An Arresting New Development - Page 7
© Greg Camden
By this time the second album was basically finished, and in September they released "Message in a Bottle" as a single. It promptly went to #1 in the UK (though it wasn't initially released in the US), as did Reggatta de Blanc when it was released in October. ("This was the most exciting time in that band: every day there was a new experience," Sting later said of this period. "You can never repeat those initial excitements[. . . .]") Although on the surface the band had not had the opportunity to focus on the recording of the album (Stewart: "Reggatta de Blanc took us three weeks to record. We just went into the studio and said, 'Right, who's got the first song?' We hadn't even rehearsed them before we went in."), they were much pleased with the results. "That was where it all clicked," Sting said in 1980. "There was so much happening in my writing and singing, Stewart's and Andy's playing, and suddenly it all meshed together." In December, another single from the album, "Walking on the Moon," topped the UK charts, and the band attracted yet more attention by way of another of Miles's promotional masterstrokes: on December 18 The Police played two London shows at major venues, the Odeon and the Palais, being shuttled from the first to the second in an armored personnel carrier. Still, in the US Reggatta de Blanc had stalled on the US charts at #26. With this in mind, Miles decided to turn to other world markets, expanding upon the guerrilla touring strategy The Police had employed in the US. A 19-country tour was arranged, which would include shows in India and Egypt—countries that no Western band had ever played. The tour was a great success, and The Police were now the focus of truly worldwide interest. "We were absolutely amazed at the reaction," said Sting at the time. "We had no idea what to expect, because no rock band had ever played in India before, but the audiences were as wild and enthusiastic as any you'd find anywhere." Of course, the trio was nowhere more loved than in England. By the time they closed their tour in April, a re-released "So Lonely" had made it all the way to #6 and 40,000 people applied for the 4,000 seats available for the tour's last stop: Sting's hometown of Newcastle—appropriate, as Sting had increasingly become the face of The Police. Their rise to worldwide prominence had coincided with the ad campaign for "Quadrophenia," which capitalized on Sting's newfound fame even though his part in the film was a small one; and it was lost on no one that Sting—and not the band—was named "The Face of 1979" by Record Mirror. Within the band, too, Sting was becoming the center. As group-founder Stewart tells it:
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