Sting was the obvious leader of the Band at the live show, but not in a dictatorial sense. Anyone there could see this was a team effort. It was hard to believe how comfortable these guys were on and off stage. While Police albums were disappearing from store shelves all over the Country, the band seemed like regular guys who lived across town, threw their instruments in the back of a van and headed over to My Father’s Place to play their gig. They were friendly, unpretentious and seemed to really enjoy interacting with the crowd.
Although few in America understood their sound of Ska mixed with Reggae and Rock, enough people liked it to cause The Police to burst out into the mainstream. And they did it without all the bells and whistles other groups were using in those days. While lots of bands were wasting huge sums of money on elaborate stage shows and gimmicks, Sting, Summers and Copeland just got up and played. Their amazing music and dynamic live performances were more than enough to keep people buying records and coming to concerts over and over again. Well educated and penny wise, they watched where the money was going and avoided being ripped off while other bands had their financial bones picked clean by shady managers, accountants and handlers.
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