Friday Picks of the Week Almost (gulp) twenty-five years ago, I traveled to Foxboro Stadium, in the middle of Nowhere, Massachusetts, to see a concert on a Sunday evening. A glorious summer night—lovely sunset, perfect temperature. The show? (Brace yourself.) A triple bill featuring A Flock of Seagulls, the Fixx, and the Police.

What the hell, it was the '80s, right? I liked 'em all. The hair, the synthesizers, the ridiculous costumes. That was my third Police show—in the past, I'd slept out for tickets, we used to do that back in those days—and it was brilliant.

Both the Fixx and AFOS are gone now, and that's probably just as well. But when the Police broke up in 1984, that was truly a loss. Five records, each of them fantastic in its own right, each better than the one before it. Live, they were just tremendous—I even saw them in the now blown-up New Haven Coliseum—and though there were only three of them, they could fill an arena like few modern bands. Sting was charismatic, gifted and intense, probably the best English songwriter since Lennon and McCartney; Andy Summers played shimmering swashes of guitar in a way that no one else in rock did; and Stewart Copeland's drumming was so original and propulsive.

But then, after the Synchronicity record, the band broke up, largely because Sting's ego was getting out of hand. (I forgive him this; if I were Sting, I'd have a pretty big ego too.) Still, they were one band whose reunion I really longed for. They quit at the peak of their skills as a band, and no one came along to fill that vacuum. The Police had a distinctive sound, and no band since has equalled it.

Well, sometimes the good Lord provides.

This summer the Police are reuniting and playing a series of concerts. I'll be there for at least one—and if someone out there can help me get tickets to one of the Fenway Park shows on 7/28 and 7/29, more than one. (Please...anyone?)

Who knows if, a quarter of a century later, they can recapture the old magic?

But I am an optimist. This will be the musical event of the summer, without question, and in that spirit, here are my picks of the week.

First, the music.

I love all the Police albums, but the most consistently successful has to be Synchronicity, which is one of the Top 10 rock records of the past 25 years. Ambitious, poetic, melodic, and loud. I remember being so excited about its release that I signed up in advance to purchase it at Trident Records, the local music/head shop. I must have heard "Every Breath You Take" 500 times on car radios, and I never got sick of it.




But why stop there? For a fascinating video record of the Police, check out Stewart Copeland's documentary, Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out, which uses old Super-8 footage to show what playing in the band was really like.

And what about nighttime reading, you say? Well, of course. I'd recommend Sting's artful autobiography, Broken Music, which takes you through his life before the Police. As a songwriter, Sting turns out to be a pretty good memoirist. And after you've read that, check out Andy Summers' book, One Train Later, the story of how a down-and-out guitar player became one-third of the world's biggest band. Even though Summers was perhaps the least famous of the three, it's an insightful, well-told story. Sometimes it's the little guys who see the most.

I could go on, talk about Stewart Copeland's Rumblefish soundtrack, or Andy Summers' records with Robert Fripp, or which Sting solo album is the best. But isn't part of the fun finding out for yourself?  ¶ 8:22 AM