I love The Police. Stewart Copeland is my absolute number one drumming hero. To be blessed with even a snippet of this deftness and finesse at the skins is the stuff of my dreams.
The Police were well and truly disbanded by the time I was really getting into them. But I continued to love Sting’s solo work and bought the Dream Of The Blue Turtles as soon as it was released.
I have no recollection of what brought me to the decision to buy Bring On The Night. I may have heard a track aired on radio. Or perhaps it was on special offer at the time. Or perhaps the local library had a copy and I borrowed it and fell in love? My mind is sketchy as to the circumstances now.
But I remember playing it often on breezy balmy nights.
A favourite track from it? It’s hard to pick just one.
At the time “I Burn For You” was. I found it just…emotionally beautiful. Full of yearning and longing. I may have been a tender 15 soon to be 16 when it was released…but as a teenage girl, I already felt I had those yearnings and longings. The song would bring me to tears.
We Work The Black Seam…it had such atmosphere to it compared to the studio version (which I love too).
Down So Long – it’s just so much fun. And I actually used to sing along even to the band namechecks. And I took particular notice of “on the drums Omar Hakim!” In the days before the Internet, I wanted to know more about him. What other bands had he played for? Was he a session drummer? Or was he with a band? How long had he been playing? Etc, etc. Sting has worked with the best drummers in the world. Honestly. He knows how to pick them. Then again, a bass player is always going to want to have the best drummers to play with.
But the favourite now (as it was also then)? Tea In The Sahara – I loved this version so much more than what was on Synchronicity. It was always so beautifully melancholic and so full of emotion.
So, there we are. Probably as about as obscure as you can go for a live album favourite.
By and large, live albums have never done much for me other than to turn me off the idea of going to gigs. NOTHING and I mean NOTHING beats being there. And few live albums ever gave me the sense of wanting to go to a gig from listening to it. In actual fact most manage to put me off the idea of live music and the gig experience.
This album is one that actually made me want to go to a gig.
As for an overall favourite live track? My favourite live track of all is this…”Angel or devil, I don’t care, for in front of that door there is….. ‘ME! ME! ME! ME!'”
