The Police make me thankful The Beatles never had a full-fledged reunion.
It was a strange Sunday evening in the wilds of Holmdel, New Jersey. The PNC Arts Center usually allows patrons onto the property two hours before show time at 6:00 PM, and so I found myself on the Garden State Parkway with Elvis Costello’s Brutal Youth CD on the stereo and thoughts of scoring a sensible parking space bouncing in my brain. Little did I know that, as a courtesy to the weekenders, the venue let people in at 4:00. They dumped me out into the adjacent woods to park! This did not bode well.
I’ll freely admit I was more excited to see Costello and the Impostors and was not disappointed. Mixing older fan favorites like “Pump It Up,” “Every Day I Write The Book,” and the requisite “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding” with newer songs like “45″ from When I Was Cruel and “American Gangster Time” from the current and very worthwhile Momofuku album, Costello covered the necessary bases. Performing them with the gusto and spastic fire of a man half his age was wonderful to see, especially after hearing all the rumors that things would be toned down for those tender Jerseyan sensibilities. And just to give the set an extra dash of coolness, Sting came out to duet on “Allison.”
Now, had the evening ended there, I wouldn’t have walked away from this performance completely baffled. It would have been my shortest concert experience, but we all would have felt like we wanted to be in the same room with each other, band included. We’re all aware of the behind-the-scenes tensions purportedly happening in Camp Police. We’re also aware that even back in the early days, Sting commanded the majority of the attention, a position that could quickly irritate, and while hearsay shouldn’t color one’s impressions so early in the game, it was evident when Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland took the stage that they were plainly irritated.
The PNC Arts Center is a weird venue to start with. It is essentially a large, round coffee table where you and the stage are placed beneath. It is both an indoor and outdoor theater and, at the same time, neither. So there is a tendency to rig the electronics and the mix to accommodate all seats, including the uncovered lawn seats to the far back. The upshot is that the mix tends to be louder than it truly needs, causing all the music to come at you as a bass-heavy muddle. It can be compensated for. A few years back, Megadeth played the main Gigantour stage and the sonics were perfectly fine. An hour earlier, Dream Theater was on and the sound was that of a seal being clubbed (miked from the inside of the seal, no less). The Police, by contrast, were much louder than either of those bands, louder than any other show I’ve seen there this year, and easily the most sonically murky. (more…)
