[quote]Even though, to this day, he plays the songs. The ones he likes, anyway.
Well, sure, he wrote the songs. It's curious that he's playing the exact Police arrangements this last tour.
Is he? Not the jazzified versions he did around the time of Blue Turtles?
No. You know, there were a lot of people who complained -- to me -- oh, he's ruined the arrangements, he should be playing it the old way. But I always thought, no -- when you've got Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, you wanna hear what Vinnie does. You've already heard my version -- Vinnie is worth checking out. So I thought it was the right thing to do to evolve the songs according to the musicians he was playing with. But now he's gone back to the original arrangements, which is odd. I don't understand it. And once again -- he can do whatever the hell he wants.[/quote]
This kind of bothered me as well.
I haven't heard all of the stuff from Sting's last tour, but what I did hear sounded like he was going back to the original arrangements. Not to take anything from Andy at all, but Dominic is great and I don't mind hearing him doing his own thing, or copping Andy riffs. But that drummer just doesn't have the right "feel" as far as I'm concerned. It just doesn't work for me.
I did hear Vinnie do a wicked Stewart impersonation on a Wang Chung album once, so it would have been cool to hear Sting, Dominic, and Vinnie doing the original arrangements. I'd gladly take that if I can't get the "real thing", but that is just me being selfish.
Out of respect for the others, he should have stayed away from the original arrangements. To me, this just came across as a way to get his "Police" fan base back, but not have to deal with Stewart and Andy.
Great interview though. Thanks Gio. There is always something a little new that you can pick up.
JL