By
Mary Kate Varnau
on September 19, 2008 7:00 AM|Permalink
For months now, Guitar Hero diehards have been hanging on every bread crumb of information released about World Tour, the forthcoming generation of their favorite video game. We knew about Hendrix, Ozzy and a handful of other artists on the track list. But now we have the press release in hand, and it includes 86 songs on-disk, featuring artists like R.E.M., Michael Jackson, Metallica, Coldplay, Nirvana, Interpol, Foo Fighters, Billy Idol, Beastie Boys and Dinosaur Jr., among others.
By
Sara Miller
on February 19, 2008 4:15 PM|Permalink
photo by Mark C. Austin
The Police are here to teach us all a lesson. What to do after your reunion tour is named the highest-grossing of 2007? Run that sucker into the ground! To honor the news that the trio will circle North America one final time, with Elvis Costello and the Imposters in tow, Paste offers the imagined by-laws of The Police:
Keep that castle-money comin'. With tickets priced at $50, $90 and $225, it's gonna take a Zenyatta of Mondatta to attend the upcoming concerts. The dates are being billed as the band's "final area appearances," but it wasn't so long ago that the Police reunion seemed like a pipe dream. CNET.com's Matt Rosoff points out in a recent blog post that though Police fan club members get an earlier chance at tickets, their credit cards may literally pay the price through an automatic renewal contract clause.
Have a post-Police project on the burner. Guitarist Andy Summers is making a documentary, Sting's planning to "pick a few olives" at his Italian villa and drummer Stewart Copeland...well, he's already nostalgic about the still-unfinished tour.
NO MORE ALBUMS.Sting and Summers have both declared that there's definitely not a new Police album in the works, which is a bummer, especially for fans of the modern-day, "jazz odyssey" Police stylings.
Forgive, forget and forge a partnership. Although Elvis Costello and The Police (or, more specifically, Sting) have traded zingers in the past, the two men (#8 and #62, respectively, on Paste's 100 Best Living Songwriters list) have been building bridges over the chasm throughout the oughts. They were both nominated for Academy Awards in 2004 for their contributions to the Cold Mountain soundtrack. They also sang together on longtime Costello keyboardist Steve Nieve's 2007 "modern opera," Welcome To The Voice. Costello, along with Dave Matthews and John Mayer, also participated in the 2004 MusiCares tribute to Sting (Elvis sings "Every Little Thing..." at around 1:05):
The Police w/Elvis Costello and the Imposters:
May
1 - Ottawa, Ontario @ Scotiabank Place
3 - Buffalo, N.Y. @ HSBC Arena
4 - Columbus, Ohio @ Nationwide Arena
10 - Chicago, Ill. @ Allstate Arena
13 - Kansas City, Mo. @ Sprint Center
14 - Omaha, Neb. @ Qwest Center
16 - Orlando, Fla. @ Amway Center
17 - West Palm Beach, Fla. @ Cruzan Amphitheatre
20 - Houston, Texas @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
21 - Dallas, Texas @ Superpages.com Center
23 - Las Vegas, Nev. @ MGM Grand
24 - Phoenix, Ariz. @ Cricket Wireless Pavilion
26 - San Diego, Calif. @ Coors Amphitheatre
27 - Hollywood, Calif. @ The Hollywood Bowl
July
11 - Ridgefield, Wash. @ Amphitheater at Clark County
12 - George, Wash. @ The Gorge
14 - San Francisco, Calif. @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
16 - Concord, Calif. @ Sleep Train Pavilion
17 - Sacramento, Calif. @ Sleep Train Amphitheatre
19 - Salt Lake City, Utah @ USANA Amphitheatre
21 - Denver, Colo. @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre
25 - Milwaukee, Wis. @ Marcus Amphitheater
26 - Detroit, Mich. @ DTE Energy Music Theater
28 - Pittsburgh, Pa. @ Post Gazette Pavilion
29 - Philadelphia, Pa. @ Wachovia Center
31 - Boston, Mass. @ Tweeter Center
August
1 - Saratoga, N.Y. @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center
3 - Holmdel, N.J. @ PNC Bank Arts Center
4 - Wantagh, N.Y. @ Nikon at Jones Beach Theater
The Police:
June
3 - Marseille, France @ Stade Velodrome
5 - Mannheim, Germany @ SAP Arena
7 - Werchter, Belguim @ TW Festival
8 - Dusseldorf, Germany @ LTU Arena
10 - St. Etienne, France @ Stade J. Guichard
11 - Oslo, Norway @ Valle Horvin
13 - Haderslev, Denmark @ Landsstaevnestadion
15 - Newport, UK @ Isle of Wight Festival
17 - Manchester, UK @ MEN Arena
