Hey – whatever drives up those page view stats, right?

Several music bloggers/news sites went to tabloid town on Copeland’s assessment of the night, making it sound like he said Sting was a “petulant pansy” and that the show was “unbelievably lame.” Could Copeland be leaving the tour in frustration?

Bollocks. If one actually went to Stewartcopeland.net and read everything in context, it turns out he was talking about the first-night jitters and flubs of any debut by any band. Turns out The Police have the same troubles as pool-hall favorite Marty Lloyd & The Union Jacks do.

“Andy (Summers) has started the opening guitar riff to ‘Message In A Bottle’ and the crowd is going nuts,” Copeland wrote. “Problem is, I missed hearing him start. Is he on the first time around or the second? I look over at Sting and he’s not much help, his cue is me – and I’m lost. Never mind. ‘Crack!’ on the snare and I’m in, so Sting starts singing. Problem is, he heard my crack as two in the bar, but it was actually four – so we are half a bar out of sync with each other. Andy is in Idaho.”

The band lost track a lot and even had to restart one song, Copeland said, but they were professionals and pulled it together for the most part. During “Synchronicity,” Sting makes a jump to cue the ending.

“Last night Sting did a big leap for the cut-off hit, and he makes the same move tonight, but he gets the footwork just a little bit wrong and doesn’t quite achieve liftoff,” Copeland wrote. “The mighty Sting momentarily looks like a petulant pansy instead of the god of rock. Never mind. Next song is going to be great – but it isn’t.”

At one point, Copeland goes to chorus while Sting goes to a verse. “This is unbelievably lame. We are the mighty Police and we are totally at sea.”

The bloggers said Copeland is complaining the songs are too jazzy. What he said was that day-of-show the band decided to change the keys of two songs so, “needless to say Andy and Sting are now onstage in front of 20,000 fans playing avant-garde twelve-tone hodgepodges of both tunes. Lost, lost, lost.”

And the blog ends with an inspiring coda, not the Copeland “I-hate-The-Police-rant” as advertised.

“When we meet up backstage for the first time after the set and before the encores, we fall into each other’s arms laughing hysterically. Above our heads, the crowd is making so much noise that we can’t talk. We just shake our heads ruefully and head back up the stairs to the stage. Funny thing is, we’re enjoying ourselves anyway. Screw it, it’s only music. What are you going to do? But maybe it’s time to get out of Vancouver.”