Saturday, September 8^th 2007 was the opening night of the British leg of Police’s global reunion tour. Tickets had sold out within 30 minutes. In the 7^th row, from the stage, bang in the middle, close enough to touch the band, were four excited teenagers in middle-aged people’s clothes – Teji, Preeti, Nidhi & me! Sting’s voice was amazing, Andy Summers’ guitaring was fantastic and Stewart Copeland was a monster on percussion -they are one of the rare rock band to have always been a trio. We stood for three hours – the expensive chairs we had paid for, completely forgotten, singing along to all the hits!

Formed in ’78 Police lasted only 6 years and delivered their biggest hit – ‘Every Breath You Take’ – as their swan song in ‘83. This is a creepy, sinister song – a stalker’s anthem – I’ve never quite understood why it’s thought of as a romantic song. Sting says he woke up in the middle of the night with the line in his head and had the song written in 30 minutes. Takes me that long to figure out I’m awake. The video for this song was in the first Grammys “nominees” program we ever saw in Delhi and it was breath-taking! Those black & white shadows on Sting’s face were just perfect for the good/evil play of the lyrics – it has 771M views on YouTube – beating Michael Jackson’s ‘Billy Jean’ at the Grammys!

Sadly, at this stage the band were ready to breakup and not even willing to record together in the same studio. So sad! They were a hit machine by now and could have given us many more years of fantastic music like ‘Message In A Bottle’, ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’, ‘De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da’ and ‘Everything Little Thing She Does is Magic’. Before all these came Roxanne (fantastic song which couldn’t get much US airplay because it was about a man falling in love with a prostitute)  and ‘Message In A Bottle’. The first Police song I ever heard on the radio was “Walking On The Moon’ – apparently Sting dreamt up the riff while lying drunk in a Munich hotel room, thinking “walking round the room”…which next day became “walking on the moon”.  

Some trivia for you – Sting got his nickname because he used to wear a black and yellow jumper which reminded people of a wasp, Copeland is the son of a CIA officer, and Summers is 10 years older than both Sting & Copeland. And finally, Sting was so upset about the writing a sinister song “Every Breath You Take” like says he wrote “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” from his first solo album as an antidote to

Loads of memories here I’m sure…enjoy!

Roxanne

Wrapped Around Your Finger – this is my favourite Police song!

Message In A Bottle