as shit.
Every song was accompanied with captivating light and lazer shows following the same motif of the album in which the song first appeared. For example: on the 1981 album cover of Ghost in the Machine, the artwork has the three faces of the band in the form of a digital clock digits, (liquid crystal display electrodes, like an alarm clock). So it's only fitting that during the polyrhythmic grooves of "Spirits of the Material World" that the monitors lit up with random patterns of flying cubic shapes that resemble that of a calculator screen. Very trippy visuals. The amazing light theatrics sucked my ocular cavities dry of moisture.

It seems that Best Buy and all their economic gadget peddling spunk were sponsoring the tour. But why did The Police unite? Money? Maybe. Wateraid? Possibly. I can't remember what song it was during but at one point the screens were committed to showing imagery of third-world countries and their various plights. Then the imagery focused on what Wateraid calls the "global water sanitation crisis." The Police were so righteous that they jumped onto the Wateraid campaign and designated proceeds from the tour to the foundation. CLAPS!-CLAPS!- CLAPS! (DEEP SIGH). A nice gesture towards humanity I suppose but that doesn't explain why they reunited in the first place, the Wateraid thing was later added. It must've been a shit-load of money. But for any reason it doesn't matter because these crazy turkeys were on point. They played all the hits that transcended their career, from their earlier punk-reggae-pop infused hits, to their chart smashing, multi-platinum certified karaoke wet dreams.

The show ended with a triple encore that totally psyched out the audience. I saw people starting to leave before the band came back out to do a total MINDFREAK! on everyone. Hadn't people ever heard of an encore. If the house lights are still off they don't want you to leave yet. They came back onstage and pumped out "King of Pain" to satisfy the fans. But then came back on a few moments later and played another encore of some song I don't remember now. Finally they ended the show with a third encore playing "So Lonely."