Welcome to the Andy Summers Show!

guitartango

As my travel into Cambridge seems to be taking Longer now, I have been blasting out "The Police" on my journey inwards. 

Any fans of this late 70's Band, or do you need to put on the "Red Light"  

ElectricXII

I loved them when I was a kid, and have recently been rediscovering them after finding some of my old LPs at my Mum's. Synchronicity is great for example,

DrCornelius

A pop band to me as a kid so I ignored them after the first 2 albums  . As a far wiser adult I have revisited and love pretty much everything bar de doo doo doo or whatever it’s bloody called 

swiller

superb. regatta de blanc imho the best album. Man played hamers and telecasters. Not a lot to dislike and copeland on the drums was stellar.

RocknRollDave

Their reunion live DVD is an excellent watch.

maharg101

A great band. What a sound from a three piece ! I like to think of them as somewhere between reggae and punk. As individual musicians, they are all excellent, together they seem to be more than the sum of the parts.

RobDavies

Outstandingly good at times.  I liked Rush’s 80’s period best - when they tried to sound like The Police. 

I realise that makes me a heathen.  

guitartango

Not many dud tracks either, and the band grows on each album

Fishboy7

Wikipedia says Andy Summers is 80 years old. That can't be right?

hollywoodrox

Absolutely outstanding band  all of them . Stewart is one of my fave drummers along with Jeff porcaro ,vinnie colaiuta  & Greg bissonette .  Andy has an amazing approach move all his little tapped harmonics etc  & sting is a genius too . 

Outstanding tracks ,how do you pick ?  I’d go for ,walking on the moon ,Stewart’s amazing drumming ,that big chord and the bass & vovpcals .

regatta de blanc  a great instrumental  made greater when live with even more yaaaaaayo vocals 

they are the coolest thing alive in this video 

https://youtu.be/QduIzhh4M8A?si=jhtp6BpCMFVH2bZS

stufisher

Tis right @Fishboy7 he was already into his 30s when the Police formed. There's a thread on tFB about this already ... quite recently IIRC.

I never really got The Police when they were in their pomp because I was a Zep-head / Sabbath / Gallagher type. However, I now play Message In A Bottle and Every Breath You Take because I do appreciate a much wider range of music as a crustie.

Great band  

Kebabkid

Loved them and was lucky to see them a couple of times and a fan of Sting's solo stuff, too up to 10 Summoner's Tales and I think Dominic Miller has done a fine job for him.

Andy Summers remains a big influence on my pop playing and sounds. One of the greats IMHO

bloodandtears

Awesome band, watched them live on the Reunion tour..  just magical.

@RobDavies I'm with you there!!

axisus

I liked the singles Roxanne and Can't stand losing you, but then I grew to mostly dislike their output. My sister was a fan and would play the albums. Over the years I came to realise that they were an amazing band, just not really my kind of thing. Now in my old age I see them as stellar musicians who I really should look into again.

boogieman

Fishboy7 said:

Wikipedia says Andy Summers is 80 years old. That can't be right?

Probably is, he was getting on a bit (relatively) when he joined The Police, he’d been in various bands since the 60s. His autobiography is a great read by the way. 

I saw the Rock Goes to College gig they did, it was shown on BBC4 recently (maybe on iplayer now?)  They were a superb live band… one of those bands where you swear there’s an invisible extra member. Well worth a watch, if only for “heres a new song that we’ve never played live before, it’s called Message in a Bottle”.  

digitalkettle

boogieman said:

...
They were a superb live band…one of those bands where you swear there’s an invisible extra member...

Sometimes there was! Moog Taurus used to help them out

EricTheWeary

maharg101 said:

A great band. What a sound from a three piece ! I like to think of them as somewhere between reggae and punk. As individual musicians, they are all excellent, together they seem to be more than the sum of the parts.

Especially the earlier material you can hear the reggae influence (delays on the drums for example) but there’s very little, if anything, they did that was actually reggae as a,err, reggae musician would have known it. Paying homage without cultural appropriation (maybe) and even covered by reggae artists. Arguably not all that punk either in the sense of gnarly guitar riffs. Absolutely on the hilighted bit, just very clever/ inventive. In his Beato interview Sting talked about wanting to be surprised by music and The Police albums are full of surprises. 

hollywoodrox

boogieman said:

Fishboy7 said:

Wikipedia says Andy Summers is 80 years old. That can't be right?

Probably is, he was getting on a bit (relatively) when he joined The Police, he’d been in various bands since the 60s. His autobiography is a great read by the way. 

I saw the Rock Goes to College gig they did, it was shown on BBC4 recently (maybe on iplayer now?)  They were a superb live band… one of those bands where you swear there’s an invisible extra member. Well worth a watch, if only for “heres a new song that we’ve never played live before, it’s called Message in a Bottle”.  

I used to watch a few of those rock goes to college when I was about 12 it was good

merlin

Has anyone else listened to Stewart Copeland's The Police Deranged for Orchestra. Really worth it. 

https://londoncoliseum.org/whats-on/stewart-copeland-the-police-deranged-for-orchestra/ 

steveledzep

Yes, fan of The Police here.  I followed AS post Police too.  A couple of projects with Robert Fripp (I Advance Masked and Bewitched).  Also, the following albums:  Earth + Sky;  Green Chimneys;  Peggy's Blue Skylight;  Synaesthesia;  The Last Dance of Mr X;  World Gone Strange.
Here's a novelty track with RF:

blobb

Canterbury off shoot band. Summers was in Soft Machine for a bit, started Strontium 90 with Mike Howlett from Gong then became the 3 piece band we know and love. Copeland is probably the best drummer of them all (well maybe not the best, Pierre Moerlen from Gong is THE best), Sting I'm not too bothered about.