CCCC Rock...

Last week I went to the Police concert at the Cumberland County Civic Center.

The Police are three guys who are "jet-set superstars", according to Newsweek magazine, "making wonderfully airy Top Ten hits and globe-hopping to concerts in India and Thailand, Mexico and Egypt. And to Portland.

They're good. They're great, in fact. I went because I like them and also to see what a rock concert was like. I was with a rock concert veteran.

Civic Center director Jack Nicholson has said before that Portland's rock audiences are generally so well-behaved that the Civic Center can bring wildly popular rick bands here with a minimum of trouble.

The Civic Center atmosphere was like a grotto - darker than usual, smoky, with fascinating looking people and a thumping bass beat coming from inside the arena.

Black Uhuru, a reggae group, performed before the Police. You could feel the music vibrating in all your vital organs before you even set foot inside the doors. There were hundreds of kids milling around, some of them looking barely old enough to be up after 9o'clock. There were already lines outside the bathrooms.

No beer is sold during rock concerts. As they enter the Civic Center, male fans are searched randomly for contraband. If it gets in, it stays pretty much out of sight.

The concert is like a giant party. Once the place fills, supervision is wisely discreet. There are random puffs of marijuana and tobacco smoke, nothing you could stop completely in that huge mob.

The beat and the lights dominated everything. The music was crashing, rumbling, shaking, moving the heavy air like continual tidal waves. It was primitive and pervasive, sucking thousands of young spirits into its vortex. The lights were unrestrained, glaring, psychedelic, sweeping across thousands of waving arms. Along with cheering, several kids flashed cigarette lighters and matches in the dark to show they loved the music.

Way up in the stands, a kid stood on his head in his chair.

At the back of the floor where there was more space, people danced and walked around. In the front, they simply crushed together. If you're rough enough, you can work your way to the front. If you fall, don't expect anyone to help you up, Expect someone to grab your space instead.

On stage, the Police jumped around, soaking up the adulation of the masses with hits like Spirits in the Material World, Invisible Sun and Demolition Man.

The Police came from tiny clubs and borrowed equipment to the top of every Walkman-wearers' list. Police drummer Stewart Copeland, Sex Pistols fan who founded the Police, says the groups music is white rock'n'roll with black ethnic rhythms. It has a heavy reggae influence and novel pseudo-philosophical lyrics.

The lead singer-bassist-composer is 30 year-old Gordon Sumner, called Sting. He is a sexy British jazz musician whose blond choirboy looks are an electric match with his incessant movements. Guitarist Andy Summers, 39, is a veteran of English rock groups, among them Zoot Money (Zoot Money?) and the Animals.

Rock concerts are another world, completely self-contained with their own social code. At the Civic Center, there seems to be an understanding among the crowd, the police and the Civic Center staff. All have rock concert savvy. The supervisors avoid hassling and the kids behave themselves. It works out nicely, a credit to everyone.

After reading Newsweek's description of the Police. I found it difficult to believe that I was actually standing in the back of the Civic Center actually seeing them. I admit it's a naïve viewpoint. Where there's money to be made you will find moneymakers. Rock groups are among the biggest.

Nevertheless, I took a few seconds to be amazed that there were performing in my home town.

I will remember forever the kid standing on his head in his seat. It was an impulsive and perfectly wonderful display of self-expression. Rather like loud music.

(c) Portland Press Herald