Thankfully we arrived late enough not to have to endure more than a couple of songs from miserabilist ex chart-botherers Starsailor … so roll on the main event.
This is the first concert that I have been to in Manchester’s MEN enorma-dome (18,000 crowd capacity). Positioned at the rear of the stage with an excellent view of the back of Stuart Copeland’s head things did not bode well. Thankfully the large video screens with professionally mixed live footage from the stage gave me something to look at. To my mind this was not really a gig in the conventional sense, the lack of intimacy plus my “take it or leave it” attitude to the Police, meant that I did not really connect in any meaningful way with the music. This wasn’t helped by the fact that both Sting and Summers both seemed trapped behind vast multi-media workstations replete with autocue, effects pedals and probably some gizmos to do with the stage cameras – they managed to free themselves from this high-tech prison during the encores but by then the damage had been done. They played all the hits, so most of the audience probably left happy(ish) but to me it was a bit like watching a slick 2 hour PowerPoint presentation. Oh well, they are probably sick of the sight of each other again – so they won’t have to see each other for another 20 years.
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