18 - Manchester, UK @ MEN Arena
26 - Chorzow, Poland @ Silesian Stadium
28 - Leipzig, Germany @ Zentralstadion
29 - London, UK @ Hyde Park
July
2 - Valencia, Spain @ Estadio Ciutat de Valencia
4 - Bilbao, Spain @ BBK Live Festival
5 - Madrid, Spain @ Rock in Rio Festival
Elvis Costello and the Imposters:
April
22 - Memphis, Tenn. @ New Daisy Theatre
23 - Nashville, Tenn. @ Ryman Auditorium
27 - New Orleans, La. @ New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
28 - Atlanta, Ga. @ Tabernacle
By
Jeremy Goldmeier
on November 1, 2007 12:13 PM|Permalink
As far as publicity stunts go, this whole Police reunion sure seems like a smashing success. Despite the proven fact that everyone hates his lyrics, Sting now gets to talk about them as if he were some modern-day Yeats. The group has achieved knighthood in France. And now, guitarist Andy Summers hopes to translate his autobiography into a documentary film.
Summers' One Train Later: A Memoir came out this May, and its release date shockingly coincided with the onset of his band's grand reunion tour. The doc would trace Summers' entire life and career, using the guitarist's 25,000-strong photo collection and plenty of Police footage. Lauren Lazin (director of Tupac: Resurrection) is in negotiations to helm the film, with Nicolas Cage already aboard as producer, according toThe Hollywood Reporter. Meanwhile, our bloggin' buddies at Idolator are typically skeptical about the whole enterprise.
By
Mark Krotov
on October 10, 2007 12:00 AM|Permalink
When bands reunite to record a new album, fear is usually in the air. The stakes are high when cool, groundbreaking artists to try to rehash their edge, and the results can be disastrous. Of course, if your band wasn’t that cool or groundbreaking to begin with, then you have less to worry about.
We mean no disrespect to The Police, and to prove it, we will proudly declare that we are excited for a new album from Sting and Co. But will it actually happen? Funny you should ask. Speaking during a recent book signing, Andy Summers, the band’s diminutive guitarist, told reporters that an album is indeed possible. "It's sort of like living with the elephant in the room," he said. "I would see it as a challenge, to make an absolutely brilliant pop album at this stage of our career, and that would be something quite remarkable."
The band has been touring since May and will continue through next year, but after that, the possibilities are limitless. The Police should do the right thing and give its millions of fans what they want, as long as the artist formerly known as Puff Daddy keeps his distance.
By
Jeff Leven
on August 15, 2007 12:00 AM|Permalink
As rock reunions go, few have been more anticipated or gradually realized than this year’s Police tour. For twenty-odd years, a fair number of interviews with Sting and pretty much any interview with Stewart Copeland or Andy Summers eventually descended upon the question. The Police have three living (and frankly age-defying) members, plus a catalog of amazing songs that have seeped their way into the post-New Wave consciousness without spawning horrific legions of carbon-copy imitators. Having initially quit not far from the zenith of their career, there has always been a sense that a Police reunion would have some meat and gravitas to it, a resolution of unfinished business and perhaps the promise of something more.
Seeing an early show at the Staples Center in L.A., there is an undeniable joy in seeing those three people onstage, doing their songs, together. And yet while there hasn’t been enough decay to make it seem as if they’re covering their own songs, there’s still some sense of emptiness in the gesture. Sting’s sugar-free jazz instincts have seemingly won the day, slowed the songs and eviscerated whatever last traces of punk existed in the band. Aside from raw, rusty moments where tempos get dropped and near trainwrecks are averted by a Copeland fill, there’s a waft and a languor to the whole affair that perhaps offers a slightly unflattering snapshot of what 1987 might’ve brought had the band stayed together. Simply put, the 1982 Police run rings around the 2007 Police, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either charitable, lying or not an attentive enough fan to really tell the difference.
