Ahhhhh yes

The Police are touring!

For those of you who missed the fallout of Sting's announcement at The Grammys ("We are The Police, and we are back!"), the group is going on a worldwide tour starting in Vancouver on May 28 (I don't know why there either).

The Monk only clued into music at age 13, exactly when The Police became a phenomenon . . . and right before they dissolved. So The Monk was pretty sorrowful with the pseudo-announcement of the disbanding of the group in 1986 (it leaked more than it was announced), especially because he hoped to be able to see them in concert after missing the Synchronicity tour.

It is some compensation to have seen Sting in concert four times, in four locations (NYC, DC, Boston and Dallas). Not only did he write the group's best material and continue to perform it on his solo tours, he also had good musicians with him, most notably Dominic Miller on guitar. But there's really no replacement for Stewart Copeland.

A couple of things the group could do on this trip that would make many a real Police fan happy: (1) RELEASE LIVE CONCERT RECORDINGS -- Pearl Jam gained an eternal fan in me (my politics and musical taste have no connection) because I became hooked to their live shows (I own about 15-20 from various tours). This also beats the bootleggers at their own game -- better quality recordings, money goes to the band, and The Police keep their musical intellectual property rights. This tour will be highly bootlegged (?) and in high demand. Pearl Jam, like U2, was one of the most bootlegged concert shows (Eddie Vedder knew the bootleggers so well he'd occasionally grab their mics and say something on the recording during the concert) until the group decided to turn the tables and it has benefitted both them and their fans. (2) Keep it lean. The Synchronicity tour jumped the shark because it was a huge production with numerous backup singers, additional musicians, revamping the songs, etc. The Monk liked the Sting show he saw in Dallas because it was the most stripped-down of the lot. The key to The Police is their complex simplicity: bass-guitar-drums combining to make music more complex than a group like Lynyrd Skynyrd, which had 3 guitarists, bassist, two drummers (because the main one sucked) and more.

Here's hoping I can get a pair of the hottest tickets in music this year.