The Police ~ So Lonely ~ Synchronicity Concert [1983]

This live video shows The Police at The Omni Coliseum in Atlanta on 11-03-1983. Originally The Police wanted to release another concert, but were not satisfied with their 08-02-1983 performance. So directors Godley & Creme filmed them again at The Omni in Atlanta, GA, USA on 11-02-1983 and 11-03-1983. Some audience shots from the August performance were still used for the official release.

The Police's Synchronicity Tour ran between July 23, 1983 and March 4, 1984.

During the early dates, the band resided at a mansion in Bridgehampton, New York and were flown to the concerts. This was the band's final tour as a working unit and one of the highest-grossing tours of the 1980's.

"I was never relaxed," drummer Stewart Copeland recalled. "I had so much anxiety. And I know how crazy that must sound to people who do real jobs." Copeland did however cite the August 18 show at Shea Stadium as the peak of "Policemania": "Playing Shea Stadium was big because, even though I'm a septic tank (rhyming slang for 'Yank'), The Police is an English band and I'm a Londoner – an American Londoner – so it felt like conquering America."

The November 2 and 3 shows in Atlanta were filmed and recorded for a live album and DVD.

"So Lonely" was released as the third and final single from their debut studio album "Outlandos d'Amour" in November 1978, following "Roxanne" and "Can't Stand Losing You." The single did not chart on the first occasion but reached No. 6 with its second release on March 15, 1980. The other singles from Outlandos d'Amour followed a similar pattern of not charting very high in 1978, but doing very well on a re-release.

Written by the band's lead singer and bassist Sting, lyrically, it's a sardonic broken-heart song; musically it has a reggae flavor, a sound they mixed with elements of pop and punk to give them a distinct signature. The song is known for a famous mondegreen where the title is often misheard as "Sue Lawley," a broadcaster famous for presenting Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 from 1988 to 2006. "It was played on national television as an homage to Sue, but we didn't complain. Blessings are often unexpected," Sting recalled.

Sting admitted that he used Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry" as the basis for this song:

Sting wrote the lyrics to the song's verses while he was in his previous band, Last Exit (from the song "Fool in Love,") then "grafted them shamelessly onto the chords from Bob Marley's 'No Woman No Cry,'" he explained in Lyrics By Sting. "This kind of musical juxtaposition - the lilting rhythm of the verses separated by monolithic slabs of straight rock and roll - pleased the hell out of me. That we could achieve it effortlessly just added to the irony of a song about misery being sung so joyously."

"People thrashing out three chords didn't really interest us musically. Reggae was accepted in punk circles and musically more sophisticated, and we could play it, so we veered off in that direction. I mean let's be honest here, 'So Lonely' was unabashedly culled from 'No Woman No Cry' by Bob Marley & The Wailers. Same chorus. What we invented was this thing of going back and forth between thrash punk and reggae. That was the little niche we created for ourselves." — Sting, Revolver 4/2000

The lyrics themselves, about someone who is lonely after getting his heart broken, were thought to be "ironic" to large audiences. Sting denied this claim, however, saying, "No, there's no irony whatsoever. From the outside it might look a bit strange, being surrounded by all this attention and yet experiencing the worst lonely feeling...but I do. And then suddenly the attention is withdrawn a half an hour later. You're so isolated..."

*Sting explained that the songs for Outlandos d'Amour were recorded during late-night sessions in a studio above a dairy in Leatherhead, Surrey, England, before the band was signed to a record label.

*The video for the song depicts the band walking around the streets of Hong Kong and on the subway trains of Tokyo in 1980. The band lip-syncs into walkie-talkies, while Stewart Copeland performs drum fills on random objects, such as buses and objects being sold.

*The supporting act for the band during this concert was The Fixx.

Stewart Copeland – Drums & Percussion, Backing Vocals
Sting – Bass guitar, Lead Vocals (Backing vocals on Album)
Andy Summers – Guitar, Synthesizer, Backing Vocals
Michelle Cobbs, Tessa Niles, & Dolette McDonalds – (Female backup singers at concert)

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