But does it really matter? The heart still skips a beat when “Every Breath You Take” starts up, and there’s a thrill to celebrating these songs that perhaps justifies the price of admission. For someone too young to be a concertgoer when the band first reigned, this is the closest and best that can be done—far better, certainly, than never seeing it at all. Right?
Rock reunions are a strange beast. The prevailing cynical logic, of course, is that they tend to be empty and exploitative money grabs, designed to prop up aging musicians’ spending habits or prime the pump for a glut of reissues. And certainly in some cases, the profit motive can’t be denied. At SXSW this year, Pete Townshend candidly admitted that early Who reunion gigs bore some financial imperative for bassist John Entwistle, and the truth is that often the non-songwriting members of various rock-star ensembles have far less bank than the casual observer might suspect.
Still, some of the most vaunted reunions (The Eagles, for example) bring together individuals who probably don’t need the money. So why do they do it? And when they do it, why do we care?
The reunions that feature an older vintage of artist often have the feeling of an extended victory lap, as artists with greying hair and growing paunches give boomers the chance to flock to corporate boxes and break out the tattered T-shirts of yesteryear. For the fans, there’s either a nostalgia trip or the chance to a see a version (faded as it might be) of something they weren’t alive or old enough to experience the first time around—or just a chance to hear a great set of songs from (at least some of) the original artists who wrote them.
For the artists, perhaps the instincts are more complex. One
suspects that older rock bands
often suffer from the Roger Clemens/Michael Jordan phenomenon in which retirement proves maddeningly boring and empty, and there’s a desire to jump back in. It may be that Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour never ends in part because life on the road has become his natural space, his way of constructing his days, months and years. And for a band like Kiss, where there’s a certain degree of egomania, yet another farewell tour offers a few more months of arenas full of screaming fans and frenzied limelight.
Further down into the personal psychology of it all, reunions are likely a recourse for bands who find everything they do with the rest of their lives overshadowed or hounded by questions, remembrances and suggestions of that one affiliation that brought them to stardom. In this sense, the reunion is a form of exorcism. Certainly a monkey leapt off of Sting’s back this year. Moreover, perhaps on some level there’s a sense of obligation and a desire to honor the wishes of fans who (by way of letters, journalist’s questions and huge financial offers) beg and plead for one last glimpse.
There is, of course, a whole flock of artists who refuse to reunite unless there’s a record to be made and new art involved beyond a tour-souvenir live disc or video. When interviewed, The Jesus and Mary Chain, for instance, treat the eventual creation of new material as an essential part of their recent reformation, and fellow Coachella second-time-around debutantes Crowded House and Happy Mondays are offering new albums this year. The Stooges and the New York Dolls (well, at least two of them) have also spent the last year touring on (middling) new material. For these bands, the attempt to rekindle the creative process is an integral part of the act of reconnection, even if the results don’t always fit the band’s brand standard.
Sadly, in the canon of reunion records there are few standouts. The indie ranks have generally more contenders, as Mission of Burma, American Music Club and Dinosaur Jr. have all cranked out high-quality reunion records. The passage of time favors those who wait one decade, rather than four, to get the band back together, and the reunion album often fits into the arc the band was on before the first break (in many cases a state of free-fall).
For all its intrinsic flaws, the rock reunion may be an index of the music world’s health. The depth of yearning for certain reunions is part of a process of sanctifying great music. As the barriers against reunions are gradually lowered by their increasing commonality, perhaps some great albums will be recaptured in the afterlife of, say, a Green on Red or even some day Soundgarden or Pavement. As rock moves from one generation to the next, perhaps the rules of time, entropy and the myth of beautiful flameouts need not always apply. If that means some older bands haunting the stage as shadows of their former selves, so be it. At least they’re friendly ghosts.
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For months now, Guitar Hero diehards have been hanging on every bread crumb of information released about World Tour, the forthcoming generation of their favorite video game. We knew about Hendrix, Ozzy and a handful of other artists on the track list. But now we have the press release in hand, and it includes 86 songs on-disk, featuring artists like R.E.M., Michael Jackson, Metallica, Coldplay, Nirvana, Interpol, Foo Fighters, Billy Idol, Beastie Boys and Dinosaur Jr., among others.
