Well, folks, that’s it. The Police just played their final gig—now it’s all over. It was a good 30 years while it lasted, even if 20 of them were spent on hiatus.

A live double DVD/double CD set (The Police: Certifiable) will be released in November, so that’s something to look forward to, but otherwise, forget it. I suppose it’s better than a new mediocre Police album with Sting-penned ditties about Jesus, but out of DEVO, Roxy Music and Genesis, someone better put out a new album pronto, or I swear, I’ll turn into a Pussycat Dolls fan. I’m serious.

So I finally replaced the header image above for this theme, choosing a “1980s MTV” theme instead.

The images are taken from my favourite promo clips growing up. From left to right:

1. “Road to Nowhere” - Talking Heads: great surrealism from the masters of art-punk
2. “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” - Pink Floyd: one of my favourite songs as a kid; although I never actually saw this clip until years later, it still has great personal relevance to me
3. “Don’t Come Around Here No More” - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: this clip freaked me the hell out as a seven-year-old, and as a bonus, it’s inspired by one of my favourite books
4. “Every Breath You Take” - The Police: a great clip for a great song by a great band, directed by the greats Godley & Creme
5. “Sledgehammer” - Peter Gabriel: the clip that made me a lifelong fan in 1986
6. “Babooshka” - Kate Bush: minimalistic (as most clips were at the time) but utterly memorable, plus I always associate it with my grandmother despite the title being a total misnomer
7. “Money for Nothing” - Dire Straits: the definitive ’80s promo clip and my favourite track at the time

I don’t know why I hadn’t done this before, but the other day I bought a couple of solo albums by Stewart Copeland, drummer and founder of The Police (and incidentally my favourite member).

My first observation is that if you compare and contrast Copeland’s solo output with Sting’s, it’s obvious whose sound dominated The Police on their first three albums. Even the Sting-penned tracks on Reggatta de Blanc, for example, sound like Copeland handled the arrangements.

My second observation is that Copeland’s sensibilities are very close to Peter Gabriel’s, and that these two need to work together more often. Copeland’s album The Rhythmatist is just a work of genius.

My third observation is that it may not necessarily be a bad thing if The Police don’t record a new album, unless Copeland and Andy Summers are allowed the freedom they deserve — they’re both far too talented to be relegated to session musicians for Sting.

If a new Police album sounds like a Sting solo album, it’ll be the biggest disappointment since Sacred Love.

On Tuesday I went to see No Country for Old Men, the new film by Joel and Ethan Coen. I haven’t written a review yet because it made pretty much no impression, amazingly — I feel like I should’ve gone with my gut and watched 3:10 to Yuma instead.

This is the second film in as many weeks where it’s by favourite filmmakers of mine and yet the lingering feeling is one of apathy at best. To be honest, I had a much better time seeing 27 Dresses. Screw it — the next film I’m going to is Dan in Real Life.

I’m going to dump Foxtel and Quickflix in the next few days, too, I think. I’d rather put that money towards something productive… like a Star Wars Galaxies subscription or something.

Oh, and I found a great bootleg recording of the Sydney Police concert, and listening to it again, I now believe “Driven to Tears” was the moment my jaw fell open and I realised that Andy Summers is a guitar god comparable to Robert Fripp. Hopefully I’ll see his exhibit in Sydney before it closes…

Meeting Marcia Hines:

Sting:

Zoomed-in:

Andy:

The Crowd:

The End:

Here are the songs that The Police have played on the tour that were not featured last night:

• “Spirits in the Material World”
• “Truth Hits Everybody”
• “The Bed’s Too Big Without You”
• “Murder By Numbers”
• “Dead End Job” (segued from “Next to You”)

“Spirits in the Material World” would have been nice to hear, but not at the expense of, say, “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”. The rest I could pretty much take or leave, but the songs played were so perfectly executed (in an inventive way) that, again, given time constraints, I’d not trade them for other tracks.

Anyway, a DVD will hopefully surface once the tour concludes. I’d give anything for one right now, but… patience is required.

I’ll probably write a more sober reflection on the night tomorrow.

(Literalists take note: I wasn’t drunk.)

Bloody hell, that was amazing.

They opened with “Message in a Bottle”, ended with “Roxanne”, then completed the encores with the classic finale, “Next to You”. At least 15 other tracks were included beyond that.

The highlights:

• Stewart Copeland’s moment to shine was his percussion-work on “Wrapped Around Your Finger”. Bloody awesome — the guy’s a legend and one of the best rock drummers/percussionists around
• “Hole in My Life” rocked out
• Andy Summers cranked out some blistering solos in the most unlikely of places
• Sting really knows how to work a crowd

What was just the best thing ever was the fact that almost every song had a fresh arrangement that allowed Summers a lot more breathing room than the originals. Copeland’s creativity just consistently blows me away. And Sting had a beard that he grew in Byron Bay.

The whole thing just felt looser and more improvised, even though it was all obviously well-rehearsed. This is exactly what I wanted — a dream come true — these three musicians coming together after 20 years of separate musical development to create something familiar yet still fresh and new. Here’s hoping they record again together…

The setlist, as I recall (some ordering may be messed up):

• “Message in a Bottle”
• “Synchronicity II”
• “Walking on the Moon”
• “Voices Inside My Head/When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around” — the latter in a similar arrangement to the one on Sting’s Bring on the Night album, but it sounded so much better with Andy and Stewart back on board
  
• “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” — the arrangement was somewhere between the original and the ‘86 re-recording
• “Driven to Tears”
• “Hole in My Life”
• “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”
• “Wrapped Around Your Finger”
• “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da”
• “Invisible Sun”
• “Walking in Your Footsteps”
• “Can’t Stand Losing You/Regatta De Blanc”
• “Roxanne” (including glorious red lighting over the crowd)
• Encore I: “King of Pain”, “So Lonely” (with lyrics “Welcome to the Andy Summers/Stewart Copeland show!”), “Every Breath You Take”
• Encore II: “Next to You”

It was essentially their Latin America setlist. At the moment I’m drawing a blank as to whether or not “Truth Hits Everybody” was included or not — I suspect not.

(UPDATE: The setlist above is correct, including the omission of “Truth Hits Everybody”. I have no real issue with this, despite losing one of my favourite songs, because Brisbane also lost out on “Walking in Your Footsteps”, which was another highlight of the Sydney set.)

I missed the support act Fiction Plane — they sounded decent from outside, but no great loss — but I was treated to Fergie singing “My Humps”. Hey, it’s an award-winning song!

My confession: Fergie’s stuff wasn’t that bad when it was UP LOUD. It was her rock medley (featuring covers of McCartney, Led Zep and the Stones, believe it or not) that was the most surreal part of the night, however.

Oh, and I met Marcia Hines while I was there. Photographic evidence coming soon.