Andy Summers is probably best known as being a member of The Police, who hit it big in 1978 with the single Roxanne. However, Andy’s musically career started twelve years prior as a member of Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band. After this he played in Soft Machine and in 1968 was even a member of Eric Burdon and The Animals band.
Andy had played on albums by David Essex, Joan Armatrading, Neil Sedaka, Mike Oldfield to name a few before joining The Police, so he was no overnight sensation.
Post Police, Andy has released fourteen solo albums, as well as numerous movie soundtracks and collaboration albums. Andy has been a very busy boy!
The Cracked Lens + A Missing String performance is much more than his music. Yes, we dive into solo and Police songs, but it is also “the life of Andy Summers” through his photographs and videos.
The dim room darkened as Andy walked on stage. “I’ve been here before, but I don’t remember it,” said Andy. A cheeky member of the audience shouted out “Thanks for coming to Adelaide”, in reference to bands missing Adelaide lately. Andy introduced Dennis on the sound desk, put on a guitar and started 2017’s True Nature. The guitar music weaved throughout the hall as his photos of nature rolled on the big screen.
Standing stage left while playing, a position he retained all evening, he let the pictures roll on the screen, each song presenting a different set of photos. The photos represented a time in Andy’s life, like The Bones of Chuang Zu showed photos from his eight trips to China. It was a case of do you look at Andy playing or do you follow the pictures. The pictures usually won out. It was only Andy on stage and backing tracks were used throughout.
He stood centre stage to tell the tale of his trip to Brazil, adding humour to his story, but Andy is no comedian and a few jokes fell flat. The Last Dance of Mr. X showcased pictures from the Brazil trip.
Tea in the Sahara was the first of The Police songs to be played, and as with all songs this evening, no vocals. Andy gave his interpretation of Police songs solely on the guitar. Andy saw jazz player Thelonious Monk at a tender age of sixteen and commented “Thelonious played so many wrong notes on that occasion, but I have played this song for years”, launching into Round Midnight with seedy late-night photos on the screen to accompany the music magic.
“I’ve never done this before” said Andy “I’m going to have a break, so go buy the T-Shirts and get a drink”.
The second half began with “Wow that was a quick break. I had three beers and two wines though” before a story about the song Roxanne and how The Police got to judge a beauty contest with contestants dressing like “Roxanne”. He even had the photos to prove it. Andy then puts up the video clip of Eddie Murphy singing Roxanne, before slipping on a guitar and playing his reworked guitar version, a version I actually preferred over the original.
“Have you been to Bali? Put your hand up if you have” asked Andy, and was surprised by how few hands went up. “It’s not far from here” he told us. Then he told a story of being in Bali with John Belushi and eating magic mushrooms. While humorous in places, the story meandered and really didn’t go anywhere in the end, but the supporting piece of music, Triboluminescence, had a lot of quality Bali photos to accompany it.
The Police’s Spirits in the Material World was a delightful reworking of the original song and 1979’s Bring on the Night from the Reggatta de Blanc closed out the evening.
Encore consisted of Message in a Bottle with black and white photos of The Police’s tours of USA, not only the fans, but also the people and lonely places along the highways, photos of a life gone by.
It was an entertaining evening with Andy, as he gave us a lot of memories of a life we can only imagine through his wonderful photos and magnificent music.
Live Review By Geoff Jenke