{"id":1510,"date":"2008-05-20T19:00:01","date_gmt":"2008-05-20T19:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/216.71.127.204\/wordpress\/?p=1510"},"modified":"2015-10-15T19:16:22","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T19:16:22","slug":"the-police-w-elvis-costello-woodlands-pavilion-houston-tx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/20\/the-police-w-elvis-costello-woodlands-pavilion-houston-tx\/","title":{"rendered":"The Police w\/ Elvis Costello – Woodlands Pavilion – Houston, TX"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
Written by Jim Bille <\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
May 20, 2008 at 07:00 PM<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Image\"Just in case you missed the first performance of the final Police concert tour at the Toyota Center last summer, the band gave us a second chance to experience a rare event by returning to the Woodlands Tuesday night. In less than one years time the Police returned to H-Town on their farewell tour to say goodbye again.<\/p>\n

After originally disbanding in the mid 80’s, Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting decided in 2007 to organize a world tour to commemorate the 30 year anniversary of the release of their ground breaking hit \u2018Roxanne’.\u00a0 The tour is kind of in its second phase, catching up with towns and venues that were omitted from the original schedule.\u00a0 Houston was one of the cities lucky enough to get the band back for a second time.<\/p>\n

During the band’s so-called twenty plus year “hiatus” Summers, Copeland and Sting have successfully pursued individual careers that have included music, producing, acting and humanitarian work.<\/p>\n

Andy Summers embarked on a solo career that encompassed film scoring and collaborations with musicians such as Robert Fripp, Herbie Hancock, Deborah Harry, Brian Auger and Ginger Baker.<\/p>\n

After the Police stopped touring in 1984, Stewart Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for films such as Wall Street, Talk Radio, Highlander II and a number of others.\u00a0 He has played with Stanley Clarke, Peter Gabriel, Trey Anastasio and David Fiuczynski.<\/p>\n

Sting went on to become Sting.<\/p>\n

Kicking off the evening with two songs from the album Regatta del Blanc, \u2018Bring On The Night’, followed up by \u2018Message In A Bottle’, the trio started a two hour musical barrage of all the Police music you would ever hope to hear.\u00a0 Noteworthy numbers included \u2018Every Little Thing She Does is Magic’, \u2018Invisible Sun’, and \u2018Voices in My Head’.\u00a0 Most of the music remained true to the original sound that we would all recognize, but a few numbers were expanded on with slightly different arrangements.
\nYou would never guess that these guys disbanded more than 20 years ago as they crafted their Reggae-Fusion-Punk sound for the shows sold out crowd.<\/p>\n

Stewart Copeland never sounded better.\u00a0 Outfitted with a massive drum set that was equipped with all sorts of rhythmic widgets, bangers, bells and gongs Copeland maintained the pulse of the performance to perfection.\u00a0 His percussion work on \u2018Wrapped Around Your Finger’ was ethereal.<\/p>\n

Sting’s use of the bass as a second guitar to Summers lead has greatly contributed to the trademark Police sound.\u00a0 The front man’s vocals were stunning Tuesday night.\u00a0 Forget his guitar playing, his vocals alone are worth the 16 or so Grammy’s he’s garnered over his career.<\/p>\n

Andy Summers was on top of his guitar playing game Tuesday night as he masterfully applied his classic syncopated style to each note.\u00a0 His work on \u2018Driven to Tears’ was outstanding.<\/p>\n

According to the band this is the final hurrah for the Police.\u00a0 No new CD’s or tours after this one.\u00a0 Gone for good?\u00a0 Maybe, but I would never say never. Judging from the overflowing enthusiasm of the multi-aged crowd at the Woodlands last night the fan base is as strong as it’s ever been.<\/p>\n

The Police still continue to sell out every show on the schedule and after twenty years of inactivity are as popular as ever.\u00a0 Their music is required play on the airwaves, and unlike most of their contemporaries the Police still have a relevant and timeless sound.<\/p>\n

\"Image\"Elvis Costello has always been known for his smart and sometimes smart alec lyrics. You’re not likely to hear much of this Elvis’s music on the radio, probably because it is too smart for commercial airplay.<\/p>\n

Costello’s expansive musical repertoire has touched on everything from lounge lizard, country, rockabilly, and in your face bar room rockin punk. He has collaborated and recorded with everyone from Burt Bacharach to Paul McCartney. One of his best team-ups was with Allen Toussaint with their recording of the CD, \u2018The River in Reverse’ a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n

Elvis Costello, and his band The Imposters, are touring in support of his latest CD \u2018Momofuku’. The CD was just released the first week of May and Tuesday was my first exposure to the new material. \u2018American Gangster Time’ and \u2018Go Away’ were two of the songs performed from the new release. Elvis fans will not be disappointed if these two numbers are any indication of what the rest of the CD sounds like, both were classic Costello.<\/p>\n

\u2018Pump it Up’ from his 1978 release \u2018This Years Model’ was one of my personal favorites, an enthusiastic and rowdy tune that gave the crowd an early work out in 90+ degree weather.<\/p>\n

Probably his two most recognizable songs featured in the one hour set was \u2018Watching the Detectives’ and an absolute show stopper duet version of \u2018Alison’ featuring Sting and Costello.<\/p>\n

The one negative issue with Elvis Costello’s set, no fault of his, was that it was about one hour too short. The programming constraints of the show only gave him enough time to scratch the surface of his immense catalog of music. Elvis did manage to work the crowd up but had to let them down way too soon to make way for the next band.<\/p>\n

The Verizon or Warehouse Live should get him booked so we can enjoy a full show from this merry manic maestro.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Jim Bille May 20, 2008 at 07:00 PM Just in case you missed the first performance of the final Police concert tour at the Toyota Center last summer, the band gave us a second chance to experience a rare event by returning to the Woodlands Tuesday night. In less than one years time… <\/p>\n

Read More<\/i><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concert-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1511,"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1510\/revisions\/1511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}